The Machinist

Considered something of a cult classic this films owes a great deal to many older sources, but as such the world created by Kosar and Anderson is wonderfully nightmarish and for all it's influences shockingly original. The film explores many themes the primary two being guilt and madness. Themes that can in conjunction with one another be arguably traced back as far as Poe's The Telltale Heart short story but the film has a complexity that truly makes it a modern classic.

The set designs as seems typical with most of the great Psychological thrillers are a marvel to behold with the dreamlike ghost train sequence being of particular note for it's wonderful otherworldly quality and intelligent use of garish theme park style design. The main character's apartment is reminscent of jacob's Ladder in the sense that it seems to be a world of it's own in constant flux. This is particularly true of the kitchen enviroment which changes constantly throughout the film.

It could be said that while Christian Bale plays the lead role very well for the majority of the film there are areas where he appears to lapse into almost of parody of the character he is portraying but these are few and far between as for the most part he does a truly incredible job of making himself believable.

The lighting in the film is of note as it is incredibly cold seeming utilizing lots of blue filter and high contrast blacks, this gives the film a very washed out look reminiscent of modern independant movies that aim for a gritty feel. However this does not have the indie feel as the lighting brings great effect to the mood of the piece and helps draw you in to what the character is experiencing.

Like most films of it's kind The Machinist will keep you guessing right until the end while at the same time exploring some complex themes the use of insomnia and madness as a theme is very well interweaved leaving you questioning the credibilty of both the main protagonist and the world he occupies, these elements especially the use of hallucinations as a plot device brought to mind the earlier work Requiem For a Dream which like this used hallucination to great and horrific effect.

There is a lot about the film's production that while incredible is also very understated. This is played to grreat effect and keeps a firm foothold on suspension of disbelief, arguably an important fact considering the surreal almost expressionist quality of the film. For example a major catalyst in the storyline is a man's arm getting severely injured in a piece of machinery which is used to break up the routine of the main character's life and send him on a downward spiral. The special effect used to create this accident are incredible but the gore of the accident is not overstated leaving a more lasting effect merely from the actor's reactions which are it could be said quite realistic. this focus on emotion over event give the film a true feeling of dread throughout as the majority of the film is character driven drama.

Rear Window

Alfred Hitchcock's Incredibly influential Psychological Thriller could be said to be a staple of the genre.
It uses the ordinary everyday setting of an apartment to great effect in creating an atmosphere of incredibly powerful paranoia that will raise many questions to the veiwer.

For example the main protagonist seems to become more unbalanced as the films goes on giving a great red herring typical of Hitchcock's style that leaves you questioning wether isolation has merely let the character's sanity unravel or wether something more sinister is actually going on.

The set though very everyday in appearance is actually a marvel when you realise the amount of timing required to pull off seamless scene changes without using cuts. also the level of visibilty between areas of the setting make it an incredible technical feat as it is possible to see glimpses of interactions between the supporting cast in a beleivable way that still means you get a good idea of what is going on. Making it both beleivable and coherent.

The majority of the story arc centers around a crime commited in the area of a housing blockwith views into the everyday lives of the tennants, this style has been emulated by such works as Silent Hill 4; The Room which shares the plot device of a man trapped inside his apartment whose link to the outside world becomes a level of voyeurism. As with most work by Hitchcock he gets incredible performances out of his cast as considering the era they play their roles in a convincingly human manner. The interaction between characters is a great strength of the piece as is the use of camera angles as most action within the block is shot from the main protagonist's perspective giving the removed isolated feel to the viewer that he is feeling throughout..
This is particularly effective during scenes of suspense such as when the character of Lisa goes to investigate the flat of the man suspected of murder. The camera gives a true sense of helplessness in this very well timed and choreographed scene.

An interesting idea brought forward by the film seems to be that of two worlds interacting and crossing over. This is given in the sense that the apartment bound Jeffries inhabits one plain of existance as a man shut in a box and unable to leave and the vibrant world of the apartments below. It could be argued that the jeffries character yearns for the interaction they share that he is lacking and becomes obsessed with it to the point of this second world violating his world the way he has violated it with his obsessive voyuerism.
An interesting dynamic is the character of Lisa who is able to traverse both these plains and act as a go between which seems to spur jeffries obsession on.

Another interesting quality to the film is the multi-layered approach to story telling. This is evidenced by the lives of all the people in the neighborhood being played out before the main cast which leaves the film with several interlacing and complex storylines.

I feel that this film is important to the genre as it raises many questions about voyeurism and obsession that outside of the particular genre might not have been so clearly or neatly constructed and as such it attaches the audience to the protagonists in a profoundly intimate way. For example Jeffries' slip into voyueristic obsession is not only his journey but the audience's as well.

The Shining

This film for me evokes childhood memories and I feel it is a true classic of the psychological thriller genre easily alongside such greats as Blue Velvet and Jacob's Ladder. Firstly I feel it is important to mention that aside all else the sets are absolutley amazing and in my mind put to very good use.There is a running theme throughout the movie of long narrow corridors that is even present in the final outdoor chase scene through a hedge maze, This give the film an almost choking air of claustrophobia and opression that seems to run through the whole movie.

The lighting in the film is quite bland and oddly this works well given the events within. For example the majority of the film is set in a very bright well lit clean hotel but given that the main plot involves a man being driven slowly mad by ghosts trying to make him commit matricide this mundane setting brings it into reality which I feel makes it truly terrifying If it had for example been very dark and dingy I don't personally feel that the effect would have been quite as powerful.

The main cast is comprised of three actors with very few supporting, however whilst this would normally be a challenge from an acting standpoint the tension in direction and soundtrack intersperesed with incredibly frantic scenes of action and terror break it up enough to remain dynamic. The main cast is as well incredibly talented, being fronted by Jack Nicholson in what is probably his most iconic role to date. Alongside Nicholson is Child actor Danny Lloyd who while not the most fluid actor does a good job of creating tension with some very deadpan moments played out to great effect like the infamous 'REDRUM' scene.


The only possible downside that comes to mind fresh from watching this movie is that sometimes the pacing depending on opinion can seem a little off. Personally I like the mixture of slow tension build interspersed with dramatic scenes as I feel it adds to the overall atmosphere of the movie, but it is not something that everyone will enjoy especially not those that are new to Kubrick's style and pacing.

In comparison to other work of this ilk from other filmmakers it could be said that The Shining verges more towards traditional ideas of horror rather than flat out Psychological thriller. For example Psycho is considered by many to be a classic of the genre and by comparison there is very little bloodshed or violence whereas the famous elevator of blood scene from the shining could be said to have echoes of straight forward shock horror the likes of which were made famous by actors like Vincent Price and studios like Hammer, however The Shining plays this as a strength managing to combine both genre areas and remain slick .

In conclusion I will say that while it may not be for everyone there are doubtless those that will enjoy the sense of dread this movie evokes through simple tools like repetition of work and almost surreal interactions (especially between the films ghosts and the main antagonist) and as such it deserves recognition as one of kubrick's finest moments and one of cinema's greatest horror movies.

My final job on the set was to add a bit of distress to the flooring in Gregor's room. As I have mentioned before I had hope to put debris on the floor along with ripped up floorboards, however time was a factor and I simply ran out of time to do an effective job and therefore concerntrated on making what I had got look good.

I first of all scratched veiny marks into the floor much like my design sheet, I'm not sure if my intended effect works as I wanted it to as I was trying to acheive the look of the room almost seeming to grow veins as a reflection of Gregor's metamorphosis the room was to be transforming as well. Then I startedadding large quantities of mud everywhere that added the natural distressed chernobyl look I had been originally after the effect was simple but incredibly effective.

Overall I am pleased with the work I have done on this project, though I do wish I had managed my time better to include effects that I think would have really added to the atmosphere of the set.

The main room ran along very much similar lines to the bedroom paint wise except this time I gave the whole floor a coat of varnish to make it look slightly newer. also before painting on my base coat I laid out the carpet I had aquired for the room postioned it where it would go and marked this area off with masking tape to save myself time and paint.
The carpet I have for this room is old and worn and very much matches the wallpaper in colour. I have purchesed a lampshade lining to use as edging for the carpet all of which I will simply tack into the mdf floor.

This picture demonstrates my final flooring in the main living room area with the worn carpet laying across the old looking floorboards. I am quite pleased with the end effect.

Creating Floorboards from paint

To create the look of floorboards I used illusionary painting skills that we had previously been shown. First I painted on my base coat of a mixed dark brown. Then leaving the masking tape in place I ran down either edge with a thin paint brush and some very dark watered down paint. THis gave me a darkened edge effect to work with during this process I was also leaving random marks of dark brown across the boards to create the effect of natural discolouration. With this done I painted onto the area patchy bits of a dark brown similar to the base colour but a bit darker, smudged the edges in and then ran the length of each board with a rubber wood grain tool. This all created a brilliant effect but I felt that something was still missing.

 I consulted Fellow group member Stuart Lennon whose opinion on 3d texturing I hold in high regard to see what he would come up with. His idea was to Gouge straight lines into the edging of the floorboards to create a 3d worn look. We tested this on a corner piece and the effect was incredibly satisfying so I performed the technique of using a sharpened nail and an offcut of straight MDF to gouge areas across the floor.

Satisfied with my results I gave the entire floor a final wash with a heavily diluted black paint just to darken the boards a bit and blend everything.

My flooring.

Once the walls were complete it was time for me to start work on my flooring.
This process went much as I had assumed it would.

My first task was to lay down sheets of mdf lifting up the edges of the set in order to place them without having to use a jigsaw more than was needed. Once these were in place I used gaffer tape to hold them in alignment so that other group members working would not disturb the gaps too much.

With the mdf in place I then went over the entire  surface area with covent garden primer in order to help when it came to actually painting the floor.

 This picture shows the MDF flooring in place.

Once I had the floor primed I had to work ut where my floorboards would be. To do this I found the dead centre of the set using a measuring tape and then ran a line directly down the center of the set. This would be my center point from which I could align the floorboard markings. as Gregor's room gets narrower towards one end I had to get help with working out he dimensions from my course leader Andy Stead who help massively with the maths. Once I had my measurements which worked out to be about 6 inches at the narrower end of the room I was able to starting from my center point and with the help of fellow group member Jess use a chalk line to measure the seperations between each board.

This was a process of us both working from the center point with tape measures of our different widths, running chalk across some string then holding it taut on the floor at the correct distance plucking it at the floor like a bow string. THis left a straight line of chalk across the length of the floor giving us our lines.

When I had these I masked them off in gaps of a board each time and started painting on my base coat.

Once the wallpaper Looked disgusting and damaged enough we needed to creat a three dimensional look for rot and vegetation as I have shown earlier on in the asylum pictures. This was acheived by tearing up strips of blue roll erratically and mixing them with a cocktail of paint and PVA to create a paper mache that could be applied directly to the walls. This was incredibly time consuming but the effect was brilliant. Once this had dried we were able to highlight areas of it with different coats of paint this helped break the texture up a bit and gave it a chaotic look. With this done we blended it into it's enviroment more by sponging and flicking paint onto it.

With this covering the walls and dried all that remained was to apply clear gloss varnish and button polish to the areas surrounding and highlight areas of the rot/vegetation to give it a wet and shiny look that was particularly effective.

A good shot showing the comparison between the two rooms.

The set assembled

Once the set was assembled we all split off into various areas of focus to work on our individual projects. As a group we had each been assigned a building task on which to concerntrate, mine as mentioned before was building the floor.

As John arch and myself had worked closely in our designs and John had the task of creating the look for the walls it seemed fitting that we help each other through the two projects and as such teamed up concerntrating particularly on the walls of Gregor's room.

Although John did the vast majority of the work on the walls I helped with design ideas to start with and later with construction.

We were both very interested in the distressing technique used in the Silent Hill movie and as such wanted to implement a variation of it in our set, so Our first task was to Paint the walls a very dark brown and black with flecks of paint in greens, yellows and lighter browns. Henry explained to us that the wallpaper would not hold to this very well which may cause us problems but we told him that we did not really want the wallpaper to fix well as we were going to destroy the majority of it. I do not think he really approved of the idea but was very patient and gave us advice on distressing wallpaper that I will get to later.

Once the paint had dried John put up the wallpaper at which point herny explained how our job of destroying the wallpaper would be easier if we soaked it with water as this would help it not only come off easier but also shred more convincingly.
 We followed his advice and soaked the walls in water that we applied with rollers.

With this done John and me started to destroy the wallpaper using stanley blades and wire brushes to creat slash and wear marks and in areas where we could get a good grip used our hand to tear strips down and leave them hanging.
This took a very long time but the end result was quite effective. However it was still lacking a convinceing three dimensional distressed look.

John came up with the idea of staining the wallpaer that remained with water diluted paints to give the effect of fluids running down the wall and to age and break it up a bit.

The above picture shows the result of our distressing and painting. Quite a state!

Our course tutor Simon suggested speckling paint on with a sponge to get a more naturalistic look so we did this and it helped the overall look of the piece.

Assembling the set

To assemble the set we first created header and footer wooden stands onto which we attached some of the completed flats. THese were plotted out into areas where structural integrity was needed, namely outside corners of rooms and angled joins. Once these were in place and stable it was simly a matter of screwing each flat onto the next in succession until the rooms were fully assembled. Though simple this job required a lot of man power due to the weight and lack of structural integrity during assemble with each board taking anything up to three or four people to attach.

 

Fellow Group Members assembling The fireplace section of our set.

The set half assembled. Note the support struts in the doorframe area.

Routing

Not all of the hardwood sheets were exact in size and so required the use of a router to leave them flush with frame. To do this we placed them flat on the floor and using a hand routing tool ran along the edges with someone following with an industrial hoover to get up the bulk of the sawdust it gave off.

Building The set 4

Next in the process is adding the hardwood to the frames. Henry showed us how to do this, First you have to mark out in pencil where the slats on the frame are. This was done by holding the hardwood flush with the frame on top of it and marking the hardwood underneath it. Then we ran pva over the edge of the frame to help hold the hardwood in place. With this done you place the hardwood flush over the frame and starting from one edge use a nailgun to attach the two. With one edge done you work along one end to create an L shape of nail attachments then work up securing the rest.

Though simple this process is of course time consuming.

 The above picture shows a completed flat.

Stacked frames awaiting having the Hardwood attached to them.

Building the set 3

A frame being worked on by some of my group members.

Building The set 2

Once we had our measurments down we were able to start measuring and cutting our frames ready to add the boards.We worked in a sort of production line to create an efficient workflow and save ourselves time. At first we had difficulty geting a flow as a group, but through rotation of jobs and slowly learning what was required for the measuring, cutting and assembling we eventually managed to create a good steady pace.

As mentioned above each frame goes through a process on it's way to becoming complete.

Firstly the amount of flats of each size required are worked out, then the wood is measured and cut on a circular saw. Once the wood is cut it can be layed out in the sahpe it's going to take and each segment is screwed into place with a power drill. This is the basic assembly of a frame.

Building the set 1

Once we ha the designs for our set sorted and finalized we were run through set building by Henry. He showed us that in order to actually build a set from your blueprints you first had to have a clear idea of your measurements. For instance, if a room was 10x10 foot square each wall would be 10 foot in length so then you must look at what materials are being used. In this case we had 8x4 hardwood as our flat facades so we had to build corresponding frames to match thes sizes obviously trimming down the hardwood as and when required. This effectively turns each wall of the original design into a series of framed boards that fit together in blocks to create complete walls.

Designing a floor

Tricky one that. How to design what is essentially thin strips of wood. There is of course more to it than that. The first thing I did was create some basic concept images of what I wanted my floor to look like. This was simple enough although as I later found out this would pose a problem.

As you can see from my top design There are areas where the floorboards have to be bent up like something has been crawling underneath the floor and burst up through it. The problem of course is how to make this practically viable.

We have been granted the services of a veteran set designer named Henry Jones. His previous work includes the Neil Marshall film series The Descent and some ingenious advertising work for Sony among other things.
So the first thing I did was to run my idea past him and ask how he would approach such a challenge.
 His advice was incredibly enlightening and a great insight into the way set designers and builders work professionally. He told me to first of all lay down a floor covering of inter-locking chipboard as would be used in the creation of loft flooring. The flats would then be placed on this floor construction. Next he said to mark out my lines, measure and cut individual floorboards out of MDF and bend them into shape by soaking them with water and angling them for a few days to get the bends right or by steam bending them with something like a wallpaper steam stripper. Though this process would have given me highly effective and wonderful looking results, I simply didn't have the time or money to accomplish the task especially considering I was contributing large amount of my time to helping construct the rest of the set.

This of course left me with the problem of how to acheive the look I needed. I talked to one of our course tutors Simon to see what his take on the floor design would be. He came up with an elegant solution that I beleive would work. He suggested Laying the MDF neat on the floor to create my floorspace and then put blocks of wood disguised as growths underneath bits of the MDF cut to shape. This would allow them to raise without needing to steam bend the wood.

I later went back to talk with Henry and proposed Simon's idea. He saw the value in it but had since come up with another idea that I found to be the most appealing so far. He suggested Laying ordinary floor flat and then snapping lengths of wood that correspond in width with the fake floorboards and holding them in place with angled wood similar to how Simon had suggested.
This I decided would work best and be most time saving and cost effective.

The design for the flooring in the Living room was relatively simple as it has no major features the way the bedroom does. Here is my final concept work for the Living Room.

Designing

Now that as a group we have a similar idea of what our rooms need to look like we went through the process of actually designing them. Originally we had discussed building a hallway that seperated the two rooms but decided very quickly that with time constraints as they were this would be impractical.
So as a group we had a meeting and came up with a final layout for the room.

 The above image is our final layout. The shapes within the room are the potential positions of the furniture within. We are going to use this image to helpus construct our flats.

This is a screenshot from an autocad design of the final room by fellow group member Eleanor who was kind enough to post it on the blog. She intends to use it to follow our design process as and when any elements get changed. Note in these two images that unlike I earlier described the rooms do not have a joining corridor, we now feel as a group this adds to the presence of something being wrong in house by the proximity of gregor's room.

Lighting

Both John and myself were interested in looking at early german expressionist films specifically the Cabinet of doctor Caligari which has quite an interesting bedroom set. The lighting due to the surreal nightmarish quality of the piece is very harsh and high contrast. I feel that this particular style of lighting would be beneficial in creating the dark mood we wish to capture in our final photographs.

 For me this screenshot represents a good example of the way harsh lighting and shadows can be used to create an oppressive atmosphere however for our purposes it is too surreal as we still wish to ground our designs in reality and not in expressionism. Of further note is again the dusty worn floorboards and also the rooms shape gives it a very oppressive feel that I like.

as lighting ideas go I like the idea of either very harsh shadows with cold tones like blues and harsh whites but also a more washed out look


I like this image because it represents for me a hybrid of both lighting ideas, with it's high use of grey and blue tones contrasted by bold blacks it gives a very eerie feel and almost a sense of foreboding that I feel is particularly effective.

Also however and maybe for the main living room I like the idea of warm close lighting to give a sense of thick air and claustrophobia.

For instance in the below shot from silent hill 3 the tones are reds, yellows and Oranges colours usually associated with warmth and comfort. Here though they help create a sense of dread.



Again note the use of high contrast black.

Floorboards

For my floorboards I want an old well worn look and as such have been looking at pictures showing old floorboards. Whilst not the most interesting of subjects it is nessesary so here are images I will be using as reference shots.

 
The colours in the above picture are god and it shows a good level of wear, however useful as this is I feel that to get a more opressive 'elephant in the room' look I will need to make the floorboards darker and less defined. Of note in this picture however is the varying sizes of floorboards. This gives an old hand made look to them which seems suggestive of an era before machine standardization.

Of particular not in this picture is the wear to the floorboards has caused the surface treatment to expose the untreated wood underneath, this highlights areas of lighter wood. This is something to note when  creating a worn look.

This picture shows darker elements within the grain. This is of interest as it breaks up the surface texture giving it a three dimensional look. Acheiving this look in my final illsionary painting will help to fool the eye into seeing the floor as genuine floorboards.

Edwardian Design

As I have mentioned previously the other room we are building is a dining/living room. As a group we eventually decided on a generalized look for this set. We wanted it to be vaguely 1900s as that is the era in which Franz Kafka lived and worked and we wanted it originally to resemble a middle class prague household. The problem was that as a group we could not agree entirely on location as some people thought tat it would be apt to give it a more western feel, of for example England during this time or that of the victorian era. Due to this we as a group looked at various sources from both and came up with an aged but almost ageless hybrid of the two elements.

 In my opinion this represents a good example of the worn lower middle class fallen on hard times look of the room in the story. Everything has a dusty neglected feel to it and the wallpaper is flowery yet faded. This puts me in mind of  the 1900s with the carpet ont covering the whole floor and the worn floorboards, which were the reason I looked at this picture in the first place. The floors for both rooms are my responsibilty in design and creation. This is the general look I want for the floor in the main room. Floorboards partly covered by carpet with a worn slightly dusty but still lived in look.

Silent Hill

Both John Arch and Myself decided early on to look at the psychological horror Franchise silent hill as a major source of inspiration behind the design of Gregor's room and as such we have betwwen us found imagery from the series' many videogames and related film that we both felt would be helpful to this project.

On the making of extra on the Silent Hill movie dvd  The Designers talked at length about using vaseline on pre painted and distressed walls then wallpapering over them and distressing the wallpaper. This process is evident in the picture below.

 We decided to use a variation of this technique on our room.

The following pictures show the extreme level of distress and wear from silent hill that we are hoping to acheive in our own work

Note the similarity between the walls in the silent hill games and those of the asylums and chernobyl interiors.

Chernobyl

The tragic event of the Chernobyl Meltdown have left a dilapidated ghost town that leaves a feeling of distress and foreboding in the remaining structures, this look and feel would be a perfect reflection of the story and as such I am posting images I have found of interiors of still standing structures in chernobyl.

These pictures once again highlight how dilapidated wall have vast areas of paper peeling and plant life coming through.

Breakthrough

The following image represents the look I wish to acheive for the walls in Gregor's room. Namely the areas where vegetation is growing out of the walls. I would like to take this idea and expand on it to cover entire sections of wall.Also of note is the dusty stained floors. I like this look as it seems to create an almost organic sense of uneasiness that will fit well with the general feel of the story.

Flaking and peeled wallpaper

As I mentioned in my previous post something we really wanted to look at was the idea of decay rising up from within the walls. as such I looked for further pictures of abandoned asylums and medical facilities
here are some of the ones I found.

Again these pictures show a high level of peeling wallpaper, Stains, vegetation growth and miscellanious clutter on the floor. For the room on the set it would be good to expand these themes into extremes to give the idea of dilapidation an almost supernatural feel.

Design Influence

During our initial meetings we eventually came to descision on what rooms from the story The Metamorphosis by Kafka we were going to create. We decided that as the story primarily takes place in the character Gregor's Bedroom and the Family dining/Living room we would create these two rooms. This of course created the problem of what design elements would be used. After much consternation we came to descision that everyone was relatively happy with in Gregor's room. Fellow Group Member John Arch and myself were both very interested in creating a rough dilapidated look for Gregor's room to mirror his descent into becoming an insect. We thought an effective way to show this character's development was to make the room seem to be in the process of changing and becoming base and less than it once was.

The first places we looked were at relatively normal places that had been exposed to the elements, damp, decay or disaster.

This is an image taken from an abandoned asylum and is one of the starting points of our general design ideas.
Of particular note is the cluttered floor and the peeling, flaking and ripped wallpaper. These are all elements we wish to use in our designs.