A few weeks back Michael (Producer/DP) and I met with Anna Page, who is our Art Director, to discuss the look of the environment that The Alpha Invention is to take place in.
It is a single-location film so there is only one look and design to be considered - Guy's apartment - however, ten to fifteen minutes in one location means that virtually every square centimetre is going to appear on screen at some point or another. In fact, Michael and I have gone through and storyboarded the entire film from start to finish to examine the precise details of what does end up in the lens. The above is true, every wall, prop and corner ends up on screen.
It would make sense then that we found a location, a real apartment, to suit our needs. But with the camera needing to be in so many places, real walls that you can't remove start to become a problem. Add a few other nuisance requirements such as it needing to be specifically a ground floor apartment with sash windows (so that we can set up lights outside to stream through those Venetian blinds) and it started to become apparent that this is a location which needs to be built from scratch.
It is a single-location film so there is only one look and design to be considered - Guy's apartment - however, ten to fifteen minutes in one location means that virtually every square centimetre is going to appear on screen at some point or another. In fact, Michael and I have gone through and storyboarded the entire film from start to finish to examine the precise details of what does end up in the lens. The above is true, every wall, prop and corner ends up on screen.
It would make sense then that we found a location, a real apartment, to suit our needs. But with the camera needing to be in so many places, real walls that you can't remove start to become a problem. Add a few other nuisance requirements such as it needing to be specifically a ground floor apartment with sash windows (so that we can set up lights outside to stream through those Venetian blinds) and it started to become apparent that this is a location which needs to be built from scratch.
That's where Anna comes in. She designs a fake apartment, which will be built in a studio, and makes it look like a real one! I gave her a 3D design of the room which I'd created in Google SketchUp (left) and a list of props - blinds, a rotary dial black telephone, notepad and so on. Anna will then source these as well as working with Michael to ensure the minutia do not clash - for example, that the colours of the wall will not cause any problems on camera or that the blinds are just the right width to create the shards of light we need (advance warning: you'll most likely be hearing a lot about Venetian blinds - very important for film noir atmosphere!).
With all these designs in the bag there will of course come a time to build it all. But that comes later! There's a lot to do before that...
You can follow Anna on twitter @annapiaggio.
With all these designs in the bag there will of course come a time to build it all. But that comes later! There's a lot to do before that...
You can follow Anna on twitter @annapiaggio.
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