21/4 filming report.

For the second day of location shooting, the principal trio were once again all on set – even if only briefly, along with a cast of hundreds of extras (and what felt like even more security)

They recorded several shots, firstly of the Trio, and their doubles, walking along the top of Shaftesbury Avenue off of Piccadilly Circus, just along from where they were last night, with the extras making up the general background of what London’s busiest thoroughfare is.

Fans craned around the heads of the security as they saw what appeared to be the trio walking through the crowd – only for a collective but silent sigh as they get closer and everyone realises its only the doubles. Five minutes later though, with the scene reset, and this time it’s the real deal, with Emma leading the trio through the street, looking (as one may expect for someone who has just heard that the Ministry has fallen) rather shaken. If this few seconds was anything to go by, this could be a good film for Emma to shine.

After a few more takes of this sequence the crew moves onto the very corner of Piccadilly Circus, where the road is temporarily blocked, and the trio take to the center of the road, as a London double-decker bus drives straight at them, stopping in the nick of time. One can only assume that this is the actual Apparition sequence, and that instead of the Tottenham Court Road setting of the book the movie makers have made this into a much bigger sequence, setting it in the instantly recognisable Piccadilly Circus (which makes more sense anyway given that it’s the first place Hermione is supposed to think of and TCR always seemed a strange choice)

At this point the principals get into a black cab and drive away, but the doubles stay to pick up shots for other angles of the bus sequence – one picture of which you can see in TLC’s galleries, with the trio facing the bus itself.

Because of the IMMENSE levels of security surrounding the second day of shooting many fans stood behind the barriers couldn’t see much of what was going on, and so it can only be expected that the photographic evidence of the shoot last night will not be spectacular from anyone not using a giant zoom lens standing above the barricade (of which several paparazzi chose to do anyway)

While we expected to see the actual café attack sequence filmed here tonight a crew member informed me that they were unable to get a license from the City Of Westminster for even controlled explosions – so are we to assume the “London café” will actually be a set at Leavesden, and all we will see of real London will be the sequences of them wondering through the streets towards and away from the café?

So all in all, the second night of shooting seemed to pick up where the first left off – lots of walking up and down Shaftesbury avenue, just this time with the additional shots of the apparition sequence for fans to really sink their teeth into (either complaining that “That’s not what happens in the book!?!?” as I heard someone say, or “No…but it does sort of make more sense this way” as another said.) whatever your outlook, as has been mentioned above, the real star tonight was Emma Watson, who, despite only acting for all of 5seconds the whole night did honestly make you believe in those Five seconds that she was scared.