I wanted to be able to make a new post after each day, but even when I got back home, I was busy preparing and organising for the next day or exhausted, so I couldn’t. I’m posting about the first weekend now anyway, starting with Day One. I’ll make a post about Day Two later.
We all met up at Paul’s Walk (On the Northbank, London), our first location, at 2am. This was going to be a zig-zag back and forth, switching between two locations, and trying to make them look like they were meant to be the same place. With the horrible weather and the light (from night to morning) against us, it was a race to get everything shot on time, then move and set up on the next location as quickly as possible.
Being at Paul’s Walk in the middle of the night was kind of spooky. There was nobody in sight, something I wanted to achieve as part of the film, but it was still odd to actually be there. It felt as though I was in this world I was trying to create for this film. I guess it probably helped Drew (the actor playing Ted) to really feel as though London had been evacuated.
Shooting the first scene went well. We did have a few problems with the battery for the lights running out of juice, but Pete (the DoP) figured out how to shoot without them, being creative and moving things around to use the available light.
Once the Paul’s Walk scene at night was done, we raced over to an Alleyway in our cars to set up for the next shot. It had to be a follow on from when Ted walks off Paul’s Walk, into an alleyway. Once that was shot, we had to make the alleyway look as though an explosion had happened. Andrew Ormes (Production Designer) did a great job, with posters on the wall and bit of bricks and concrete he used (from the time we collected it from his brother-in-law) and dressed the set. Again, it was spooky as it felt so real. 
Jane Stiefel (makeup artist) made Drew look as though he had been hurt badly from the explosion. Blood and brains! It was disgusting.
Once that was over, we had to clear up the mess we made, and drive back to Paul’s Walk to do the post-destruction scene. Again, Andrew Ormes dressed Paul’s Walk to look as though an explosion had happened. At this time, it was day, so there were people around for the weekend, walking on Paul’s Walk and crossing over the Millennium Bridge, which didn’t help as we were trying to make it look as though London had been destroyed and abandoned. Drew was still covered in blood, and the sight of the boom and camera drew a lot of audiences, but it was unavoidable. We still managed to get it shot in between people moving and the noises of boats and an annoying helicopter!
Then, Drew got cleaned up, and ready for the next scene, a flashback scene. Claire (actress playing Sara) came in, got dressed, and had her hair and makeup done. She was the lucky one, as the rest of us had been shooting since 2am. Her call time was 1pm, so she was fresh and energetic, which probably helped as the character needed to be the same.
The people walking around wasn’t so much of a problem with this last scene for the day. I wanted there to be people around, to have that contrast when there aren’t any. The only problems really were the noises, and when people looked straight into the camera when walking behind the actors. We took a few takes, and it won’t be noticeable when it’s all edited together— I hope!
That was the last scene of the day, finishing at about 5:00pm. I got home about 6:00pm, exhausted and barely able to keep my eyes open. Unfortunately, I had to fight the need to sleep because I had to prepare for the next day’s shoot and sort out extras for the bus stop scene! Luckily for me, I had great family and friends who helped me out, and offered to be extras for the bus stop scene (which I’ll talk about in the day two post).
I got to sleep at 12am, to have to wake up again at around 4am…. Day two of the shoot coming soon.
Here’s some photographs Andrew Ormerod (Location Manager) took on day one of the shoot.
