Morale can be lifted by the simplest of things.
It was 3pm on Thursday, 6 February 2014, a day on which more rain fell on Hampstead Heath than on any other day throughout the notorious winter storms, and we had been filming on The Secrets since early in the morning without any respite from the weather.
Everyone was soaked through and freezing cold but with fading light and spirit, some lukewarm hot chocolate arrived on set from the nearest cafe, which was a 30 minute walk away, and we once again were able to pretend it was a sunny family day out, as the script for The Visitor required!
Director Dominic Savage with actors Anthony Welsh and Paige Meade on set for The Visitor
As the producer on The Secrets my role was to oversee the production on all levels from casting the actors and the crew, to structuring the shoot, to location finding, to all aspects of post-production.
Director Dominic Savage and I had decided to base the shooting of the series in Kentish Town in North London so we would have access to many different kinds of urban architecture and outside spaces within a relatively small distance.
Given that we were making five distinct episodes, with entirely different storylines all in one go and with no commonality in casting or locations, it was really important that the settings we chose to film were physically close together but felt narratively far apart.
We shot each episode in six days and went from one to the next without any kind of break so time was always of the essence.
Watch the trail: Five explosive stories, each with a secret at its heart
Having worked with director Dominic Savage before, we both knew that it was also important that each location we chose was authentic and felt real and true to the setting of the scenes in our scripts.
If it was a family house with young children in the script, then our production designer Anna Pritchard and location manager Tim Maw would only look for exactly that when we were scouting for locations.
Getting the casting right for each story was hugely important.
For each episode we were lucky that our writers had written such strong stories that they each attracted an incredibly high level of acting talent across the series.
As the script development process evolved, we had some of our lead actors in mind from the outset - Alison Steadman and Olivia Colman as mother and daughter in The Dilemma for example.
Olivia Colman stars as a vet with a terminally ill mother, played by Alison Steadman
But for some of the other roles our casting director Shaheen Baig auditioned many actors who we then screen tested together.
This is how we created brother and sister Paige Meade and Anthony Welsh in The Visitor.
Sarah Solemani plays Charlotte, who discovers that her fiance was once accused of a shocking crime
Sarah Solemani also wrote her episode so when she wasn't playing her role of a woman on the eve of her wedding, she was collaborating closely with Dominic, calibrating the dialogue in the scenes, trying different lines and working together to find the most suitable and exciting way of playing the scene.
After just six weeks we had five radically different films ready to start editing... And finally we were out of the rain!
Guy Heeley is the producer of The Secrets.
The Secrets starts on Sunday, 7 September at 10.40pm on BBC One and BBC One HD and continues throughout the week. For further programmes times please see the episode guide.
More on The Secrets
BBC One: The Secrets: Cast members including Olivia Colman and JoanneFroggatt discuss their characters' individual stories
BBC Media Centre: The Secrets
About the BBC blog: Director Dominic Savage on The Secrets
Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.
