Week 10 - Prop Making

After having printed out the components needed for the camera glasses for Sara to assemble, Aiza and I decided to acquire the rest of the props required for our shoot days. The set dressing elements that we decided to purchase rather than make ourselves were the following: red party cups, balloons, glitter, thread, plates, party decorations, and candles. Empty bottles of soda and alcohol were already found on set - courtesy of Beth and her flatmate. We have also decided to purchase the cake for the after-party set and the regular pair of glasses required for the dream sequence.

Both the cake and the glasses had to be altered before being placed on set - the cake itself had to look half-eaten as our main character invited friends over for her birthday party and the glasses were meant to be broken as a way to explain the sudden appearance of the camera glasses instead. While making the cake look half-eaten was an easy task to achieve with a large crew, the glasses turned out to be a much more challenging undertaking. By the end of the filming day, the entire crew has had a go at attempting to break the pair of reading glasses with no luck. Finally, we completed the task by smashing them in between the door and the doorframe - hopefully, the safety hazard of such experiments have been documented onto our risk assessment. In terms of props that we decided to create, we started out by looking at birthday cards during our prop shopping and identifying elements that stand out in order to replicate in design. Aiza created a couple of stunning birthday cards following this, which can be seen integrated into a placement concept sketch I've done below.

Furthermore, we printed out a handful of copies of the original Joe script to scatter throughout the apartment as our main character's drafts. On the first day of the shoot, the production design team gathered and created a series of annotations on the printed scripts to give the impression of chaotically edited pieces of work. The mood board wall was created using our boards for the original Joe script along with other pieces of work that may look relevant. As it is not revealed in the story what film Joe is working on, we had the liberty to incorporate any photographs, colour palettes and sketches that felt relevant. As previously mentioned, some parts of the wall dressing were pieces from our past work on the course/s - such as storyboards and poetry from my first year Interactive Media module - and photographs from the ICMP module. An element that became prevalent in the dressing of our set was the negative prints I quickly created before the first shoot day. To do so, I used a method perfected in my Media Frontiers module which involved inverting photographs and artworks and removing the white negative space to create clear negative prints. In the Media Frontiers module, such prints were used to create cyanotypes and chlorophyll prints; however, within the context of the film, the prints are there to represent Joe's interest in photographic processes.

Turning Previous Work into Acetate Prints

The Moodboard in Stills

Mood-board Wall

As discussed in a separate blog, Joanna's outfits are much more complex than the ones the main character wears. As she has less on-screen presence, we were hoping to complete her initial presentation through her wardrobe - some of which required alterations and additional pieces to be made. Ideally, we would have been assisted by fashion department students for this task; as this was not the case, Aiza and I embarked on the task of dressing the characters. Joanna's jacket was conceptualised to have various patches and safety pins - conveying her leaning towards the alternative style. Luckily, Aiza had a denim jacket perfect for the actress which we modified on set. The patches seen on her jacket have been painted the previous day by me and feature niche pop culture references and logos of indie punk bands.

Patches Painting Process & Final Jacket

The second half of the film shows Joe taking photographs of her love interest - Joanna - while spending time together, the physical prints would also be shown on a screen conveying that the camera glasses produced polaroid style photographs. As such, the photographs became props themselves. The photoshoot scene in the film also introduces the element of Joe's delusions and her reliance on the newfound pair of glasses as once the glasses are removed, her partner disappears as well without Joe acknowledging it initially. Upon discussing with Anastasija on the day, we decided that the photographs taken by the 'glasses' would appear to be shot at a slow shutter speed - similar to the flashing images in Joe's dream. To do so, I used Beth's DSLR to photograph the two actors after the kitchen montage was filmed. The flashing lights created a form of on-screen chromatic aberration in some of the photographs which the directors were happy with. In order to accurately create the props, I had to analyse the movements of Joe's actress within the montage in order to use the same angles to photograph Parvathy playing Joanna. Once we were happy with five of the photographs, Aiza and I went into a separate room to print the polaroids ready for them to be shot.

Polaroids Taken on Set

Prop Photographs

Joe's Sketches of Joanna (as seen in the film) & Polaroids