Studio Shoot - Set Building

Once the walls were firmly secured and in the correct position for the shoot, we began designing the interior of the prison walls. The crew managed to gather a load of old books from the charity shop, in which we all tore every page from it and sorted them form the lightest to heaviest pages.

We broke off into small teams to work of different parts of the wall. Two people were pasting the pages at a time, whilst two people would stick them onto the walls. To speed up the process, we had an extra person use a brush to go over the pages in order to make sure it stayed stuck on the wall.

As we got closer to the centre of the room (where the bricks would be placed), it was decided that the pages would curve around the centre, indicating to the character that there is something behind the wall. We made sure that every part of the wall was covered completely before continuing on.

We did have a couple problems during this point, as the wallpaper paste on the pages was making it incredibly heavy for it to hold to the wall. Therefore, this created a problem of the pages peeling back. This problem was rectified by using masking tape to secure it into place by sticking it on the top of the wall and over to the other side so the camera wouldn't pick it up during filming.

On the other side of the centre wall, we painted it in black. This would therefore cover the 'wooden' look from behind when shooting it from this side (after the character breaks through).

The foam bricks were brought in to be used as the inner bricks of the wall (of which the character would break through). After a test, it was decided that clay would be the best material to cover them in, as it would give the desired crumble effect once dried. Therefore, a group of us covered all the required bricks with clay by mixing it in water.

 Once dried, we tested the bricks by stacking them in the hole (some bricks had to be cut in half for it to fit). Laura decided that the bricks would look better painted maroon, therefore we began to test out how a clay covered brick would look once painted. We then painted all the bricks and let the dry before continuing.

The outcome (above picture) was achieved by only sticking the side bricks onto the wall therefore allowing the actor to break through the middle without any struggles.

The hole was then to be carefully covered whilst still implementing the curve and keeping the consistency from both sides. We had to make sure that the wall wasn't too heavy that the pages would peel off, however if it was too thin then the bricks would be visible from the other side. Thinner pages were chosen and we used less wall paste in order for it to weigh less.

The final step in creating the set was to tea stain the pages, giving a 'weathered' and 'used' effect.

During the day of filming, we placed the props and took pictures (in which Leanna was in charge of continuity). The mattress was a problem at first because it kept sliding due to the actor's movements during the beginning of the scene. This was rectified by taping the underside of it to the floor, giving it less chance to move when pressured.