BY DAVID SERVER | After a rest day on Sunday, which allowed me to look around the beautiful city of Prague and mispronounce as many things as possible, it was Monday afternoon and time to head back to the familiar subway station for the day's shoot. So I threw on a BPRD logo T-shirt, hopped in what I affectionately now refer to as the Hell-Bus (which featured a groovy little sticker with baby HB in the windshield), chatted it up with my ever-friendly driver, and before I knew it, I was back on set. As I arrived, things were still being moved around in preparation for the day's shooting. The two knocked over turnstiles lay unmoved from when Hellboy had been knocked through them two days before, and the crew were adjusting the station set with spray paint to cover up any finger prints or markings left on the walls that weren't supposed to be there. Guillermo passed by and issued a warm welcome before continuing on with his director-y duties. Before too long, the extras flooded down the stairway and were ready for shooting to begin again. Ron Perlman then joined us, fully Hellboy-ed up and ready to go. We all sat down to watch some of the playback from Saturday's shoot for a few minutes as things were still being set up. Between shots, I noticed that Spectral Motion's (the Hellboy creature effects shop) Mike Elizalde was wearing the same BPRD T-shirt as me -- clearly I was in good company here.

After the playbacks were finished, Perlman prepared for the next shot with a few practice punches -- it's time for Hellboy to extract some painful revenge on Sammael, Right Hand of Doom style. While Perlman warmed up, his coat and utility belt were placed next to me, so I peeked through some of what he was packin'. The belt features a lot of little tiny pouches, just like in the comics, as well as some beads and a small wooden cross. There's a dusty old BPRD patch on HB's coat, as seen in the first promotional photo. And Hellboy's gun, The Samaritan, is really, really big. Like, crazy big. I never saw him use it while I was on set, but I imagine it will cause some seeerious damage when he fires off a round from that sucker. When Perlman asked what they were shooting specifically today, del Toro replied that Sammael and Hellboy were going to continue fighting in the station, and in the process, "destroy the crap out of it" (classic!).

Del Toro then invited me down into the subway tracks while the shot was being set up so I could bang out a few questions for the interview that was posted here on CD last week. Aside from that, we also discussed some other relevant geek topics, such as Van Helsing and Blade III (the man loves his vampires), Ghost Rider, Hulk, and X2. As a side note, much like the rest of us, del Toro seriously dug Magneto's prison break. I then caught my first glimpse of Brian Steele in the Sammael costume as he lumbered onto the set. I don't want to ruin anything further than the pictures that were posted on AICN, but he looks even better live, trust me. Guillermo's obsession with slime and spit coming out of this thing's mouth is very impressive indeed. That thing drools like there's no tomorrow! But anyway, in this shot, 'Sammy' had to destroy part of the subway station in a very specific way, just after Hellboy rolls out of the way to safety. And it just was *not* happening. Take after take, each with 15 minutes or so between to fix the ruined bit of subway, they tried and something or other went wrong. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts, it was decided that they could either cobble together the shot from what they had already shot, or they would come back and try it again later. There was definite frustration, but no yelling or screaming or anything dramatic like that. If this was one of the bad days in Prague (and I got the indication that it was), this looks like a pretty smooth production.

After Ron offered me a quick good morning ("Newest honorary member of the BPRD?" he asked in reference to my t-shirt), he ran an idea he had by del Toro -- how about he do two "aw craps" instead of one? One for the train that's about to hit him, and another for the impending Sammael attack. Perlman's "two are better than one" argument was hard to refute. So, del Toro tried it twice, once Perlman's way, and the other as originally scripted. It was eventually decided that it worked better with just one "aw crap", and then it was time for a quick break, and you know what that means - more Red Bull for everybody! Over the break, I conducted my interview with Ron, who was confident as can be about this project, and more specifically, del Toro's vision of it. He was very curious how fans were reacting to what they had seen so far, and very optimistic that they would be pleased by the final product. By the looks of things from my eyes, he was right. During the interview, I noticed how much Perlman's facial expressions and personality really did come through his Hellboy make-up, whereas all the stunt guys are basically wearing masks that make them look like Perlman. The made-up stunt guys mostly look stiff and unemotional in comparison. I thought this added a lot of weight to del Toro's opinion that putting too much more makeup on Ron would greatly restrict his ability to act, as I was initially disappointed that they didn't go a little further towards making him look like a demon. Just a little side note.

After the interview and a couple more insert shots, it was time for the 'lunch break'. Since these breaks usually occur at around 7:30pm, I never totally understood why this wasn't a dinner break, but food is food I guess. I declined my meal that day in order to take a closer look at the set. After peeking around for a spell (I didn't notice anything new worth mentioning), I had a nice little chat with Guillermo's assistant, Thomas (who shared my amusement at the way series creator Mike Mignola assesses the fact that his comic is being made into a movie: "Weeeeeeeird!"), as well as Unit Publicist Moira Houlihan and Stunt Choreographer Tom Elliott. All were really cool folks, and seemed pretty jazzed about the movie. Soon after I finished talking with Tom, the rest of the crew, as well as all the extras, returned to breathe life into the momentarily dormant set.

Finally, in this shot, Hellboy got some punches in. Wam! One slam into Sammy's face with the Right Hand of Doom! Bam! A follow up punch with the left! And finally, a third shot which misses Sammael but takes out a subway pillar instead. Perlman did this shot a couple of times over, with the occasional jovial break into song with del Toro (If you think you can imagine how weird it is seeing Guillermo del Toro and a big red demon singing a duet of "O Solo Mio", trust me -- you can'tbut both have very nice singing voices, for what it's worth). Finally, Perlman wrapped shooting for the day, and went off to his makeup trailer to get de-Hellboy-tized, and it was time for his stunt double, Todd Bryant, to step in and take his place for the rest of the night. When Perlman returned some time later, he was back to his human form (which looked pretty strange and kind of wrong to me, as I had only seen him Hellboy-style so far during my trip), and he had brought a cake with him. "Happy 50 Redboy!" it said, in bright red frosted lettering. I was later told that this was Ron's 50th day in the Hellboy makeup. After much festive eating ("Eat more cake, puny mortal!" del Toro jovially prodded me), we were all full and exhausted.

With Perlman wrapped, it was Todd Bryant's (his stunt double) turn to step in and get in on the action. They reshot some of the train footage, now with an actual train coming at Hellboy's head (or at least a big train replica that ran up and down the tracks). And while the train wasn't going full speed, for something that big and heavy coming at your head, it was going fast enough for unpleasantness to ensue if great care were not taken. So, after much meticulous preparation to make sure the train would work as planned, they proceeded with the shot. Now, I'm telling you, Todd rolled out of the way at the *last* *possible* *second* without getting hit! Like, the train must have been fractions of a centimeter from this guy's head! If you see a great shot in the flick where HB is almost hit by that train, remember stuntman Todd Bryant, because that is a Man Without Fear, right there (oops, wrong comic).

After the excitement of the train shot and just before shooting wrapped for the evening, a box of copies of 'Seed of Destruction', the Hellboy story which the movie is loosely based upon, arrived in a big cardboard box from Diamond Comics. Guillermo cheerfully signed copies for the crew (and myself) between takes. Finally, about half an hour later (and half an hour past schedule), the shoot for the evening had wrapped, and the crew all applauded with relief. We all said our goodbyes, I hopped in the Hell-Bus with for my nightly ride home with the Guillermos, and prepared for more sleep before another day of action-packed Hellboy fun

COMING SOON... DAY 3!