Third Shooting Night

Last night's filming went far more swimmingly than I anticipated. As Rory is cursed and his dissertation isn't due in for another five days, we decided to record some of his scenes next week, which meant we had the whole evening to do half of the stuff I intended to shoot. Needless to say you can see the benefits, as I was able to take my time much more on each compostion, as you can see in some of the framing below. Rory and Sarah filmed a couple of brief sequences that feature in the first half of the movie, one of which screen caps 1-4 feature in. The last two screen captures come from the second half of the movie where all the excitement kicks in... but I don't want to give too much away!

Filming in the city wasn't as difficult as I thought. Picking a Sunday night definitely worked in our favour, as the place was deserted, minus a few foreign students and a handful of tramps asking for spare change. I think the footage really emphasises the "British" element from the locations we chose - you don't get more British than a red phone box, and some areas of Manchester city, especially around the central library and town hall, look both gothic and spooky. I deliberately tried to capture the look of What Have You Done to Solange?; you'll have to let me know how successful I was.

Not too much went wrong either - although there are a couple of nice out-takes involving Rory, who tripped over twice on set, on camera. Clumsy.

As for future filming nights, as planned there should only be one more major shooting night, two at most, the first of which we've tentatively penned in for next Monday or Tuesday. There really isn't too much left to do with Sarah and Rory - some make-up effects (make of that what you will), a handful of short scenes and retakes, and one shot on location in a nearby street named Moon Grove, which, despite being slap bang in the middle of the student digs mecca of Manchester has retained some Victorian glory, complete with cast-iron streetlamps and cobbled street.

Still intending to get on that top ten gialli I keep mentioning... I'm working on it.