Putting up a Set: Fleet Street Coming to Life
Since our TV commercial production for Sweeney Todd came apart last Monday, we have laboured to get back on track and find an alternative solution to our missing location issue.
As I have written in the blog ‘What to Do When Your Projects Come Apart: Crisis and Time Management’, we have contemplated a modernisation, a rewrite of the script, and research of other Victorian style shops in the North East to battle the issue of the missing indoor location. However, we finally settled on taking an old Victorian street set that had been made by the Production Design course prior, and adapting our story to the set.
Since then, our director Has has amended the script to get rid of all interior scenes and rewrite them with exterior ones. Now, instead of Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett losing their pie shop and modelling it into a snack bar shop, both are selling their goods on the street, using a vendor’s tray. The reveal and resolve of the story work marvellously, given the restrictions we had at hand.
Now the only thing left to do was moving the remains of the old Victorian street sets from our storage into our studio – which was the task of today.
Within 3,5 hours, we went to the storage, decided upon the parts that we wanted to use, dismantled the set and its props, transported them load by load into the studio, and assembled everything in a corner of it, together with panels, doors, windows, floor plates, and all.
This, we were able to do not only with the help of one of our lecturers, but also with one of the lecturers from Production Design, who kindly helped us taking down and rebuilding the set to our liking and preferences.
Thus, we were able to enlarge our initially 8ft wide set to a set that is roughly 10ft x 5ft, managed to incorporate a protruding corner of the house to give the set and the scene more depth, and left just enough space behind the set that we would be able to light it to our preferences.
PLACEHOLDER
After the rewrite, our director struggled imagining how we would resolve the street vendor’s fate. However, with the way we set up our Victorian street (and with the incorporated practical door, we are now able to reveal him sitting in the dark corner within the house. In order to make that more believable and not show the studio floor, we will even be able to incorporate fake stone flooring and – with the help of the black studio curtain – we would even be able to disguise the modern background.
And the best of it all? Since we were able to cherry-pick the elements of the set to our liking, we were able to adhere to the sepia-yellowy colour scheme that Has and I had devised, since the set, in its entirety, is making use of earthen tones that fit our colour palette marvellously.
Today was a highly amazing experience! To see how a set comes together has something utterly satisfying to it as you can see it grow. It was fun being able to decide on the particular layout and design of the set and to see it coming alive according to the plans. Finally, it was a good glimpse into the reality and possibilities of Production Design.
Now, the only things left for me to do as a cinematographer – apart from lighting and filming it – will be the compilation of a lighting plan and a blocking session with the vintage SR2-lenses to get a feel not only for the timing of the new script, but also for the new perspectives, lenses, and framing!
It’s going to be exciting!