The Beacon: August 7th

Pick-ups day. All the scenes we dropped earlier in the shoot came back to haunt us. First it was up the Beacon (for the last time, thank god) to complete the mountain board chase. Now we knew what we were doing, we were able to quickly shoot what should be a pretty cool sequence. It did rain on us a hell of a lot on that hillside, though. On the way back down, LJ got lost (just as the rain reached its heaviest, most dam-bursting monsoonity). This mishap was quickly followed by the loss of John’s rucksack, presumed stolen, which in turn had its heels heated by a blow-out on Sarah’s car. I don’t think there’s any point me expanding on this story, as it’s a fairly safe bet you can find all the details on Dave’s website. Our next scene was the SAS Command Post, filmed at some playing fields. Dovey – who we’d feared might have to be replaced by a stand-in – managed to blag some time off work and come along, and we even had some nice light as the sun set. Of course we then had to shoot the remaining daylight scene extremely quickly. To describe the scene would spoil the plot, but suffice to say that it was made by the acting, so the simplistic camerawork should do fine. By this time we were all knackered (not least LJ, who had spent the previous night driving over from London, rather than sleeping as is the tradition), but with two more scenes to do we headed back to Malvern. A brief shoot in the bushes of Malvern Link Common, then we moved over the road to the station, where we proceeded to film a dialogue-on-the-run scene, watched by a dodgy man who was probably hoping to nick Dave’s car while we weren’t looking. Goodnight.

The Beacon: August 7th