Production notes: Let There Be Light(s)!

First night of our stunt week and although its only been two weeks there is a nice crew re-union type atmosphere!

We’re shooting some of the car chase sequences and tonight’s location is the Estuary Business Park. Ed Whitehead has given us permission to film here and the location is perfect as we need a private road to use our stunt car which is a clapped out old ford fiesta (not stolen this time!) that has been kindly supplied by Rifkins Scrapyard in Kirkdale (Cheers again Kevin!!). This is the car we’ll eventually see hurtling into the River Mersey so we need to use an old banger as its going to be wrecked but it also has to be roadworthy as it needs to be driven in the car chase sequences. We also need to mock a junction and we have borrowed a set of traffic lights from Mersey TV, who have been fabulous to us throughout our shoot (we love Colette Greenwood!!).

Our first hitch occurs when we realise that the voltage of the traffic lights and the control panel we need to use to activate the lights is incompatible! We need a generator/power source quick and Ed Whitehead comes to the rescue with an electrican friend, Neil Winterburn, who drives over from Widnes at short notice to sort the problem. Typically, much later when Neil has headed off home to bed, the generator packs in!! After much twiddling, petrol topping and head scratching, Gerard Bailey (Adam’s Dad) comes to the rescue and with a polish of the spark plugs we have our lights!! The car chase sequence can begin and our trusty stunt driver Andy Westbrook is on hand to stand in for Adam.

Supper is called at around Midnight and runner/problem solver/all-round heroine Gill Williams has produced a fine spread including a birthday cake for our sound recordist Alan Watson. Fed, watered and Back to it and the tow bar we are using to tow Adam in the Cherokee Jeep is not working so we call it a day and drop the final scene to be picked up on tomorrow (Friday; when we’ll need a alterative to a low loader (can’t afford one!) to enable us to film our young actor seemingly at the wheel.