"Did you get your precious photos?"

Here are some wonderful production pictures from our day of shooting in Wolverhampton. The pictures were all taken courtesy of Jason's phone (although some were rendered unusable due to a high rate of MySpace-self-portrait images.) These are the better ones that show our progress through the first half of the day.

Here are Sam and Ellie setting up the shot just outside the tunnel. The shots in and around the tunnel area were especially difficult considering the number of people in the area. However, by filming as soon as people were offscreen, we managed to get the footage we needed.

When we found out our most complex shot was ruined by the appearance of construction and a hundred cars, we had to change the location and the shot on the fly. The best location we could find on such short notice was this long and empty road, along which we could film the tracking shots we needed of the main character running...

This is Ellie (securely) in the back of Pete's car, filming Jason as he runs down the street. We constantly had someone posted at the end of the road with a walkie-talkie so that we could be warned of any approaching cars.

A nice shot of Jason between takes. He did a lot of running that day.

Jason between takes again, with Pete's (and Pete inside.)

After filming the tracking shots with Pete's car, we got some shots of Jason's character having a breather. This is a shot that would lead into a flashback (you'll understand when you see the film.) We picked it because it was the busiest visual area on a long, flat and rather boring brick wall.

"Why does everything in my life have to be such a complicated disaster?"

We must be cursed...

On Thursday night- the night before we were set to film - at around 11pm, one of our group members got a text message (not even a phone call!) from the main actor in our film, telling us that he had to pull out due to "prior commitments". We also lost the supporting actor, as he was a friend and was in the same performance group. We were 9 hours away from our allotted shooting schedule, and our only two actors had pulled out of the film.

We were due to shoot in Wolverhampton at 8am the next morning, and our equipment was booked out for that time only - it was going to be near-impossible to book out the same gear again in time for us to book other actors. We emailed John Bradburn expressing our concerns, but by the time we woudl get a reply, we'd probably be in Wolverhampton filming.

We decided that two of our group members would have to bite the bullet and step into the roles left by the actors. We got into Wolverhampton for about 9am, and filmed for most of the day in the areas we had chosen.

Yet another massive problem we hit was that one of our original locations - and the area for the most complicated shot in the film - was invaded by construction workers who weren't there when we originally scouted the area. There were cars all up and down the road, builders walking around the area, and various diggers ripping chunks out of the floor right in the background. The location was obviously a bust, so we had to find another location on the fly. We went with a long, almost unused road near a construction supply site which provided us with a place to film, but being almost totally different from our first location, we had to rethink our shot plan. Originally, we planned to track backwards, focused on the main character as he runs down the road. Then, when he reached the corner, the camera would slow down, allow the actor to run past to the left, and then the camera would fall in behind the actor, tracking forward as he ran on. Obviously, with no buildings or corners at our new locations this whole shot plan had to be nixed. So, we decided to have a simpler tracking shot in front the main character as he runs down the street, which you will see in the finished film.

Jason's phone was on hand all day to take some pictures during production, so if you want to see some of our photos, you're in luck, because they're coming soon!