Tinkerer Production - Day 1

Yep, it's that time again. Time to make some movie magic. I've been enlisted to be production designer on a short film directed by the creative dynamo JP3&M (Justin and Martin). The story will be driven by its heavy and dynamic visual style, so a lot of work will be put into the physical set, props, and costumes. Right now it's being described as "depression era with a steam punk twist".

More will be revealed as work progresses. For now, here's a little taste of the set we're building in my doodle design form.

The main room will have a series of "curved metal" arches that will actually have a crisscross pattern (kinda like on a bridge). Thankfully I've got mastermind Dylan on my side, so we might actually use something called "math" to get this thing accurate.

The story mostly takes place in a mysterious repair shop run by an eccentric "fix-it" man. So picture lots of tools, broken appliances, moody lights, dark wood ect. Even though it is a reletivly small set, I'm probably going to be traveling like a nomad between every garage sale, antique store, thrift shop, and flea market for the next month and a half to get enough junk to fill this place.

The main room is the shop where the Tinkerer does his work and talks to customers:


Then in the back there is a very small living space, connected to the shop by a large vault-style door (salvaged from the Argos set)


The space we are building in is a live/work loft, so Spenser is going to have a repair shop in his living room for the next few months.

The first day of construction involved a lot of wood carrying and cutting...

Dylan can press a third of a do-decagon no problem

...a lot of recycled screws that needed chugging sorting...

Don't let their enthusiasm fool you. Only I lasted longer than the first five minutes.

... and the construction of the first arch.

Epic tallness!

Unfortunately there aren't any pictures of the event, but since the four epic 16 foot 2x4 boards didn't fit in the truck the directors volunteered to carry them back from home depot back to the space on foot.

Martin: "Why don't we just carry the four 16 foot 2x4s a mile"
Justin: "Sure Martin, doesn't sound that bad."

Long story short, they survived and we got our boards. Okay guys, now we need more 1x4's!

Work is going to happen fast over the coming weeks. Stay tuned for more shenanigans as the Tinkerer's shop comes to life, and my bedtime get pushed back later and later.

This is a pizza powered production