6/5/11

Today we completed attaching the flats together including the wall that went temporarily missing. This meant having all the walls to both rooms. To make the walls stronger, Emma, Sarah L and I added wooden braces around the back of the flats using screws and cutting away the excess with a hand saw. Myself and Jess also labelled the flats to help us place them in the correct order when re-constructing the set at Maidstone Studios.

4/5/11

Today we carried on placing the flats together and found that some of the headers and footers were the wrong size or the skin was nailed to the wrong side as well as the bedroom window being at the wrong angle. This meant we had to re make and adjust some of the flats which took extra unnecessary time. We also only had a small number of us in today which also slowed the process down.

3/5/11

Today we had Henry in again to help us. We have now completed making all the flats for our set. We started to attach the flats together by drilling screws through the sides. It took a few of us to do it as the flats are large, and needed to be flush with one another. Henry also showed us to create temporary stands for the walls to help them balance, which were placed at the side of the doorways.

Plan of Set

This is the plan for the set from an ariel view. It shows where the doors, windows and fireplace will be as well as the positioning of the furniture. This is what we will use tomorrow to create our scale model.

Dining Chairs

I had been debating about whether to buy some dining chairs for the set and possibly adapt them or to make them from scratch. The benefit of making them would be having the exact design I had planned. However I needed to make a least three chairs which I wasn't sure how long that would take. Fortunately someone I know very well was getting rid of a couple of dining chairs which I thought I could use as a starting point and adapt them to resemble my designs. The chairs are very old, made of a strong dark wood and have decorative front legs which I thought would fit the theme well and would also match Eleanor's designs for the table. The padded seats of the chairs are ripped but can be eaily covered or repaired or left if it fits the scene. Unfortunately I only have two chairs but the rest of the group agreed that they would fit in with the style and decor of the room.

Flat Building

Today we were shown how to create our flats. This will be used as the walls for our set. When building flats, always make the frame fist then attach the skin afterwards. The standard size for our flats are 4'x8'. Start by lining up two pieces of timber at 8' each. Mark one end of the wood, this will be the corner that you start from at each stage. Mark along the timber at 2' using a tape measure and set square. Then you will need 5 4' pieces of timber which will go horizontally on the flat. Measure the width of these pieces as they will need to be deducted in order to get an accurate size. Line up a 4' plank against the end of the marked timber and drill together using two screws untill the screw is 1mm below the surface. Drill a 4' at each marked 2' then drill the remaining 8' plank to the ends of the 4's. Glue the top of the fame using wood PVA and place the plywood skin on top. Line the skin up in the corner you have marked. Using a nail gun, start at the beginning corner and go along the short edge nailing the skin to the frame. Then go along the adjoining 8' side and all the way around the frame leaving approximately 4'' between each nail. When it comes to nailing the 4' planks across the middle of the frame, it is useful to draw a line roughly where the timber is. If any of the skin is over hanging, it can be removed with a router.

Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro is an Italian term that translates as light-dark. It refers to the balance and pattern of light and shade in a painting, drawing, film or photo. Chiaroscuro is generally only remarked upon when it is a particularly prominent feature of the work, usually when the artist is using extreme contrasts of light and shade. This is used in the genre of Psychological horror to help create an eerie atmosphere, seen in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’, and ‘The Haunting’, directed by Robert Wise.
I think it would be a strong achievement to create a chiaroscuro effect in our sets, especially in Gregor’s bedroom to reflect the destruction and terror on the walls, floor and furniture.

Fig. 1. Martin, Tommy (2001) Tommy Martin Photography
http://www.tommymartin.co.uk/Print_Portfolio/Chiaroscuro_I.html (Acessed 03/04/11)

Fig. 2 Unexplained stuff (2008) Ghostly Beings http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Ghosts-and-Phantoms/Ghostly-Beings-Ghosts-of-the-living.html (Acessed on 03/04/11)