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Building my new set framework.

mrhogg

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Hey, check it out: I'm finally starting to build the set framework I planned back in November:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/inelegant/sets/72157604536830313/

I'll have fully half of the chunks built today, and the other half will get put in probably a couple/few weeks. The remarkable part of all this is that it looks like it might actually work, which is phenomenal.

Aside from the fact that I'm pretty happy with the way it's so far looking, I thought I'd pass along the photos in case it's useful to anyone else.

For sake of clarity:
The set framework is comprised of a series of 2' wide, 9' high segments, with a "wall" stretching from 4' - 9'. These segments are arrayed modularly depending on the need of the scene. My initial plan is to build 12 of them, plus a pair without backing (that can be windows or doorway segments). This number will let me have a variety of room sizes, as well as two rooms joined by a hallway or doorway, a closed-room of enough size to have puppeteer and camera operator, and a long-enough hallway (15 or more segments would work for a nice endless hallway) to have multiple twists and corners.

Each of these segments, when arranged, will have decorated set chunks clamped onto them, allowing the same piece of framework to be used as the backbone of every set that I'll want to use. Also, because I'll be able to make "long" hallways, with some careful editing I can make it look like I'm filming in a full-sized set, as though I've actually built an entire office-space (as this was originally conceived of for dotBoom), and am not filming in a 15x30 space.

Now, this may be the way everybody else does it, but it wasn't the first thing that occurred to me, and I'm pretty excited by the idea.

What do you think?
 

Toasty

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Hey Brian

Looks like things are coming along nicely. Congrats.

I really like the modular concept going on here. It should give you all kinds of flexibility---even to the point where you could swing in different set elements during a continuous take to create those "endless hallway of doors" gag that we don't see much since the WB classic Loony Tunes.

The only thing that struck me about your design that might be a bit of an issue is the overall height of these pieces. 9' is probably barely tall enough for a standing puppeteer to work and move comfortably (without hunching a lot), but it doesn't give you a ton of extra set headroom to do any type of camera tilts from low angles pointing up. It also limits the use of wider lenses, or limited DOF long shots with the subject close to camera and the background at enough distance to achieve the effect.

If your studio ceilings are high enough (they look like 12 foot at least in the photos), you should be able to add skids to the bottoms of these set pieces to extend the height when needed for shots like I mentioned above. Optimal puppeteer standing height and mobility is something that only you will have a good sense of once you start moving around with other performers in the space.

I only bring up these few things in case you haven't thought of them yet.

Best of luck with the progress!
:smile:
 

mrhogg

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Yeah, it occurs to me that they're a little short. The riser idea is one I'd had, though I suppose since I'll be the tallest performer, I'll have to do a little more ducking down than I otherwise might.

Also, since I'm going to be clamping things to the framework, I *might* be able to get by having the visual stuff go up a little higher above the framework. That might not be structurally too sound, but I'm not planing on making any of the things very heavy.

Thanks for the feedback, Toasty. It's always good to know that the ideas you're having to fix problems are reasonable. :smile:
 
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