Inside Bubba McBain's Drug Den

The Garden Of Madness

Influenced by the original series of Dragnet - Shields of Justice opens with a faux prologue, a opening narrative that leads into the main credits.

In order to contrast with the bright and bold sequence that follows, Tom and Ben wanted to have a darker seedier opening - a homage to The Sweeney and shows like Callan.

The underworld of Patriot City

In this sequence Crash and Burn infiltrate the den of Drug Lord Bubba McBain - a violent kingpin who is in hiding with his gang of thugs.

Midge Mullin as "Bubba McBain"

Burn undercover - basically just wearing a different coat.

The narrative called for quite a unique location, somewhere dark and menacing with winding corridors and enough space for the deal to go down. 

Luckily for the Shields team, such a location existed just outside of Exeter - a WWII, ex RAF/Royal Observers bunker, in Poltimore.

The site is now being used by Urban Combat Zone as a paintball venue and UCZ very kindly agreed to let the Shields team use the building for their opening sequence.

'The Bunker', as the venue is called, is an amazing place, filled with interesting corridors, side rooms, stairs, doorways, not to mention rugged looking crates and air ducts. Every wall and surface has an interesting texture making it a delight to film in.

In fact, the hardest choice was picking which rooms not to use as every nook and cranny looked incredible.

Bubba McBain and his gang of villains, enjoying some poker

Crash stealthily suffocates a guard

Taking some time to play cards...Evil cards that is.

The shoot was quickly populated by a gang of amazing actors, keen to look nasty and get beaten up in a variety of silly and amusing ways as Crash stealthed his way into the den.

Cold but oh-so keen. James Cotter sporting the bond-villain look for the shoot.

Despite how cold it was, everyone kept their energy up throughout, trading blows as Burn's cover is blown and the deal goes south.

Actor Midge Mullin multi-tasking as a grip

Simon, Mike and Tom blocking some ridiculous action

To make the already fantastic bunker look like it was populated by shady criminals hiding from the authorities, the set was littered with poker chips, playing cards, loose cash, cigarette ends and bottles of "Liberty Lightning" and "Bandito Bastardo" beer.

As usual, the team made sure that there were no licensed products in shot and got to work making fake brands to be seen in shot.



Ben knocked up some packets of 'liberty smokes' and Tom created the labels for some bottles of beer.

A finished packet next to the uncut template

Two props you don't want in your car if you get pulled over.

All in all the bunker shoot was a great day in a fabulous location!


Look out for the Behind the Scenes video for the Bunker shoot, coming soon...