Shift 17

Unbeknownst to most of you because I've been a really terrible blogger this last year, I've been working behind the scenes on a film.

Don't get too excited, it's hardly oscar material as it's only a student production but it's been an interesting experience nonetheless. We managed to score a nice little budget thanks to Kickstarter (most of which went towards making the set) and you can see a little clip here with Liam, Julia and my Unicorn from last year! (Alas, I wasn't in the day they filmed it or I'd have been there too!)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/264586587/shift-17

....see below for millions of photos...

Initially I signed up for the prop department but ended up on the concept art team as well. As the development process edged along we lost several people who lost interest or weren't able to spare the time so everyone's contributions became even more important.

Here are some of my stuff - I'm not very good at concept art so it was really weird for me! I came up with some ideas for what the planet and the outside of the base was going to be like. As it was all going to be done digitally, there was no need for models or location-finding but the VFX guys would need some form of reference material anyway. The script described it as a barren planet undergoing climate change thanks to the terraforming station the film is set in. I pictured it as a very open and tundra-like landscape with lots of ice and dust, like the surface of Mars.

I also did a design for the main character...just ignore the face, it's terrible.

When the budget came through, we began work on the set. The idea was to have a number of seperate panels that could be clamped together in a myriad of different combinations so we could maximise the different types of set we could create. We wanted styrene to put onto the boards but due to a bit of a communications breakdown we ended up with polystyrene sheets which we had to paint to look like concrete instead of metal as per the original intention, as there was no way we'd have been able to make them look metallic. XD It took forever and we were still painting bits of set the night before the final day of shooting...

Base coat...

The 'Concret-istadors'

The breakfast scene, complete with 'sci fi spoon' (aka an ice cream scoop)

Julia and I went round to Liam's one afternoon for a prop-making day and between the three of us managed to make a couple of sci fi tools and do some much needed weathering on some of the costumes. Mine is the one that looks like a blowtorchy thing...

I volunteered to make a door panel and had a great time ripping apart a dead keyboard for parts. XD
I may have over-weathered it a bit though...

One scene called for the main character to open up a panel in a wall and tinker with some power systems so we constructed a basic wooden box and filled it with broken computer parts, wires and whatever else we could find! We must have gone though loads of No More Nails on this project, seriously, we used it for everything.

Once that was done a lot of the time was spent pushing bits of set around...




...which often included taking them up and down flights of stairs when the service lift was out of order! (which seemed to be every other day tbh) Because it was the holidays, we could only access certain departments so all our setpieces had to be stored in particular rooms, all of which had to be moved round when college restarted a couple of weeks ago.



A 'working' airlock door also had to be constructed and we were working on it right up until filming finished which caused us no end of stress! Apparently it worked well though so it was obviously worth the hassle. :P



Seeing the sets under the lights and on camera was really good as they looked a lot more professional than my photos probably suggest...





 

So yeah, that's what I've been doing inbetween college work and holidays for the last year! XD I've been meaning to post about it for months but seeing as my part in it was finishing up I thought I'd leave it til then before blogging.
Everything's been filmed now so the clips are all in the hands of the VFX people then once it's done it'll be going on Youtube or Vimeo and *hopefully* entered into some film festivals!