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Ok so it’s been a while since we’ve had any installments from The Detective, 16 months to be exact! But production has still been ongoing on the final storyline for The Detective Series 3 ‘The Hunt for Dark Angel’, And we thought it’s about time we give you all a run down on whats been happening production wise throughout the past year and 4 months. So we’ve had quite a few bumps in the road along the way and we think you should all know where we are currently at in the stages of this production and bring you all up to speed. So lets start with when pre-production began on ‘The Hunt for Dark Angel’, It all began when the first what was at the time the final draft was completed back in late September 2016. We’d finished writing the script and location planning/casting went on throughout October-December 2016, with filming going to start in very early January 2017 with Lewis Wheelhouse as Director and Connor Chadwick as Director of Photography.
Now this is where complications began, Literally on the week the filming was about to commence on the first drafted script (In which was at the time the final script), for unforeseen circumstances Connor had to pull out of The Detective, leaving filming canceled and also because Connor had written the first draft with Lewis’ notes, the whole script for what was titled at the time ‘New Beginnings’ had to be totally re-scripted right from the very start. Those first couple of months in 2017 was an absolute nightmare, the cast had to be informed of what had gone off and why filming had to be post noted and basically at this point we had no script, so work on Draft 2 began. It was a huge shame really as we’d come up with a really good storyline that had some really good strong characters in it, from the cast that’s in it now, to even some new characters.
So anyways, Draft 2 began in early 2017 and as part of the new storyline, A new scene was thrown in at the last minute that would start at the end of Episode 2 and continue into Episode 3. Now Series 3 had started coming online at this point, so with Episode 2 in post production, the final scene was literally improvised on the day to work with the opening scenes to Episode 3. Quite frankly, to say that it was all improvised on the day of filming, it came out really good! And it also sets up episode 3 quite nicely with Detective James character too! (bit of a tease to Episode 3 for you there). So the cliff hanger to Episode 2 was filmed just before Episode 1 came out in Jan 2017 and eventually episode 2 came out in March 2017. Now as of April time, only half of the script for Episode 3 was written, but we had to film the opening scenes that continue from Episode 2’s dramatic cliff hanger as that was shot in Jan 2017, so the weather in the opening scenes to Ep.3 had to be the same as the scenes we shot in January, cold and wintery looking on camera for continuity sake. So technically filming did begin on Episode 3 in April 2017, but we didn’t start shooting the episode properly until we had a full complete script in the summer of 2017.
Now when Series 3 started pre-production back in 2015, it was decided that they’d be 6x episodes and those 6 episodes we’re all planned out, episode by episode. Now we can’t reveal the episode titles to Episodes 4-6 that was never made as we’re going to be reusing material from some of the episodes, So the titles may give away future storylines. But what was going to be 6x episodes, the first half of episodes to be shown in the first half of 2017, and the second half was to be shown in the second half of 2017, fall if you like. But I decided within the summer that I didn’t want to do a full on 6 episode run for The Detective as I knew that I’d be making those episodes for another 2/3 years to come, well maybe but I knew that I'd be making them for a while. But I wanted to move onto making some more original content and give The Detective a break for a while, Let’s be honest here, The Detective has been going since 2010 with something being released from the franchise every year, So 8 years non stop …. I think it’s time it has a break don’t you think?
So filming commenced fully on Episode 3 in the summer of 2017, The plan at the time was to film the majority of my scenes solo in the summer, and once I’d come back from holiday in August, complete the rest of the filming with the rest of the cast, including myself. But whilst I was on holiday I felt as if I wasn’t going anywhere with my life personally, so I decided to go back to college. So going back to college in September and working on another project for a different production company post noted filming on ‘The Hunt for Dark Angel’. Now in Mid/Late September-October, Production on Episode 3 slowly picked up again, filming on 2 blocks, one being at a friends flat from Leeds Met in the city of Leeds, and the other with Cameron Dunn (Sir Robert S Black) up at Leeds Town Hall in Leeds, again. Now production for The Detective went up a notch whilst filming those 2 blocks through some friends at college and also contacts who I know, so the shots became that one step more professional, having more of a crew involved behind the scenes, a big step up from tripod shots and having to digitally move the camera to make it look handheld. Now I left college in late October for various reasons, But one of the main reasons was because of alot of personal issues that I’d rather not go into, so at that stage I had to put all of my time into recovering and looking after myself and just shelve any projects I’d had going I.E ‘The Hunt for Dark Angel’. So with Episode 3 post noted again, there wasn’t really a lot more that I could do until I sorted out my own problems, But I did keep myself busy with the series by editing what we’d filmed in those 2 blocks in Mid/Late September-October time.
But come early November, Disaster struck! My hard drive had crashed and just wouldn’t start up. Throughout November 2017-January 2018 I’d taken this hard drive to loads of computer repair shops but they couldn’t do anything with it. It was even more crucial to get it fixed as I’d got some client work on there that my client was absolutely devastated over losing his footage as he'd put alot of his own money into the budget for his production, that I'd basically lost a lot of filming footage for crucial scenes. So yeah, after going to many repair shops and them telling us basically the same thing time after time, we eventually came to the conclusion that we wasn’t going to be getting our footage back, So we just ended up calling it a day. So we’d lost some really good scenes from Episode 3 that we shot in Mid/Late September-October and that really put me in a state of not wanting to continue the filming and just wanting to abandon the episode altogether! I refused to reshoot these scenes because as they say, whatever you re film won’t be the same as the original, so instead of doing reshoots I decided it was best to start over on the script and go for a third draft on Episode 3.
So as of early June of this year, after I’d completed The Magic Box Remaster, I began rewriting on the third draft to ‘The Hunt for Dark Angel’. So yeah, that’s about it really, your all up to speed with the production that’s currently ongoing. We are back to pre-production and I’ve been working on the re-writes to Episode 3 ‘The Hunt for Dark Angel’ since last month. Now I’m going to admit, I’m not a proper script writer, so writing scripts for me is very difficult, including the fact that I have dyslexia. So the rewrites is slowly but surely getting there however with this being the final storyline, I don’t want to be rushing the script just for the sake of release dates. So right now, All I need is time to work on the third draft of this script. So, with that all being said and done, heres the plan;
To give me more time on scripting this final storyline, I’m going to push back the release date for ‘The Hunt for Dark Angel’ until 2019, But that leaves us with a big problem, We have no content for ‘The Detective’ this year! And since we’ve released something from the franchise every year since 2010, I ain’t gunna start missing years with no content when we are so close to finishing this project off with the final storyline. So with that in mind, in mid April 2018 I began writing another short film as part of The Detective Franchise. The final draft to the script was completed in late spring and filming began on the short film last month in Mallorca!
The short film is called ‘The Desertion of Mrs Lyons’ and this short film goes deeper into the story as to why Mrs Lyons disappeared from MI9 with no trace for 12 months. We find out exactly why Mrs Lyons didn’t come back and turned her back on her country, MI9 and Detective James, AGAIN!
And on top of that announcement, I am really exited to give you the very first look into this jaw dropping storyline with a Teaser Trailer;
This special is also a really exiting one for me personally because it's the first time we've gotten to use the Sony A7 Mii on The Detective, so the quality has instantly just gone up a notch. Giving the episode a brand new cinematic look, and a whole new visual feel to it. I cannot wait to use this camera more when filming resumes on the final storyline for The Detective, giving it a much more cinematic feel to the show! I've always gone by it's not what equipment you use, it's how you use it but when you do get hold of a camera like this, you do just get that buzz when you get a new piece of kit, and I'm so exited and privileged to be using this camera on this final story of The Detective, as well as the short film! I've watched some of the early edits from ‘The Desertion of Mrs Lyons’ on a 4K television, the quality is just insane! Anyone like me that loves quality is in for a treat.
So coming in 2018 we have ‘The Desertion of Mrs Lyons’, a short film by Lewis Wheelhouse and then the final instalment to The Detective Series 3 in 2019 with not just 1, BUT 2 EPISODES !!! Yes, I couldn’t think of a much more better time to be announcing this news than now. This has been something that we’ve been holding back for a good couple of years now, as the plans always been to have the final story as a 2 parter, and exclusively here we can reveal that the final 2 storylines are going to be titled;
Episode 3: The Hunt for Dark Angel (Part 1)
Episode 4: The End of The Line (Part 2)
So that gives you all something to look forward to both this year and in 2019! The Detective will be back and we cannot wait to show you what we’ve been up to since Episode 2 ‘Who is Leo Jackson?’.
As of filming on both ‘The Hunt for Dark Angel’ and ‘The End of The Line’, We are currently still in the pre-production stages, AGAIN! Working on the third rewrite, So we’d expect filming to pickup again soon. How soon that is? It’s too early to tell yet as like I’ve already mentioned, I want to get this final story done so that I’m happy with it and then filming can resume. Please be patient with us as I’m sure you can understand just from reading this article, a lot does go off behind the scenes. But we will get there …. This final storyline shall be completed!
Article Written By:
Lewis Wheelhouse (Creator of Lost Planet Studios/The Detective)
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