RAD002 - Pool Crew
Set Building
Assistant Director - Art Director - Lucie Eckersley
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As Art director I had to make sure we made this mantlepiece as realistic as possible. This began with picking out a wallpaper for the living room which we luckily managed to find in the prop cupboard. The mantlepiece was a bit more difficult. We needed it to be a certain thickness and length. The piece of wood we found was very thin. Dave, however had the great idea of attaching some polystyrene to make it thicker. This proved to be really effective and gave us the right thickness we needed causing it to create a much more believable mantlepiece.
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Originally, we were going to print off a wood texture photo to cover it with but we managed to find some other wood textured wallpaper that would also work.
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Throughout this project and my given roles I wanted to focus on being a team leader, to make sure if any of my crew members needed help, I’m there to support them and do everything I can do make sure our time management is good so we get every shot we need and of the best quality possible. To help achieve this I would be working closely with the camera operator. Together we made sure that these shots were convincing enough and in the right place to not break the illusion of the mantlepiece as if you go a couple inches left or right then the wallpaper disappears.
Assistant Director - Art Director - Lucie Eckersley -
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For the living room shoot we had a specific amount of space in which we could create our set in.
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To try and get a better idea of what we want the living room to look like I decided to draw a floor plan of what the entire room would look like to try and get a better understanding of where everything would be and thing we would have to do in the make space to make a realistic set. For example, lighting. Where is the light coming from in the room? Where are the windows. Once we know this we can position the lights according to where we have the windows placed.
I then decided to do another floor plan of the space we actually have to make the set in. I chose to do this to help make the set designing easier, so we know what we need to do to get the set ready and realistic. It would help us get an idea of what we want the set to look like as well.
Unfortunately, due to timing issues part of the script was charged and we were no longer going to be doing the mother on the chair. Instead we would just be doing the mantle piece shots of the frames. This meant the set design would change and we would only be using the section of the mantle piece.
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It would be lit from the right side of the mantlepiece as if there was a light there. It would be shown at nighttime so the light would be very dim but still getting all the detail of the frames and the photos in them.
Living Room Set Design
Producer - Samuel Constable -
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On this shoot I created a short storyboard to give to the rest of my crew so that they all knew how the shots where planned to look. This made shooting a lot easier as we all knew what we needed to achieve and more importantly what we could get away with not having and what was 100% important. I also continued to shoot the behind the scenes footage for this shoot and ended the shoot with plenty of footage of everything that we did so that we can best talk about what happened. I also produced the photos that appear on the mantle piece of Johns father on his wedding day and with a photo of having found the conch. This took a fair while as was very awkward to make look real. I took images from the internet as well as some photos provided to me of the father himself. I firstly had to make his face look like it was a real face by replacing their faces and blending his new face in so that it fits with the colour and texture of the rest of the photograph. I also had to take new photos of the conch in order to put it into Photoshop and effectively place it in his hands in the photograph. I had a similar task for the wedding photo. I also alongside Director Lucie tried to keep on top of organisation within the crew and make sure we were all getting the same information at the same time and communicating as effectively as possible to produce the best outcome.
Art Department - Aria Tabatabai
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The third and final shoot came the following day, the mantelpiece set. This one was very straight forward; it was a simple panning shot of the picture frames on the mantelpiece. We arrived on set with the equipment we began setting the scene using various props gathered from previous sets used for RAD002 including a wooden ship and shells, while Alfie and David set up the camera and dolly. Once filming began it was over in minutes, the most important aspect being getting the picture frame perfectly in the centre after the pan in a Wes Anderson-style effect. Once we got enough panning shots that we were happy with, we then had to film a very brief over-the-shoulder shot of the sailor character looking at a photograph. Obviously on this day we did not have our actor Will on set with us so the crew and I decided that the next best option would be for me to be his stand-in due to use having similar beards. So in no time at all we moved the camera to wear another crew had set up a great looking cargo ship wall, and I quickly put on the characters attire. With our great communication and teamwork, within minutes we were able to get some fantastic looking shots with a crisp close-up of the photograph as well.
Despite minor setbacks in the early stages, RAD002 has been a unique and enlightening experience for me that involved great coordination, a nice blend of different creative minds, and solid teamwork & time-keeping. Not only did we get all the shots we needed and then some, but we also got the opportunity to film both on set and on location. This will be more than helpful experience when it comes to directing my own short films.