When the fourth wall is shot through, we begin to see ‘real’ places differently. Cathays Park is used as a film location because aspects of its geographies suit the stories being told. Location scouts and production designers search for sites which can play a key role in setting the scene for their story, sending ‘subliminal messages’ to the viewer (in Tuson, 2008) about the context, the characters, and the trajectory of the drama. Such sites do not have something essential in them to help these professionals, their skill is to bring out the possibilities of a place. They imagine how – with set design, lighting, a specific angle, or weather conditions, viewers will be kept ‘in’ a story. However it is put together, even if the scenes are shot out of sequence, and in completely different places, each location needs to do its job and make the story plausible.

Viewing A Discovery of Witches (Season2, Episode 4).

We find ourselves in a fictionalised version of Oxford, England. In an alley, just off camera, we see what we assume to be an attack by a vampire on a young, donnish, student. After the title sequence ends, the viewer is returned to the street the victim cycled through just moments before. Now that street is different: before it was gothic and ominous, now it is light and cool. It is a new day.

For those familiar with real life Oxford, we know these scenes are shot on Broad Street, outside Blackwell’s bookshop. We now see Marcus (whom we know to be a vampire – does his presence suggest he is the perpetrator of the ‘blood-rage’ attack?) with a spring in his trainer-ed step, a takeaway coffee in his hand, and an ipod playing True Faith by New Order (as we the audience are listening to it too). He is (clearly) the new generation, in a new version of this fictionalised Oxford, freed perhaps from the history of his clan, or just by the satiation of his blood-lust the previous night.

Marcus crosses Broad Street to face what, in real life, is the History of Science Museum. In this story, however, it passes for ‘Cooper Sinclair, Fine Art, Auctions and Sales’ (established 1872). New vampire meets old world.

As Marcus arrives, Phoebe does too (professionally dressed, but with an orange scarf zesting up her alignment with tradition). She walks from a different direction but heads towards the same venue. She is just ahead of him, and they don’t notice each other, but its clear to us they are going to meet(cute?). As the scene moves on, we cut to inside the building – which we may assume is the Museum/Cooper Sinclair offices, but is actually now the Glamorgan Building, Cathays Park.

In its stepped and curved interior, we see Phoebe chatting to a co-worker. They are at the top of the stairs, whilst we (and Marcus) are at the foot – this is clearly an important place: stone, marble, ornate lighting, well-established, old school. We (and Marcus) are new blood, not yet welcome here. Marcus offers a cheery ‘Good morning, I want to see one of your lots’. The co-worker straight bats a non-apology: ‘There is no one free’ (for the likes of you). Phoebe smiles and says she can help (and the viewer smiles too). They walk around the corridor together (and here the continuity is real, it is literally the next step from the foyer of the Glamorgan Building to this arc), they share small talk, and enter the auction room office.

This cut betrays the literal continuity from the arced corridor into ‘Committee Room 2’ of the Glamorgan Building. Here there are two identical regency desks, antique table lights, but state of the art computer screens; the office is spacious, with a luxurious sofa and coffee table in one quarter of the room. At the first desk sits a quiet, busy, classically-suited, middle-age man, the other desk is Phoebe’s. As we sit down with the couple, we are reminded once more that Phoebe and Marcus are different, and perhaps may be allies – she offers to show Marcus the lot he is interested in.

It is not until Phoebe offers to show Marcus the auction lot that the dramatic plot of this episode sparks into life. Up until this point, it has all been ‘establishing shots’: the places, their architecture, lighting, soundtrack, juxtaposition and plausible discontinuity has told us nothing in words, but has told us everything we need to know about the characters’ status, past, and possible future. 

With this in mind, we can see that locations are not ‘mere backdrops’ to our stories, but serve as important ‘narrative tools’ to form them (Wicks, 2023: 87). They communicate to the audience, “significant quantities of information […] that would take pages of dialogue to narrate” (Barnwell, 2022).

So many films are shot in Cathays Park because it is a site that can help shape a wide variety of narratives. It can double as contemporary places (New Orleans (Discovery of Witches), Bristol (Dr Who), or an alternative London (His Dark Materials)); it can pass for places from history (an impressionist Paris, or wartime London (Doctor Who). Cathays Park then is a ‘versatile’ (Havens, 2023) and ‘flexible’ (Rijsdijk, 2018) location; just like an actor, with a touch of make up and glint in its eye, it can transform into somewhere and somewhen completely different.

Recognising this reminds us about of key aspects of place – be they reel, real, or some-where and -when in-between. Firstly, all places have agency, they are not passive, they contribute directly to the (and our) story. Secondly, they are diverse in their nature, and offer a multiplicity of potentials – they do not have to be ‘typecast’ as one type of place, they can be (and are) many. Their possibilities are brought into being by being assembled into the particular story being produced – by becoming part of a circuit involving actors, directors, production designers, cinematographers…, or by you or I going about our daily lives. In these ways, particular aspects of a place can be brought to the forefront, and other aspects overlooked, in order to give a clear message to the audience (and us). They offer us so much, often subliminally, it rewards us to attend to them.

In our own lives we are often like production designers – bringing together a range of knowledge fragments, often real, sometimes imagined, in order to place our story. If we shoot our lives through the fourth wall, we can combine the real and the reel to produce for ourselves a meaningful sense of belonging. In this way a plethora of places and people can be assembled together into an alternative atlas which becomes a unique story of our belonging, and our life.