In May of this year, I was fortunate to join a project aimed at giving students within the film and media courses a live, on-set experience of working on a short film shoot. Envisaged by my colleagues Mikey Murray and Chris Greybe as an innovative teaching experience (and supported by an internal college fund), the project centred on recreating departments within a production, each headed by the appropriate tutor leading a team of students, the goal of which being to film a scene from a feature script. Furthermore, the scene was filmed in our large television studio, with first year students invited to fill the audience seating and watch our every move.
I was delighted to head-up the Art Department, designing, building and dressing the set on a small, but perfectly formed budget. Whilst some departments’ activities were principally focussed on the filming day itself (with a set-up the day before), our work began months earlier. I assembled a team of students from both my Production Design module on BA Film Production, and those who had chosen the role of Production Designer role within their television work for BA Media Production. The team grew as the project progressed, with team members bringing their own trusted individuals on board to help, which was lovely.
The scene set to be filmed was a sombre one; a daughter and her father share a moment in the bedroom of their deceased mother/grandmother, who had laid undiscovered for a few months, the echoes of which are visible in the bedding, surrounded by her twee and old-fashioned décor. Written and directed by Mikey Murray, produced by Chris Greybe, with Jack Shelbourn an Director of Photography, and Luke Pietnik as Sound Designer.
Work began in late February on designing the set plans and accumulating set pieces, including a duly tasteless pink floral fitted wardrobe I spotted a neighbour getting rid of, from the previous elderly occupant. Set plans were approved by the director and producer, and at this point I brought the student team on board, to help bounce ideas for paint colours, props and layout.
By late April, myself and the team were starting to make final decisions (whilst being mindful the students were also juggling their deadlines, as was I!), and we used MS Teams to coordinate our efforts. I would put forward several colour options and the students, together with Mikey, would feed into the decision making process.
The moment the final deadline had passed in May, we commenced an intense week of set construction, decoration and dressing. This was a great experience for us all. Personally, I realised very quickly how long it had been since I last worked in a creative team, not-least led one! The nature of teaching in a small team (or latterly a team of me) pushes you into becoming your own problem-solver, which can be good, but it can also mean that you struggle to accept help when it is offered. Now I had eight very keen individuals to lead, some of which were entirely new to this sort of manual set work, so it was a very positive challenge for us all. Trust is such an important element of creative teamworking, and I found the more trust I put in the team on a task, the more they would invest in the process. I also had to gently shift my way of delivering feedback; I pride myself on being very encouraging and positive when reviewing student work, as I feel that creative exploration needs lots of warmth, as it can so quickly be crushed by the wrong words. However, in this more professional ‘boots on the ground’ content, I found I had to be more forthright in what was working and what was not. This was most apparent during ‘cobwebgate’!
The script called for a character to see a cobweb above them on the ceiling. I have several things that I am very critical and exacting of in film; bad Photoshop in family photos (worst offender, Meet the Parents), improbable ‘zoom and enhance’ technology (worst offender, Blade Runner) and unconvincing cobwebs (worst offender, basically everything). Commercially available cobweb often looks terrible, and you often see it loosely flung into hedges around Halloween time, looking like abandoned cottonwool. It takes patience and care to pull it apart strand by strand and arrange it, and it is best when coiled around objects that give it that indisputable cobweb tension. A wall offers very few points of contact, so is even more tricky to do. I found I was very particular about this, and whilst I thought I’d delivered my verdict on the umpteenth iteration of the cobweb with care, but firm diplomacy, I later overheard someone say “yeah, Jon hated it!”
What was key to the design, dressing and decoration of this space was the character who had lived there, and our understanding of her. I was once asked what the difference was between interior design and production design. My response was that interior design is designing a space for someone to live in, whereas production design is designing a space that some is living in. The former suggest an artfully placed tangerine and pristine white worktops; the latter suggests kids’ drawings Blu-tacked to the fridge and a pile of unopened bills. What I enjoyed was how quickly the team fleshed out this character, and how that ‘head-canon’ of who this grandmother was, informed a lot of our decisions. Fondly referred to in the scene dock as ‘Meemaw’, we would frequently have discussions, such as ‘Does Meemaw like horses?’ (yes), ‘Would Meemaw leave her shoes out?’ (no) and ‘How many red pills should Meemaw take per day?’ (one, they’re strong and for her back pain). This even extended to who she had help her decorate her room ten years ago. Ernest, a similarly elderly gentleman should have given up the painting and decorating game years ago, but keeps on going. His work is a little sloppy, so whenever anyone dripped paint on set, the cry would go up ‘bloody hell Ernest.’
It was a joy to show the students some tips and tricks for achieving certain effects, and equally to hear their ideas and suggestions too. The grim mattress provided a particular focal point for this (and, dear reader, please know that I am fighting a play on the word ‘focal’ there with every fibre of my being). It had to look like poor Meemaw had expired in it several months earlier, so in contrast to the frilly pink florals, this had to look morbid. A garden plant sprayer was the tool of trade here, firstly loaded with apple juice, that could go brown overnight and give a deathly perimeter to the staining, then increasing strengths of coffee were fired into, what became known as ‘ground zero’. The dip in the mattress was a challenge, as dips form over many years, and it wasn’t possible to affect a mattress in that way artificially, so we achieved this with some careful padding and use of old sofa cushions, to create a suitable trough.
Another aspect of the process that I felt really gave the students a rich experience in Art Department working, was in the acquisition of props. In this regard, the RSPCA Shop in Lincoln were absolute superstars, who really understood the brief and delved into their backroom boxes to find items that were perhaps not so suitable for sale, but definitely appropriate to the lived-in look of Meemaw’s bedroom. Everything from slippers, hand cream, jewellery and picture frames were assessed by the students, scrutinised and either rejected or acquired based on how well they felt it would fit with the bedroom look.
Another proud aspect of this project was the sustainability of the set. Very little new wood was used, and what was is currently in storage for re-use. Non-PVC, non-metallic wallpaper was used, and attached in such a way as to be easily removed and recycled. Furniture was recycled from the scenery store, and of the props that weren’t loaned to the production, the vast majority came second hand from charity shops and are now in storage for future use. The carpet, wardrobes and bedframe, were all destined for landfill, but are now useful scenery items for both this and future projects. Even 80-90% of the water-based paint acquired for the set was used, meaning very little waste on this front too. The students’ BAFTA Albert sustainable production training was certainly evident in our every move.
The end result was the product of this excellent team effort. The students really understood and invested in the project, with some wonderfully rich and thoughtful conversations covering bigger topics, like the colour of the hallway, down to the minutiae of where Meemaw’s slippers would be next to the bed. It was hugely rewarding to see the set lit by Jack’s cinematographers once we had finished our final tweaks, and the space really began to come alive, as this once pretty, now tomb-like room became the backdrop for the actors to breathe life into it.
As an immersive simulated work environment, the value of this exercise cannot be overstated, but also the opportunity for our students to see us working in our fields of expertise too. It is nice (but rare) for the students to see us practicing what we preach in this context, and not only was it simply good fun to work together, dare I say it, a good way to add a little weight to the students’ image of us as practitioners. But overall, the real strength here lay in the way it very visibly and palpably showed several departments working synchronously in the creation of something, and doing so in good humour, with respect and genuine joy in the process.