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Shooting
Shooting
the human Labrats began in January 1999 and was completed
by April. It took a total of 28 days and a crew of
12 to achieve that spontaneous, minimalist, guerrilla filmmaking
look!
The on-screen
crew, Paul, Vince and Richard, were responsible
for actually directing, filming and recording sound for the
film as well as acting the part of director, cameraman and
sound recordist.
As you
can imagine, this was a demanding exercise and it was essential
to have an experienced crew to provide back up and technical
assistance. (not to mention the catering)
One of
our main concerns was the sound - many low budget films seem
to give insufficient consideration to sound and obviously
suffer as a consequence. The premise of the film and the shooting
style meant that it would be very restricting, if not impossible,
to use several boomswingers.
We decided
to back up Richards's sound with personal radio mics through
a mixing desk and onto an 8 track digital recorder. The mixing
desk was used to control levels only - each track was recorded
separately to enable us to do a proper mix in postproduction.
Locations
The film
was shot at locations in North Wales and North West England.
These included various houses in Wigan, Liscard, New Brighton;
the pubs and streets of Wrexham and Manchester Airport.
The bulk
of the filming was done in and around Llangollen, North
Wales - at the railway station, on the Horse-Shoe Pass
and the Panorama. The central location for the film
is the remote hideout where they hold up and wait for the
ransom. We found an ideal location for this - a log cabin
in a secluded valley just outside Llangollen. The owner
was in the process of developing the site as a series of high
quality, individually designed self -catering chalets - Penvale
Lodges.
When we
discovered it, only five lodges had been built - we took over
the entire valley for 9 days - using one chalet as the set
and the other four for accommodation and catering - our own
mini Hollywood lot!
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