Series 2 Day 24
14/09 Episodes 3 & 4 A Wednesday evening. So what do we do? We film, that's what we do! Things are starting to wrap up and, with that, we're organising smaller scenes. This evening was one of those. Myself and Teddy Smith arrived at my girlfriend's- which is doubling as Anna Harper's parents' home. Anna is played by Lisa Grace, who by now has become a regular guest star. We have three scenes to film, all of which are one side of phone calls. We began in the bedroom and ended on the living room sofa, filming various scenes from Episodes 3 and 4. We were done within a few hours and Lisa was, as ever, superb.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Series 2 Day 25 19/09 Episodes 4 & 5
So we have arrived at a special day. We have matched the same number of shooting days as Series One – which was completed in 25 days. Series 2 is indeed a different beast!
So it's a Monday evening. Myself, Teddy Smith and our two actors- Andrew Machin and Hannah Celyn Griffiths- arrived at the Lookout Cafe in Cardiff bay who kindly gave us permission to film. These episodes have various flashbacks within the story, small bits here and there, and that's what we had to film that evening – plus the ending of Episode 5.
In honesty, we had a slight issue that we'd overlooked. The fact that it's now the end of September and the nights were drawing in on us– so we had a small window of time to get the list of shots needed (actually, about an hour and a half). To be very honest, the cast smashed it and we got what we needed and then some. The end shots of the episode looks fantastic.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Series 2 Days 26 & 27 24&25/09 Episodes 4 & 5 We assembled at the location, this time provided by guest cast member Matthew Fisher. His home doubles as Liam’s new pad in Episodes 4, 5 and 6. We had a very busy weekend ahead of us, filming over two days.
On Saturday (Shoot Day 26), my crew for the day was Teddy Smith on camera, Kayleigh Barratt and Matthew Ford on Sound and production assistant Charlie Jane-Barber. Our cast for the day were Hannah Celyn Griffiths, Ben Wilson and Rob D Mealins. We had a lot to shoot on the first day as Ben Wilson was only available for that one day so the jigsaw of filming began - we had 20+ pages to film. But we had the luxury of having the location until we got everything we needed.
The first thing on the shooting schedule was a brutal fight sequence. For this, we kindly had Kev McCurdy with us for the morning, Kev is a fight choreographer and we were very lucky to have him on set to oversee the sequence. With a number of rehearsals with the actors, we got cameras in place and broke the fight down, but no matter what how many times you rehearse things can go wrong.
Hannah landed on her back during one stunt, missing the crash-mats on the floor - she was lucky and didn't hurt herself too badly, but was winded and down for a few minutes. We cheered her up after Kev and I reviewed the take and told her that take will be going into the episode. After a short break and getting Hannah back on her feet, we continued on with the fight which ended with a bang as we were able to get some sugar glass bottles (thanks to our amazing crowdfunders)! Two takes of bottle smashing later and we had a great scene in the can. Thank you to Kev who left us after we wrapped the scene.
After a lunch break we got back to it and we hit it hard - as the fight sequence had literally eaten up half of our day! Now, during our time making this series, we have had days with no time and loads to film and all I can say is our cast and crew must be used to it now; no complaining at all and just simply 'what’s next?' and 'let's do this!' Of course, it also helps having your actress Hannah being the writer and producer of these episodes so you're on the same page production-wise and performance-wise. I have to admit, I love working with Hannah and I have loved working on the two parter. We smashed those pages down and wrapped early evening, then went home for some rest before the next day ahead! Plus, we got everything we needed from Ben!
On Sunday (Shoot Day 27), we all arrived back at the location, but this time a few changes. Andrew White was back on set with us on boom and Jody Morris was back, making up our number of supporting artists for the morning- a bunch of demons ready for action.
You see, the house is surrounded by demons. On Saturday we filmed all interior scenes and Sunday we filmed all exterior elements with our demons. I have said it before and I will say it again: every demon performer we have encountered have been fantastic and giving it their all. We shot some creepy elements that morning and I look forward to editing it all together.
We finished the afternoon off with Andrew Machin joining us to film a few tough intense scenes - that sentence will make sense once you see the eps!
We finished at around 5pm on Sunday and we were shattered. We wrapped Rob D Mealins on Series 2 that weekend and it was a intense, fun, exciting weekend of filming. It would not have happened as easily if it wasn't for Matthew Fisher and his wife Jessica lending us their home for the weekend. Thank you so much.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shoot Day 28 October 1st 2016 Eps 1, 4 & 7
It has been a whirlwind - we have been filming every weekend since June 11th- but we have come to the end of filming Series 2. We had two days left, one weekend to go. On Saturday we started early, I picked up Hannah Celyn Griffiths and a few supporting artists. We headed back to Gabalfa and filmed a couple of short scenes and shots for episode 4 - Jen walking down streets with weird things happening to people. And with that Hannah wrapped on Series 2!
After lunch we met back at my house where it became the Harper’s home once more. Ben Wilson and Lisa Grace arrived and we began. We had a number of small scenes to shoot- various phone call scenes- that drop in throughout the series run.
Then we changed things slightly - moving away from Series 2 and beginning production on the Christmas special.
We planned way back at the start of the year to do Series 2 and, as we were writing the episodes, the idea for one last story came about. After chatting to the cast, we all decided we had one more in us all. What we didn't expect was for Series 2 to not have completed production and for us to literally cross over onto one more episode.
So there we were, decorating my living room with a Christmas tree and other decorations. I won't say what we filmed as we want to keep a lot of the Christmas special under wraps, but what I will say is Lisa Grace is in the episode and that she wrapped on Whovians that day. It was her final scenes with Whovians and it was a sad moment as we said goodbye to Lisa and realised one by one we will say goodbye to everyone else soon.
