bonds

I did the production design for Bonds; a film written and directed by Janice Lee. If anyone remembers the show Ready or Not, the woman who played Busy is the star of this film.

Unfortunately due to massive need to be in classes, I could only be on set for a couple of the days, but the wonderful Crystal Basaez took care of the on set art tasks while I was away.

Here's some stills from the two main locations:

It will be screening on the evening of April 20, 2010 at the Price Family Cinema at York University. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

7/52

production designer habitat, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Last week's photo. I was busybusy times on set, so I just snapped this really quick at lunch time since I didn't have time to do a planned photoshoot of any kind.

'Tis the set I designed and built in the sound stage at York! I now want tinfoil stars and christmas lights everywhere in my life.

I'll upload a selection of production stills once I catch up on all the work I've been neglecting to do in liu of this film~

fear

I Art Directed another 4th year York University film recently; written and directed by the fabulous Shannon Fewster (cutester!). It shot from November 19-23, 2009 on many locations with many characters! I only have snaps from a couple of the days though; the classroom and the car scenes. The actual classroom was very bare bones, so we needed to make it fun and math-y looking. The car scene was pretty light for my department, but I got to wrangle some raindrops and how often can you say you've done that~

This still kills me. I know it's so she can see the monitor better, but it still looks like a lunch bag to me.

Check my raindrop skills.

The film won't be completed until the end of the school year, same with Boycatt, so unfortunately I won't know how either of them turned out until I get to see them at the end of year screenings.

Fortunately, I was recently contacted by my director for It's Raining and he's sending me the completed copy of the film. Can't wait to see it! I may be working with him again on his next project, so perhaps you'll be seeing more updates from me on that front.

And now, back to my many remaining final projects for the semester...

boycatt

I worked on another film over this past weekend. It was directed by my ol' roommate Tess Marie Garneau. It shot from October 22-26 for a 4th year York University student film production in quite a variety of locations. Unfortunately I was too busy to take stills in a few of the places, but for the park day I had some spare time to run around with a camera.

The majority of these photos will be from the outdoor pet show scene. We shot in Trinity Bellwoods dog park and it was a gorgeous fall day!

Our AD taking a break under a tree at lunch.

Is this not the dog from the Sand Lot?

This is 'Lole', he's a little down on his luck.

Our Production Manager doing a little dance.

I had to make a giant cheque for our pet show winner.

Cinematographer.

The pet show set.

The make up team.

The evil encyclopedia salesmen mafia.

Our lovely director... being lovely.

 The main cast, sans Milo the cat.

It was an interesting five days. I learned a lot, had some fun, and worked with some pretty rad people (for the most part).

My roommate will be editing it, so when he gets around to sorting out the footage I'll see if he can provide me with some stills from the film to show ye alls. The colours in this movie are going to be beautiful, I can't wait to see the final product.

it's raining

This film was shot on June 21, 2009. It was written and directed by Will Murphy and is special to me because it was my very first non-student production. It was a simple set up, just a bedroom and a bathroom, but the director trusted me with creative freedom to just bring in whatever and dress it how I felt. That was awesome, because the character who the room belonged to was pretty much in the exact demographic as I am, so a lot of my own things ended up being in the shots.

Worked out pretty well, the end budget for art department was only $4.52, which was spent on pregnancy tests from the dollar store for props. I still find it hilarious that you can buy pregnancy tests at the dollar store. They were perfect though because they were label free.

You can find more stills from the day here in my Flickr set, but here's a few favourites:

realization, originally uploaded by avalilly.

connection, originally uploaded by avalilly.

camera, originally uploaded by avalilly.

blanket, originally uploaded by avalilly.

lil hammer, big hammer, originally uploaded by avalilly.

makeup tears, originally uploaded by avalilly.

Overall it was pretty much the best experience I've had on set to date. There were a handful of industry professionals on the crew that graciously donated their time to help make this film. It was a really interesting change from working on student productions. Everything went by much quicker with a lot less downtime and everyone stuck to their own job, etc. I thought it might be more difficult to work with strangers, but it was a surprisingly lovely experience!

The film is not yet completed last I heard, but I can't wait to see the finished product!

henry

Here are some random snaps I took on the set of Henry; a third year student film production @ York University 2009 written and directed by Howard Shefman.

scene crop, originally uploaded by avalilly.

crew powwow, originally uploaded by avalilly.

I was called in pretty last minute (which I don't think I'll be doing in the future) to do set dressing for the apartment scenes. It was fun, I pretty much just had to make an eclectic apartment appear more sophisticated with what was available in front of me. I enjoy playing around with stuff like that. It was a bit of a tight space to work in, but the final product looked quite nice. My production stills aren't that great - I didn't want to get in the way too much while everyone was moving lights and pondering the frame so I just sort of captured what I could from the corners.

starstruck

Yesterday, I helped out my friend on a film. She was in charge of make-up and needed someone to help do hair. It was quite a bit of fun, actually. Normally I help with the art direction and set dec, but I got to curl a bunch of hair and style it so it could atleast pass for the 1930's which is probably one of my favourite style eras, so I enjoyed it muchly.

Some snaps:

You can find more in my starstruck set on Flickr!

I'm looking into getting an EF 50mm f/1.8 lens. Found one on amazon for pretty cheap, so I may just have to pick one up. From what I've seen, it takes beautiful photos of people and is a generally great lens for multipurpose photography. Shame it feels so flimsy though. Ah well, it's not like I can afford anything too fancy! Yet, anyways. ;)