This post first appeared on Ren’s Patreon page.

Happy new year! Christmas is already a distant memory and the preparations for Ren Season Three Block Two are very much in motion.

Finding suitable locations that won’t break our budget is usually a long process. As you know from previous updates, we visited Colchester Castle last year and we’re confident that it’s going to work well as our main location of the block, but it’s not the only place to find. Woods are often strangely challenging, since many of them in Cambridgeshire are owned by wildlife trusts who are understandably cautious about letting film crews tramp about in the undergrowth. This week I’ve checked out some options in the villages south and west of Cambridge, though at this time of year it takes a lot of imagination to envisage how they will look in the spring.

Here’s Jo Lewis (director of 303) at our costume and makeup meeting the other day, with a glimpse of one of Hannah’s beautiful designs for Ren’s new dresses. We weren’t joking in the Indiegogo pitch video when we said that Ren needs a new costume; after two seasons we finally have a chance to give her some fresh looks. Every costume has to be practical for the action she has to perform, fit in with the overall colour palette, and reflect the character of Ren and her relationship to others around her. Those relationships develop as the season continues, giving us the chance to change up the looks across the episodes.

Three of the key spaces in the castle won’t be filmed at Colchester at all, but on set. (Even Traitors does it. Look closely at the brick walls in the Traitor’s Turret and you’ll see they’re fake. To be fair though, after Helgoth last year I’m unnaturally attuned to fake walls. I spent most The Wheel of Time’s second season wondering how they do their stone blocks.) First among the sets is the Archive. We’ll be spending more time filming on this set than any other since Season One’s village. This means it needs to be flexible and layered with varied options of lighting, framing and blocking (positioning of actors). It started off simpler than the above designs, but then Ash watched some old Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes and got inspired by their library set. If you can’t learn it from Buffy, it ain’t worth knowing.

The edits of episodes 302 and 304, filmed last summer, are now locked, which means they’ve gone off in a few separate directions: to Rob, the composer; to Dale, the sound designer; to Mara, the colourist; and to various VFX artists. Having learnt Blender – open-source 3D modelling and animation software – to create the title sequence last season, I was keen to work on the Helgoth set extensions myself. All the camera moves have to be tracked, something I’d been practicing on random shots from Season Two, and in most cases the 3D elements have to be composited behind real set-pieces and actors. It all goes back to fake walls though, because one of the trickiest parts has been finding textures for the 3D walls that look real but also sit well with the painted polystyrene and plaster casts of the physical set.

We’re still making tweaks to the script for Season Three Block Two, but it’s necessary to think ahead as well. In the background I’m working on the outline for Season Four. But I’m not going to tell you anything more about that!