South 40- A 48 Hour Film Project

South 40

I've very happy to announce that the film I worked on for the the 48 Hour Film Project 2013, won Best Actress and Best Ensemble Cast. Watch the film South 40, directed by John Whitney, here. I worked as the Production Designer for the film with 2 other fellow students, Jamie Yuhasz, and Naomi Rossman. Our Professor, Phil Garrett, asked us to help on the project.

The whole weekend was a whirlwind! For the 48 Film Project we received our genre, prop, line of dialogue, and character name Friday night.  We pulled the genre Fantasy. The prop was an extension cord, line of dialogue, "That's not a real word.", and the character Dennis or Denise Smith who is an assistant.

The writing crew then had to write the entire screenplay that evening. The art department stayed up to find out if we needed any special props for filming the next day. Our call time for the production was 8:00 AM the next morning, out on a cow farm! 

I got an email early in the morning saying we needed a box. A special box. Turns out we didn't have a box like the one we were looking for so Jamie and I ran to the Goodwill in search of a box. I found a nice wooden jewelry box and some matching belts that could be fastened around the box to look like leather straps. 

It was nice and rainy that day so we had some fun 'distressing' the box. The result is below:

Another aspect of the art department was choosing the wardrobe for the actors. Since we were out on a farm, the actors brought all their rustic clothing. We then chose the best outfits for the characters. Since Dennis Smith was more lighthearted and comedic we gave him a lighter colored ensemble, while Bobby was given a darker wardrobe. 

 Here is a still of Bobby opening the box with the set behind him that we dressed. We found some really interesting old tools and signs in the barn that we placed around the scene.

 Here is a still from the kitchen. Jamie and I placed everything you see in the frame!

 We wrapped up production just under 12 hours. It was great fun and a great learning experience working with professionals in the field. I had a blast working on such a great film with a fantastic crew. Really outstanding. I plan on participating in more 48 film projects in the future.

Thanks for everyone's support!

Enter into the Castle...

Hello! Over the past few months, I've been helping my friend and fellow artist, Anna Johnson, build sets for her church. Her church puts on huge play productions during the year and this year was their very first Vacation Bible School.  Anna asked me to help her with the some of the pieces she designed for VBS.

I only managed to get a few pics of one of the entrance pieces. The VBS had a medieval theme for the week. We also constructed and painted a HUGE castle, not pictured.

The pieces were made of cardboard sheets stapled to a wooden frame. We then used house paint to paint the stones and stained glass on. 

Anna is measuring out the bricks here. Below you can see some of the progress!

It was a really great experience building these sets with Anna. From what I heard the VBS went well too and the kids loved them!