One-wall sets
While watching part of “Dead Men Tell Tales” on the Dead Zone TV series tonight, I saw a great technique for creating one-wall sets.
By purchasing textured plastic, the kind that fits over office fluorescent lights, you can reproduce great windows that add life to your sets. Here are two examples.
The first one was a hospital room. There were only two angles used. One was on the hospital bed. The shot was tight enough that all you saw was a high tech background on the wall. The bed was low enough you could only see the lower portion of it.
And there was the “across the room” shot. The top half of the wall was the frosted plastic. But it was covered with a lattice that divided it up to the size of glass blocks. It looked expensive. And best of all, you couldn’t see anything clearly through it except a pattern of light.
The second shot was of an office. The men entered through a doorway but you never saw clearly into the room. Next, one of the men sat down at a desk. You never saw any other part of the room. The back wall was divided by a vertical window that looked like frosted plastic with two-inch wide frosted tape on it in a wide grid pattern. A couple of sheets of wall paneling and the plastic “window” was all there was. There were men standing in front of the desk to give the room depth. Add closeups of the men and you’ve got the shot.
Now there could have been more to it than that. I was seeing the shots how an independent filmmaker would have done it.
– Rich Pulham
Leave a Reply