Production on a Budget: Production Design & Method-Acting Insight

 Many newcomers to the film scene, or even experienced filmmakers, have trouble finding funding to properly set up their project. There are many ways to solve this problem and make your film/short film/music video, even documentary, seem more legitimate.

Here’s a little introduction from Shot of the Week’s YouTube channel about Production Design:

Production Design is something that impacts all aspects of film, especially shot composition, and is often overlooked. A good majority of filmmakers are so caught up in what camera or equipment they might be using, that they forget to actually create an environment to help drive the story the camera is trying to capture. Don’t spend all of your money on camera equipment when your set, lighting and story are just as important.

For those on a budget – or no budget -, you first might want to look into what is available to you through family, friends or crew members. You may need to implement some bargaining to get volunteers give you what you need. Craigslist is a great resource to use to find furniture and other gems you might not have thought would be useful until you stumble upon them. Small elements like a stack of magazines from a certain period in time can cause an impact if you use it correctly. A good tip to keep in mind is not everything should look like you just bought it from target – unless you’re going for that sort of thing – and should have some measurement of wear and tear. Having an environment look lived-in is the goal, whether adding some garbage wrappers or open books can help significantly, depending on your story.

Location scouting can save you a lot of big bucks if you look for locations that have a foundation you can build off of or use as is. If you find an interesting church, get permission, just be sure to be conservative with what you film at those locations. Some university campuses are home to some gothic and historical structures that are perfect for filming, just need to go through the proper channel to gain permission. If you’re going location scouting for structures you can use as a castle, you may run into a little trouble, that’s if you’re unable to make one yourself. Nether Craft is an awesome company that creates many varieties of crypt walls, castle windows, stained glass and statues that for under a grand, you could easily put together you’re very own castle. Their options range from Egyptian to Steampunk elements and with good lighting, you could fool anyone.  

Another issue no-budget/low-budget productions run into is sub-par acting. Method-acting, if used correctly, could be the change you’re looking for if you can’t seem to put your finger on the problem. Acting teacher, Constantin Stanislavski, was one of the figureheads of the Theatrical Realist Movement who taught the ‘System’ as a psychological model of method-acting to fully indulge and explore the fictional life of the character the actor is playing. Be mindful that certain aspects of method-acting involve keeping imperative information secret from another actor, but if the result can lead to harm, it’s better to inform the actor of what is to come but not how it is being revealed or what actually is to protect against some serious repercussions. A great example is The Blair Witch Project and the approach their crew took for filming the feature since they decided to take method-acting to the next level. The production was completely immersive and the crew barely came into contact with the cast while they were out in the woods. Insight from the crew’s commentary was given about how they achieved the level of fear they were able to create. The actors were set out on a mapped-out trail through the woods with care-packages that would be left for them by the crew, containing food, directions and, notes on what to do next. This helped to strategically take the actors on their adventure in real time.  Prior to filming, the production team had named the word ‘taco’ as the code-word to let the actors know when to break scenario whenever something had to be changed or fixed. Another tactic used was throughout filming, the crew was packing less and less food by the end of production to boost stress levels amongst the actors as the story was rapidly starting to implode. On the last two days, the remaining actors were only given a protein bar, a piece of fruit, and a bottle of water.

All in all, when using these methods to boost an aesthetically pleasing environment and performance correctly, you are able to bask in the finished product’s glory. But of course, with everything, there is always a trial and error, and alternate routes to take to tell the story you have created.

TED Talk: A Journey Through the Mind of an Artist - Who Inspires Me

Link to TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/dustin_yellin_a_journey_through_the_mind_of_an_artist#t-168180

A Journey Through the Mind of an Artist, done by speaker Dustin Yellin was a TED video that inspired me the most in many ways. Dustin is an artist that works with glass panes and paints on each layer individually to create a three-thousand-pound glass block with a person entrapped in this ‘box’ and their bodies are made out of different elements and different stories. Some of these stories that are told within every contour of the piece are both original, made-up stories. Others incorporate past events that have happened in our history, even taking some inspiration from other art works.

It was visible how excited Dustin was to talk about the layers and specific attributes he had incorporated into various pieces to show just how much detail and thought he put into it. His art work has a certain complexity to it, one piece in particular that he did is called the Triptych. The whole piece weighs 2400 pounds, is eight feet long, and is double sided. There is definitely a theme that I am seeing that I would compare to giving ‘Calamity’ as a whole and giving it a body form pertaining to its’ own story. Watching him talk about some little details that were meaningful to him made a definite connection to me, being an artist myself. What I took away from this TED Talk was making the ‘box’ we live in look a lot more than what we see. Show a connection between the environment and story that makes it it’s own is basically my goal in life.

The work that I plan to do for my online presence is continue and finish working on my website that will display my portfolio digitally and add more content to my LinkedIn. There are some projects that I’ve done recently that I haven’t added yet to any social media accounts. I haven’t checked my Klout score since the bachelor’s program so I would love to see where I’m at and interact more with counterparts that I admire online.

Entertainment Research

There are many repeated arguments and innovations that are happening in the entertainment industry, in general. People blog and bicker about film-reliant equipment switching over to digital to get rid of the dark age of cinema completely. This is happening everywhere along with copyright and piracy, but there a lot more interesting things going on with the new age of film.

There is a small revolution of style coming from directors like Wes Anderson and Jonathan Dayton. The Indie era is upon us, and its baggage is more psychological horror than before. Little Miss Sunshine (2006), directed by Jonathan Dayton only showed the beginning signs of this detached style. The article that talks about this movie – 10 Wes Anderson-Like Movies Not by Wes Anderson – points out certain aspects of the film like the charming, dysfunctional family with a turn-table moral to the story after a touching journey. There is a new hybrid that is a blend of horror and indie that have a very special relationship. A 2004 Issue of DGA Magazine published an article that talks about the directors – some being Guillermo de Toro, Wes Craven and John Carpenter – that broke through the stereotype to give it a different feel. According to Guillermo, “horror and surprise are very different”. For him, he is evolving the modern horror scene by introducing terror that goes beyond “dread and menace” as Guillermo describes it. This change gives the audience the element of surprise and absolute fright without limitations. Having started the process of working on a show that is being worked on personally, the differentiation between horror and terror would play a big part in the suspense theme that my director and I have chosen.

Innovation has always been within any industry to help people think outside the box and be semi-original. There are many different methods to go about doing this, one example of how to pull off a beach set indoors is truly amazing. Anyone can dump sand into a room, let’s be honest, but you have to think about the big picture. A Swedish director by the name of Roy Andersson built a fairly convincing and realistic beach scene within a soundstage. Not to mention that this method could also be the cheapest or at least save you a good amount of money. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, is a piece with the particular beach setting and there is even a video provided that shows the grueling process that was totally worth it in the end. Batman Begins had one of the largest indoor sets that anyone could create. The monastery where Bruce Wayne has a battle with Henri Ducard and his ninjas, possesses elements that would definitely convince viewers who have not seen an actual monastery, and those who have, that it could be an actual location. The reason why these beach and monastery settings were so believable ties into a different subject – detail. Having said that, when you are in possession of some very complex characters, the spaces they occupy like their rooms or places of study will take a huge amount of thought in how you would like your audience to perceive them without a line being spoken by the actor.

The little things matter, is what we learn from npr.org that features an article emphasizing on ‘Tiny Details Count’. The indoor beach set that was previously mentioned had small elements that not just anyone would think to include. There were fans that were set up inside to give the illusion of a breeze passing over during a normal day, and if you look real closely, those buildings off in the distance are really miniatures. Miniatures are very fun to work with, especially if you are playing with your camera placement and angles. There is only one more thing, the sky is fake as well. Without having to fight for location permits, and racing against the sun to get the perfect shot, your lighting will remain consistent if that is what you desire for this method. Not to mention that going along with miniatures and fabricated backgrounds helps directors and production designers to encase their audience in a world of their own; it’s something that the viewer can take home with them that nobody has ever showed them before. Getting the Design Details Just Right, is an article that discusses the production design for various shows that were popular in 2015. The meticulous details for the show Gotham are intriguing, taking into account that Gotham is a place of fiction and crime. Like many other movies and shows, elements are taken from actually locations and altered to help fit in to their new space during filming to separate the story from the real world. Certain situations call for different design elements and tactics as displayed in one episode of Gotham where the Penguin took a bath in his mothers’ eccentric tub. The tub is what made the room one of its own as it stood proud in the middle of a bedroom, which is what you don’t normally see but it showed you just how messed up Penguin is ‘upstairs’.

One set that will continue to amaze for generations among many other famous ones would have to be Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from Harry Potter. To be able to capture that amount of magic that the brilliant book series held required an immense amount of work to go alone with it. Miniatures have been used for movies like Alien, Lord of the Rings and Ghostbusters but as time goes on, the amount of detail and thought that goes into each square inch of the miniature is meticulous. This isn’t elementary school anymore; 40 people over the expanse of seven months worked day and night on the Hogwarts miniature that will show up 60 x 50 x 30 ft high on a 1:24 scale. Masterful Miniatures, published in 2012 by Big Picture Magazine, is an article that talks about the epic film Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang that utilized miniatures to achieve the futuristic world that doesn’t exist yet. The design team of Metropolis used models, matte paintings and miniatures to strike the audience across the face with a futuristic take on canyon-like streets between towers.

Having understood and researched the impact that miniatures and locations have on successful movies has given a new perspective, especially on the budget. Not every movie calls for a real location to be turned into something else to fit a crew’s needs that costs thousands a day to work there. Being resourceful and innovative in today’s day and age seems to pay off more and more with the degree of thought that is put into it.