2. MY ROLE
I was the Production Designer for the graduation film:
‘Saturday Morning’. Despite the film being one of the most
ambitious films in terms of art department, for my film
production course’s year, it didn’t receive much attention.
Consequently, I was the only member of the art department.
4. SCRIPT BREAK DOWN
The script breakdown can be found in the physical folder
I have handed in. I broke down the original script and
made my props list and costume list from that. Then I
would modify the lists as each new draft came in to cater
for changes.
5. CHARACTER MOOD BOARDS
During pre-production I started creating mood boards/visual
ideas for the three central character’s costumes. Several
of the characters already had basic briefs to design to
from our script writer.
7. The Dress
Farley is meant to be the femme fatale character of old
noire films. I worked briefly with Dylan Webb, a production designer
from another graduation film, to try and nail down the look of ‘The Woman in Red’
style powerful female character.
8.
9. The asian themed dresses were to demonstrate the high leg slit for a thigh
holster rather than for the theme. The director wasn’t sure if Farley should
wear a shoulder holster or thigh holster.
11. For a while we were fairly set on giving Farley a shoulder holster for her p
have a clutch to keep her gun in
instead.
The Holster
12. The Gun
I quickly decided that the gun Farley carried
should match with her 1920’s esq character design.
For this I picked out a snub nosed crome revolver.
I managed to find someone who could source me
a prop one for free during the shoot. It was
non-working but came under the heading of
Realistic Imitation Firearm (RIF). This meant we
needed police permission whenever we were filming
with it.
14. Frank’s Coat
Frank is a pirate/naval officer themed villain, I wanted to
capture
that through his clothing in a strong way. I looked at run
down moleskin coats, but decided they were too grimy for
him, he is a narcissist, he doesn’t want to look too scruffy.
I started looking at naval officer coats. But finally settled
on a Russian naval captain’s coat as I felt it suited the final
casting more.
15. The Eye Patch
At first I wanted a patterned detailed eyepatch for Frank. But closer to the time the director
opted for a more simplistic one. I decided to make the eye patch myself using faux leather and a fancy
dress eye patch as the base. The eye patch didn’t come out as well as I had hoped. Although it’s not
terrible, it is slightly too large for the actor. I felt it was a valuable learning experience for the future.
16. The Boots
I always planned to put Frank in old seaman/military style boots. They fit the rest
of the aesthetic of his costume. When the actor had been cast I was able to find
out he had his own pair. Which after I viewed and gave the go ahead on, he
brought to set for us. Saving part of the budget.
17. Unused Ideas
I played with the idea of giving Frank a gothic t-shirt under his naval trench coat at one point, but
quickly scratched it as it didn’t fit the character.
I also Suggested the idea of gold teeth as a replacement for the gold ear Frank had in the original
script as we had decided the ear was too tricky to make. The idea was vetoed and we stuck with just
the eyepatch for his gimmick in the end.
18. Final Costume
Here is a concept I made with photoshop
for Frank’s final costume. This was made
after the actor Mark Caven. I thought the
actor’s features would compliment this
costume more than the original more classic
british sea captain’s coat.
The red waistcoat compliments the grey,
showing Frank’s more flamboyant side, hidden
behind murky grey morality.
For Frank’s pistol I decided to use a RIF Colt
1911. The pistol is of an very old design but is
still in use by governments round the world
today. I felt this would be the perfect pistol to
suit Frank’s needs. A big loud gun to suit his
loud personality, old but still working in good
condition.
20. The Hat and T ShirtThe hat and t shirt were part of the brief given to me by our script writer and director. They had
to be precise. This was the final t shirt and hat we picked. However we removed the anchor on the
hat as it looked too sparkly when it arrived. The t shirt never arrived so we had to adapt and get
one I was slightly less happy with,
but did a decent job standing in for the original.
21. The Trousers
There were no specifications on trousers from the director
so at first I opted for a military feel, to suggest more of a past
for BoyBoy. However towards the end of pre-production, I felt
that non of the options were working with the upper half.
I decided to go back to the noire style roots and get some
brown pinstripe trousers with classic brown braces to
compliment them.
22. The Mask
At one point the director wanted the mask to be less threatening, as he didn’t want BoyBoy to be too scary.
wever after looking through several options, we finally settled back on our original idea, which was a three hole balacla
I feel this better sums up BoyBoy’s anonymity and leaves a small level threat in him still,
contrasted with the tiny sailors hat to make him less threatening.
23. Final Costume
Here is the final costume design for BoyBoy that
I put together with photoshop. The trouser’s style
were inspired by game art for a character in a
Batman game. I felt it was appropriate to use it as a
base for the picture as the game’s look was very much
what the world of our film was meant to look like.
I did this design before casting and it was one of the
few costumes I didn’t feel the need to redesign based
on the casting.
24. Waitresses
For the waitress costumes I once again asked for help from Dylan Webb from
Shopping Spree’s production design. This is due to me knowing absolutely nothing
about dress sizes. He helped select the waitress dresses and was put in charge
of their name tags.
25. Additional Costume Design Details
dditional design details such as hand drawn sketches, can be foun
in the physical hand in folder I have submitted.
26. BUILDS
Over the course of the project I’ve had several pieces I’ve had to
plan to build or build for the film.
27. MAD EYES SIGN
The picture shows a design I
mocked up on photo shop of
the proposed Mad Eyes Diner
sign that I was going to have to
build. Before I could draw up
measurements the plan was
scraped as they wanted
Farley’s character to enter
through the back door of the
restaurant instead. However I
had planned to make it with
plywood, LEDs and a neon bulb
that we were going to have to
get made custom. The paint
was to be more faded and
cracked in the physical design.
28. LAIR CORRIDOR SET
For the flashback scene involving a corridor and blast doors,
I had to design and build a set.
With the help of the camera department we built it from uni
resources. Though we ordered our own MDF for the blast
doors as the flats at uni are too worn to be flat enough. I
contacted the fine art department of uni and asked if they’d
be able to cut the MDF panels to the shape needed for the
blast doors and they agreed. Once that was done I covered
the doors in several layers of Hammerite fake metal paint to
give it a worn metal effect. Unfortunately you couldn’t make
this out in the final cut.
29. Dressing the CorridorFor the corridor, the director wanted quite obscure random objects in the display cases. The cases
hemselves were made of perspex as glass was too expensive. Inside we had a skull I borrowed the fro
ne art department of uni, a lamp stand that I drilled and put a lit LED bulb inside, some gold cards and
fake ray gun pistol that I put together with a pound land gun and bits of circuit board and fuses.
30. I also got two plastic plumbing pipes and screwed them to one of
the walls. I then made a hole in one of them to make it look like it
had burst and ran a smoke machine through it from the top so
smoke would billow out in a cloud. The effect worked well though
you can only see it for a second in the final edit. See here pictured
behind the actress as she rounds the corner.
31. Final Set
I feel the final set came
out very well considering
non of us building it had
ever been trained in set
building. My only gripe is
that the side walls were
creased and full of air
bubbles under the wall
paper we put down, due
to the nature of the flats
underneath. I wish we
had bought more MDF
flats of our own to use
but we would have gone
over our budget. Overall I
think the set works for it’s
8 second screen time.
Additional design details
can be found in the
physical hand in folder.
32. I made sure to leave a gap between the blast doors as the gaffa wanted to have a red light shining
through the gap
33. BUDGETS AND BREAKDOWNS
Did multiple break downs of the script to cover all the sub-groups of my role
as production designer. This included the price of each prop or item of
lothing in each breakdown. However, the overall budget was not handled by
me as my workload was too large. I would send the break down to
the producer and production manager after checking the list didn’t go
over budget and they’d give the ok.
34. BUDGET
Taking into account the whole art
design for the film. I estimated that
I would need around £2000 of our
overall budget to complete the film.
After having a short talk with the
producer he granted me almost
that exact amount.
Due to the work load of trying to do
costume, props and set dressing
all by myself, the production
manager Kethry was selected by
the producer to do budget
handling.
I regularly ran numbers by her in
person when I was selecting props
and costume items. I was always
well within budget.
Overall I finished my job with plenty
of budget to go, how much of it
there was however, I do not know
as it quickly got shifted to support
other departments. The number
running was subcontracted out to
the production manager so I didn’t
handle them myself.
35. The Additional Prop, Costume and Script breakdowns can be
found on the blog underneath this presentation
