BBBS Production Design

In our Monday Film Class, we spent the last two sessions discussing production design, examining the importance of sets and set dressing (everything on a set) in helping to tell a story. In all films, production design is a key element. The various films Harmony recently filmed in conjunction with the Big Brothers Big Sisters are not an exception to this.

Whereas Hollywood films often design everything from scratch, we had to simply redress the two rooms we ha available at Harmony using items we already had or could purchase quite cheaply. I have to admit I enjoy this process, and am proud of the sets we came up with.

I took some photos on set for continuity purposes (so that I could make sure the set looked the same when we returned to it a week later). I'll post them here.

For Rocket Science, the back room had to become a science laboratory:

Black posterboard simulates chalkboard, complete with fake formulas and equations.

This character's workspace was supposed to emphasize that she is very analytical, neat and organized:

This the Chemist's workspace:

A Chemistry Set I was given as a child. I'm ashamed to say this is really the first time I've used it for anything.

Up close, it becomes apparent that this is mostly old pharmacy bottles and film canisters (remember those?), but from a distance will hopefully look like a shelf full of chemical supplies.

This is the workspace of the Theoretical Physicist. He is not as neat as his colleagues:

In A Night at the Theatre, the same room functioned as a restaurant kitchen:

And a backstage dressing room at a vaudeville theater:

For The Princess and the Dragon, we shot much of the film outside or in front of a greenscreen. I am working on backgrounds in Photoshop to insert into the greenscreen area. Here is one I've completed, of a castle:

I combined a photo of a real castle with a 19th century painting of Fort Snelling, so that the tower in the lower left corner matches the scenes we shot outside the real Fort Snelling: