Abandoned in Space sampling

I figure it's high time I put up some pictures from Abandoned in Space. It's been long enough (7 mos) that I ought to be able to think about that shoot without collapsing in a fit of spasming exhaustion.

I did not do hair and makeup on this shoot. At least, that wasn't my official job. I did do some hair and makeup, but those duties were but a drop in the ocean of my efforts. I was an Art Director. I worked under Vanessa, the Production Designer. This was my first project working in the art department on a film. It was... "initiation by fire" seems an awfully tame way to put it. I have, by a factor of probably about 3000%, never ever slept as little in my life as I did in the three weeks or so that we shot this film. At any point after the first weekend, I expected I would simply pass out cold (or close enough), and then I wouldn't have to do anything for a while, but until I did (I never did), I would keep working-- so I kept working.

The story takes place on a space station, so we pretty much built all the locations, because nowhere that exists ever looks exactly like the kind of space station that you want.

This is the residential hallway. It was something like 65 (?) ft long. kinda pretty long. Longer than it looks in this picture. It was the first thing we shot, and the result of the very first all-nighter we pulled. Aw.

It also honed my skills with a staple gun to the point that I felt I was on the brink of discovering staple gun-related super powers.

This is the space pod in one of its unfinished stages. I helped very little with the pod. Although I did spend another sleepless night gluing on "rivets" (spray-painted googly eyes (which were my solution idea))

It's about 7 feet tall and wide, and it's made mainly out of chicken wire, styrofoam, and paper mache.

We had two(2) elevators in the film. This is the smaller.

A funny thing happened with the walls of the larger elevator-- i.e. someone stole them. We never found out who, or how, or why. They were 12 foot tall monstrosities that weighed probably a few hundred pounds or so. The morning we were to shoot them, we found the front door of the building unlocked, and the elevator walls missing. At first we thought we had just mislaid them. But there was a point where even our exhausted minds had to admit that even our exhausted selves couldn't possibly have found a place to accidentally hide those beasts. So we built new ones.

Here's just another of the multitudinous locations. The focal point is the lever with the sign that says "sewage release." I made that sign.

Over the weeks we would pause in our labors now and again to laugh and say, "We really haven't been taking pictures of this, have we? We'll finish this and there will be absolutely no evidence that we built this." And then we'd laugh again, a little more hysterically, and get back to work. But really, we have very very few pictures of the work-in-progress. Or complete, for that matter. I just want to impress upon you what a tiny sampling this post is of our work.

Here are the few pictures we have of the industrial hallway in progress. I don't think we have any pics of it finished. You'll have to wait for the film for that.

This hallway was... a challenge, and the most impressive thing we built. It was 70? 80? ft long? I really don't remember. It was very long. The walls are concave (yeah), and it was an awkward width. It was 9 ft wide at the base and top and 15 in the middle. 8 feet tall.

Here's the closest you'll see it to being finished. It's painted, the ceiling is mostly on, and some of the vertical ribbing has been done. There was also horizontal ribbing, and flooring. I think I was up all night after this picture was taken, figuring out how to attach the ribbing, and then attaching th e ribbing. That was also the night the elevator doors went missing, incidentally.

I'm very grateful I didn't have to work out the ceilings for this hallway (9 ft is SUCH an awkward width in construction!)

I put this picture in mostly so you can admire that "escape pod simulator" sign. Which lights up. Which I made. It almost made my head explode, what with the figuring out how to reverse stencil, which doesn't sound all that complicated, but YOU try it after not sleeping for three weeks. Someone else actually came up with the solution for me. My savior.

That sign is actually only a couple feet away from me now, as I type. I took it as a trophy. I think the director wanted it, but I took it, and he doesn't know I have it, and I'm never giving it up.

I made these signs, too. That's a human-sized suit, so those signs are pretty big, ok? Plus I free-handed the arrow stencil. I think I feel inordinately proud of all the signs I made because they were mostly right at the end of the shoot, when it was the most awe-inspiring that I was even moving. anyway, the best sign I made was really a vending machine-- i made a free-hand stencil for "sunshine snacks" and it looked awesome, but alas, it is one of the things of which we don't have photographic evidence.

So yeah, if I find more pictures, I'll put them up.

I hope you are very impressed with me now.