Some images of the lit drawing room.

The photographers came down and showed us the basics of how to use the cameras and lighting equipment. We went through all the possible effects that could be created with lighting e.g different size light, different filters, the barn doors and how to animate light. They also went trough the cameras and how they worked explaining the different setting such as the effect that the aperture can have on the amount of light there is is a shot. After going through all the equipment we began to think how we could light our too rooms using the techniques they had taught us. They explained how in the industry they would start with a crewed drawing of the room and how they think it should be lighted and then they get stuck in with trying to light it like that, which is what we did. We started with the study.

Once we had some decent shots on the drawing room we moved into the drawing room.

The final shoot

We had finally made it, the last day, everything had come together (I never lost hope). We just had a couple of final additions before the photographers turned up. Rhyan bought in the rugs for both rooms, we borrowed a couple of nik naks from the other group in order to fill out all the shelf space we had in the drawing room and finally Fiona had bought some fake plants and some real flowers to brighten up the drawing room. We also covered all the windows with black cloth to stop additional light coming in whilst filming and also to block out the setting of the workshop. Andy and Simon also put a black cloth over the top of the study to create a really dark setting; which personally i think was a mistake when it came to filming as it took a lot of light out of the room making it harder to light.

DEATH to the screen!

We had also decided early on that we wanted to screen to have a representation of death on it too. So Sarah and I went about distressing the screens hole section. We began by roughing up the material that we had left dangling; which turned out to be harder then expected but this some frantic snipping with a pair of scissors Sarah soon got the job done, I proceeded to apply black paint roughly around the hole to hopefully achieve the effect of 'death' penetrating the screen. once the paint was dry more french polish was applied to some of the surrounding frame and running down the legs. The effect was most horrific!

Death corner...the second attempt

After some deliberation with simon and a couple of other group members Sarah and I decided to further abuse the 'death corner' We thought that french polish was a good idea as when splashed with water gave a really convincing white mould effect. We simple applied liberal amounts of french polish and then splashed with large amounts of water which gave a really horrific white mould that both me and sarah adored but unfortunately the other group members thought otherwise so me and sarah dulled it down slightly with the addition of more french polish but without the presence of water this time.

Panelling

The paneling was a group effort. Simon showed us the basics and we all chipped in to get it done. We started with the skirting board. 20mm MDF was used to make the skirting board. We used spaces behind it to make appear wider then it was. Once these where drilled into the flats the first layer of paneling was placed on to on this being drilled straight into the wall with no spacer.

Once the bottom of the paneling was attached the up right pieces could be attached. We had a guide piece of ply wood that was the right size for the centre of the paneling which we placed in the middle of the wall, we then placed an up right either side of this and drilled then into the wall to look something like this...
This image shows the finished paneling. The top pieces have been attached (done the same way as the bottom) and all the screws have been poly fillered. Once these were done Callum used the hand held router to give a nice curved edge to all the inside panel pieces and also the top edge.

Once this was done they were ready to be painted, but just before that I had to mask of all the centre panels so that they didn't get any paint on them potentially ruining the wood grain effect they had already been given.

The deathly corner

Sarah and I still had to create out death corner where the screen would stand. The idea is that its a metaphor for death within the room. The main aim was to create a decaying corner that represented 'death' we choose to move away from the idea of personification fairly early on in the project as it would seem quite 'disney' with the budget we had and it would be hard to come up with an original concept and make it within the time we had. We had a rough idea of what we wanted - a dark corner with forms of mould/ drips/ decay and an indication of growth into the room. We began by putting down a base coat of black and very dar brown to get an idea of size and shape, we initially drew the size of the screen on the floor to ensure the right coverage was made. Once a base coat was applied we used more black and brown applied using sponges so that it seemed like a very random coverage. We wanted to build up some real texture. To get further texture we used saw dust and wood chippings to add a bit more bulk. We used water and sponge to bleed out the edges on the blackness to give the idea of growth as well. This also gave us a really good dripping effect running down the wall which we really liked and applied to most areas of the wall. We also got a good effect from rubbing areas on wet paint away from the dry paint below to leave patchy green and black areas.