WATCHING SOME MERLIN FILMING AKA THE BEST DAY EVERRRRRR
OKAY GUYS LOL Holy cow so I forgot that tagging my posts ‘Merlin’ would let anyone on the ‘Merlin’ tag see it, therefore I forgot that anyone would even see this apart from the 20 followers I already had, few of which even watch Merlin. WOOPS. WELL ANYWAYS. Here is my post about the last two days of my life/vacation in Wales/the awesomest thing ever. Someone has informed me that the thing I thought was spoilery isn’t actually that spoilery if you know much about the original mythology, and are aware of the new casting for Mordred. I’m just gonna say right now that I’m not going to cut this, so if you don’t want to be minorly spoiled for series 5, just don’t read this. We didn’t hear any major plot points in any case, so don’t worry too much! (also, if you’ve messaged me about this, just read on, I’m just going to put it all here). LAST DISCLAIMER: I’m extremely verbose, and wasn’t expecting this many people to be interested, so, sorry, I guess, if you’re reading all of this. I don’t know how to be brief when I’m excited.
Anywho, to clarify, my best friend and I have been roadtripping through Wales for the last 3 days, stopping at lots of awesome historical locations which just happen to also be used by the BBC for filming things like Merlin and Doctor Who. Like I said yesterday, when we stopped at Raglan Castle on Wednesday, they mentioned that Morgana and Gwen had been there filming on Monday, although I’m sorry if that was spoilery for some people. I’m not totally sure how accurate that info is in any case, and I don’t know ANYTHING ELSE about it, so don’t read too much into that!!! The cute ladies at the desk also showed us their pictures from when Arthur and Merlin had filmed there last year. So precious!!!
Later on Wednesday we went to Puzzlewood, which is righteously fantastic completely on its own, but Merlin and Doctor Who have both filmed there, and it’s said to be a huge inspiration for JRR Tolkien when he was writing LOTR. ANYWAYS. The lady at the desk there told us that BBC were filming Merlin there the next day and were down the road at Clearwell Caves on that day, and that they let people watch sometimes. So my friend and I drove down there and sure enough, they were filming down in the caves! They let us watch for about 2 hours, and it was really exciting! We ended up seeing them film a quick stunt with Gwaine and a more complicated scene with Arthur. Leon and Percival were also hanging around in costume. More on the actual details later on.
We decided to return to Puzzlewood today (after our visit to the wonderful Caerphilly Castle and Tintern Abbey, both of which are spectacular! Wales is so awesome!!!) to see if they were going to film anything else! WE GOT SO LUCKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We had to wait until about 2:30 after (presumably) their break for lunch, and then in came Arthur, Merlin, and all the knights! (Since they were all in costume, and because it’s easier, I’m referring to them by their character names, feel free to grimace awkwardly or replace with the actors’ names at your own leisure) Arthur walked in first, spraying bug spray all over himself as he walked, inadvertently spraying it all over Merlin’s face, who ended up waving his arms around shouting “dude! dude!” and coughing. IT WAS HILARIOUS.
Also, I have seen a lot of stage actors in their makeup and it’s always kind of cakey and fakey if you see it up close but I swear to god every actor we saw looked just like they do on telly. It was ridiculous. I know they were wearing makeup and hairspray; the makeup crew were constantly fiddling with Arthur’s and Merlin’s hair. But yeah, everyone was very normal, checking their phones, fidgeting with water bottles and cracking jokes with each other in between takes. It all seemed terribly boring to be honest. I could never work in television.
Okay, here are the things I remember about the cast, in no particular order:
-whoever the director was today has nicknames for lots of them, i.e. Rupes, Bradders, Cols/Big Boy (LOL WTF???), sweetheart, etc.
-all the knights love Mordred, it’s adorable (so much HUGGING)
-when they get bored, they sing dumb songs
-Percival makes sure to put his pinky out when drinking his tea
-the director yelled at Arthur (yes, called him Arthur) for holding everyone up, and he just laughed.
THERE WAS LOTS OF LAUGHING. I HAD A LOT OF VICARIOUS FUN. The knights all seem extremely jolly and joke around a lot. Merlin joined in sometimes but frankly wandered off to be by himself quite a lot as well. (my thoughts: WHY SO SERIOUS, COLIN MORGAN? Not that it’s any of my business, haha!!!)
Things about the show that we saw (SPOILERY TO AN EXTENT, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK):
-Mordred is a knight now! I WAS SURPRISED but apparently that’s totally in the mythology so, hey, cool!
-at one point Arthur carries Mordred fireman-style up a hill with Percival and Merlin running after him
-Arthur bargains with the old ladies in the cave for Mordred’s life but apparently doesn’t like their terms? That bit of filming was very hard to hear so please don’t quote me on that…
-Gwaine and Merlin are still pals, I think, because at one point Merlin gets told off by Arthur and Gwaine pats his shoulder after all the other knights walk by him.
(OKAY SPOILERS OVER NOW)
WELL ANYWAYS. I have so many thoughts about all of the things we saw but I will save them for later, just presenting the facts (highly skewed I’m sure by my poor memory and the total fangirl adrenaline rush). We did NOT stick around to try and get pictures or anything because they were very busy and focused, and it wasn’t really appropriate to approach them either while they were working or on their short breaks in between takes and rehearsals. The park closed before they were done filming, so we had to leave! I wasn’t disappointed since it was all TOTALLY UNPLANNED AND SUPER FREAKING AWESOME anyways. I wouldn’t have known what to say to any of them anyways :)
And just in case you don’t believe me (I know how the internet works, pics or it didn’t happen), let me tell you that the crew was very polite and so nice to let us sit and watch for a total of 5 hours over the course of the last two days, but they were pretty adamant about taking NO PHOTOS so we didn’t, except for a few that we did take? Most of them are just of the caves and the forest with lots of equipment strewn about. My friend only got one with some of the knights in it, and it was kind of an accident, but I’m not sure we should post it in case it upsets them and they don’t let people watch in future. IDK. I don’t want to upset anyone. But in any case, here are a few photos that my friend took, of Puzzlewood and Clearwell Caves that show where they were filming, with a few props strewn about, haha. Not really any spoilers under the cut, just a few blurry photos :)
