A Wet Trip To Wales
Locations: South Manchester and North Wales
Bodies present: Ian Lindsay, Chris Simpson, David Randell, Mark Stalker, Henry Burrows

Chris stares at the passing car

Today we decided to film the scene where the students' car passes the "Welcome to Wales" signpost on the border between England and Wales. It was an ideal opportunity, as most of us had spent the night in Manchester and North Wales wasn't a major diversion on our journey back down south. But before we left Manchester though, we had time for another quick cameo appearance, this time featuring Chris Simpson (Doctor Nick from Sheep Man).

The sign

It was on the way to North Wales that a problem typical of trying to make a movie in the UK arose - rain. The driving scenes had so far been shot in overcast but dry conditions (amazing really if you consider Manchester's reputation as the "rainy city"), but as we neared the border the rain came down ever harder. There was no way to achieve the desired wide angle shot of the car driving across the border, ending on a close-up of the "Welcome To Wales" sign. We had to settle instead for a simple close-up of the sign shot from inside the car as we entered Wales, which involved us driving around in a loop to cross the border three times in total - twice trying to get something readable out of the passenger window (not possible) and the third time actually stopping beside the sign to film it. Not sure if and how this will fit into the finished product...

A weekend of mostly successful filming complete, we headed for home.