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by Henry Burrows

Driving Around
Location: North Hampshire
Bodies present: Ian Lindsay, Sue Element, David Randell, Mike Varty, Henry Burrows, Shaun Gostelow

Strange goings on out front...
Well, we made it - the final full day of filming.  There are still a few odd "bits and pieces" to be shot, but today we finished off all the major scenes in Foiled.  Once again, the weather was a factor - thunderstorms were forecast and we knew we'd be working against the clock to get the shots in before the sun disappeared.

It was Ian's turn to forget an important prop today - the coat that Jimmy is seen wearing in all the other exterior shots!  The trip back to his house wasn't wasted though - we got in some generic countryside and road shots from the front of his car.

Heavy stuff
Once we arrived at "The House Of Foiled" our first job was to patch up the Foil Man costume enough for it to survive its last day of action.  Repairs complete, we hit the front drive to shoot the scene where Jimmy and Laura load Foil Man into Scanner's car and then head off, beginning the journey to North Wales.  However, with this being a Saturday morning, the main road passing the house was incredibly busy and reversing the car out onto it proved a challenge - the journey began but after yet another delay.  Meanwhile, in the Foil Man costume, Dave was heating up - the promised thunderstorms were nowhere in sight and so far the day was warm and sunny.

Amazingly "overhead"
A half hour journey later (during which I filmed from our "camera car", driven by Mike) we arrived at our second location for the day - Holybourne near Alton.  Here we shot a scene where the electronic device keeping Foil Man under sedation runs out of power and the students are forced to abandon the car.  Dave managed to shock a few innocent passers-by when he emerged from the back seat of the car, stumbled into the middle of the road (causing a passing car to brake sharply and the driver to grin insanely at the bizarre sight), and then charged off up a small country path after Ian and Sue.

After a lunch break at Ian's house in Alton, we were joined by Shaun and headed off to shoot more driving scenes.  Mostly miscellaneous shots from outside the car, they included a shot from the top of a small cliff, several shots of the car passing woods and fields (it's not exactly North Wales but the film's not really about the scenery!!!), a shot of Shaun looking very bemused as he waited in his car to pull out from a junction, and the amazing "overhead" shot - achieved on a zero budget with no helicopter!

As we finished the last shot of the day, storm clouds were bearing down on us with great speed - a couple of minutes later the rain was coming down intensely, so we headed off to the nearest pub and celebrated a successful day.


The storm approaches... and strikes!

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