Professional Toolkit- First Set Building and Grip/Green Screen Workshop.

Last Friday, we all got together with Anne to discuss our studio shoots and to start looking at the equipment in the studio, including gripping and green screen. However Chris Pinnock suggested that we start building our sets so we can see what they look like and so it saves us time later.

As the production designer, this was a golden opportunity for me to physically see the space I will be working with, and it would really help me get a better idea of what I have to do to the space to make it realistic for the scene we will be shooting.

The first thing we did was put up the flats and bolt them together. We decided to have one of the walls at an angle to make the room appear longer than it is, which would help the set extension later on. Also, the set is quite narrow to make it more like a corridor so we'll have to shape the prop placement around that. 

Also, once the set was lit I got an idea of where the wall props needed to be placed and how big they could be. Also, with the set length I now know how many plinths I need to gather/make.

The main realisation I had about the set was that the walls needed to be really scraped down and the gaps filled before we put any lining paper down. Also, the lining paper needs to be left to dry for nearly a day before we paint it to make sure it is done properly. So the first thing we should do is take care of the walls and line them before doing anything else to the set, so that we can be getting on with other tasks while the walls dry.

Looking at gripping was also interesting as the movements on the dolly were very smooth, and even more interesting was that the dolly we were using was previously owned by Stanley Kubrick!

What I need to do now is get a list of materials together so Rosie can start ordering our materials and we can get ahead on our set build.