Block 2, Episode 5, 10am-10pm - Various Locations, Cardiff
So, sun burned, tired and ready to roll! After the insane day before, this shoot was a welcome difference in pace.
Episode 5 is a Bradley-centred episode: we spent the day filming all of Rob's interior scenes. After coffee and going through wardrobe choices for Rob, we popped over to Gabalfa, Lydstep Flats, the location for the exterior of Bradley’s block of flats. The location might be recognisable to Whovians; the flats are used as Clara Oswald’s home and Rose Tyler’s!
We filmed Rob running and walking to-and-from the exterior and experimented with some good old slapstick movement, which got the attention of the residents on a Sunday morning!
We left and travelled back to my house in Grangetown, where all Interiors of Bradley’s flat were filmed. Without giving too much away, the episode begins with Bradley bored, home alone. We scripted the various scenes with descriptive guides to what happens when he's home alone. When we cast Rob in the role we straight away knew we would have fun on this shoot, knowing we were going to experiment and improvise a large portion of the interior flat scenes.
With this in mind we scheduled ourselves a lot more time than we normally would for a few interiors – we gave ourselves a whole day. We also, for a few reasons, kept the crew at a minimum that day: myself, Matt, and Andy on sound. This allowed Rob free reign to flow and talk, see what we got (plus the occasional take we can't possibly ever show!!).
It was sometimes challenging for the crew; Bradley is home alone, so hearing a room of people laugh uncontrollably just doesn’t work. This was incredibly hard sometimes when Rob was coming up with strange and surreal moments of improvised dialogue as Bradley cold calls random strangers.
We moved to a bedroom set up where Bradley is getting up one morning. This was probably the weirdest thing we have shot so far, having Rob in just his pants and us filming. It just felt wrong! Which will add nicely to the overall impression of Bradley!
After a day of experimenting, coffee, chocolate Hob Nobs and cheese puffs, we have got some laugh out loud funny moments.