Saturday 21st April, 2001
- All daytime exteriors -

by Henry Burrows

This was our second attempt at shooting the "clearing" scenes, after our previous attempt on the 11th of March was rained off.  This time we had all our actors (even if one was a bit late...), the vampire teeth were sticking correctly, and there was no sign of rain.

Today's shoot had a small amount of dialogue, and a large amount of action.  Fortunately both Fluffy and the Count had stunt doubles on hand to do the tricky bits, such as painful falls, high kicks, that sort of thing.  But, of course, these shoots never go completely smoothly...

The first of today's challenges was a couple of guys throwing large bits of noisy junk around on a piece of land adjoining our set every time we got to a crucial part of the Count's opening speech... fortunately they soon finished what they were doing and left us in peace.

The second challenge was a little more bizarre.  Today's selection of food included lollipops, which became insanely popular with certain members of the cast... no names!  I'm sure one of these sweets is going to end up in a shot somewhere, as people were eating them every chance they got.  It was like: "Am I going to be in this shot?  No?  Oh good, I can eat another lollipop..."

A third challenge was a small tree which was growing right in the middle of the area where a lot of the action was taking place.  Not being allowed to "remove" it, we had to work around it and find ways to get the actors from one side to the other that didn't look completely contrived.

We got all the shots we required before the evening, and even managed to get some more for the opening titles.  This wasn't the end for this location, though - we'd be back soon for the night-time exteriors...


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