'V for Vendetta' set visit

Whitehall is brought to a standstill by this huge Hollywood production, and Time Out was there to cover the ev

Jun  7 2005

London has never seen anything like it – 400 masked individuals marching down Whitehall towards 200 gun-toting soldiers taking refuge behind a very large tank.

It also happens to be 3am on a Thursday morning, meaning that plastered passengers on the No. 24 night bus have found themselves caught up in what appears to be a civil rebellion.

Late-night London need not worry however, as the guns are fake, the soldiers are extras and everyone involved is working on a big screen adaptation of the comic book classic 'V for Vendetta'.

Based on the hugely popular graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, the film is set in a totalitarian Britain of the near future, and the 'V' of the title is a charismatic freedom fighter who uses terror to trigger mass revolution.

Time Out visits the set on the 58th day of the shoot, soon after production has moved from a soundstage in Berlin to the busy streets of London.

And despite early criticism of the Wachowsi brothers script and the departure of the film's star James Purefoy (who was replaced by Hugo Weaving four weeks into the shoot) production seems to be going surprisingly well.

'We're working on the climactic piece of the film' explains first-time director James McTeigue. 'It's about all of V's followers descending on Parliament and the general and soldiers are the last line of defence.'

Filming such large-scale action has been a revelation of sorts for McTeigue, who cut his teeth as assistant director on 'The Matrix' trilogy and the last two 'Star Wars' films.

'We started shooting here two nights ago. They started to bring the V's up on the set, and I saw the first couple of guys go past me and thought 'ah, here they are.' But then I turned and all the way from Trafalgar Square to the Horse Guard and on past No. 10 Downing Street there was this big line of white faces coming towards me. It looked pretty amazing'.

And in spite of the difficulties normally associated with filming in a major capital city, McLeigue reveals that the night-shoots have been a relatively pain-free experience:

'We'd heard stories that it was hard to shoot in London, but it was actually really – I wouldn't say easy because it was a massive operation – but all the different bodies came together and all acquiesced to let us film there, and they did make the filming part of it very easy.'

No mean feat when those making the decision include the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office, the Cabinet Office and the feared chief usher of the Lord Chamberlain's office, Black Rod, but after much toing and froing, permission was duly granted.

And the sheer size of the operation, set against such a historic backdrop, is indeed impressive, with Vs stretching as far as the eye can see either side of Westminster Palace.

But with little activity actually taking place, TO took the opportunity to grab a word with production designer Owen Paterson, who told us that gaining access to the real locations was essential:

'It's very important to film in the actual environment,' he explains, 'To give the film the required gravitas.'

However, although he used David Lloyd's brilliant illustrations for inspiration, Paterson admits to giving them a futuristic spin: 'The film is set slightly in the future...It's a stylised London, but not as stylised as the graphic novel.'

Having said that, expect the visuals to be far removed from his work on 'The Matrix' movies: 'That was a quasi-America', he explains of his amazing work on the trilogy, 'But here you should really get a sense of London.'

Unfortunately, although we get a pretty good (if extremely cold) sense of London for five hours straight, there's no sign of either Weaving or the film's other star, Natalie Portman, onset, and while there's plenty of hustle and bustle behind the camera, very little action actually occurs in front of it.

So while the scene is set for a grandstanding finale, the most we spy over the course of the night is a tank driving full-tilt into the middle of the road, and an army general exclaiming that he will use 'necessary force' to drive back the army of Vs.

Indeed, the only real drama occurs when a group of Christians start a real-life row with a peace protestor on Parliament Square, and then later when a pair of drunken chavs wander into the midst of a shot, disrupting an hour's worth of meticulous behind the scenes preparation.

TO therefore heads home at 5.15am, impressed by the efforts of everyone involved to make this truly landmark shoot a reality, but disappointed that we didn't see even one masked man storm Parliament.

Nevertheless, it's fair to say that passers-by were shocked and stunned by the sheer scale of it all, and if the cast and crew can capture even an ounce of that awe on film, they are sure to have a hit on their hands when 'V for Vendetta' hits screens on March 17 next year.

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