Vultures Episode 5: Shut down, hand-shandy’s and the final scene (Photos)

I’ve just uploaded my final batch of photos from behind the scenes of Vultures episode 5: ‘The Adventure Of The Hidden Microfilm‘.

Following on from the scene in the underground car park, where Leeson shuts down V.P.I, the detectives return to Tennyson’s house and call their “juvenile sex-pest” lawyer Matt McLoughlin. The scene in the kitchen was shot on Shoot Day 25, with our old house once again used as Tennyson’s house.

This scene was the first in a series of night-shoots but was relatively easy; we had quickly realised that there was no way to make that kitchen look nice, so equipped with two €30 construction lights with 5oo Watt bulbs and two household lamps with 100 Watt bulbs we simply tried to “make it look less shite!”.

The balcony out the back provided a nice opening shot for the scene and once we moved inside, the lighting set-ups remained the same for all the scenes shot in Tennyson’s kitchen. We spent the shoot constantly distracted by fresh pots of tea and chocolate biscuits, barely getting the scene shot before Thompson had to go to work.

The scene cuts back and forth to Matt McLoughlin (Peter McGann) surrounded by “some slutty looking hens” in a crowded bar. We shot the bar scene on Shoot Day 19 on the stage in the back of Cleere’s Theatre, just one of several scenes shot over that hectic snowy weekend, I think we had five location moves that day in particular. The scene was a simple one set-up, two shots; Matt talking on the phone and then looking for “a hand-shandy” from Cynthia (Mairead Kiernan) on the couch, with Rosaleen Johnson & Eadoin Carthy as extras.

We used two four-colour stage lights borrowed from KilkennyMusic to light the scene and despite the nightmare trying to focus under the extreme colour lights, I managed to put together the above character portrait sequence of Matt & Cynthia.

In the final scene of episode 5, McGrain pays a visit to Isabelle Vultour (Liadain Kaminska), the scene was shot way back on Shoot Day 2 with John Morton’s house once again used as Isabelle & Tom Moriarty’s love-nest. Our second day of shooting, our first interior night shoot, we spent quite a bit of time trying to light the scene; there was limited shoot space and several set-ups as Isabelle moves around the kitchen. We wanted it to be warm & cosy but at the same time we didn’t want to have to keep changing lighting set-ups as we moved around.

The 500 Watt construction lights were too strong and the lights in John’s kitchen weren’t strong enough. In the end, we set up one construction light outside the sliding glass door and used the blinds to defuse it, the second construction light was placed high up on top of a kitchen press and bounced off the ceiling. We used the two household lamps and some candles on the table as portable lights, slighting tweaking the set-ups as the characters moved around.

We had rehearsed the scene earlier that evening in the Abbey Business Center and with the exception of a small difference in space everything ran smoothly. As with all indoor shoots we drank way too much tea that night, a fresh brew being made between each set-up, constantly listening to ‘Moonlight Serenade’ and discussing things like bathroom reading and the “word to poo ratio”. As far as I can remember, I shot the photos of Tom & Isabelle (that appear in the scene) that night and then the shot of the photos on the shelf was picked up later.

We didn’t have enough space to shoot the wide shot from inside the kitchen, so we had to move outside and shoot through the open door. John spent most of this set-up having to chase his three-legged cat Pancho away, as she kept trying to steal the scene during takes. It was during the outside set-up/cat chase that we came up with the final shot, mirroring the final shot in episode 1 as the camera slowly moves back in a series of fades, as the music swells and McGrain watches Isabelle dance around the kitchen, the final shots are some of my favourite in episode 5.

You can check out all my shots from behind the scenes on Vultures here and as always any comments or feedback are appreciated. This final batch of episode 5 photos includes a rare shot of me during the shoot, I’m not sure who took it, I think it was David Thompson!?

Photos from episode 6 on the way soon.