mikoyan99
Active Member
Over the weekend, i've been working with A1 Pictures Ltd on a short film for the Sci-Fi London 48 hour film challenge. I run the steampunk society at the University of Southampton, and A1 got in touch with us for assistance on the project.
My role in the team was props master, so I thought i'd share what we came up with for the film. Although i've been a modelmaker for many years now, it was the first time i'd had to create props for screen use, and the first time i'd had to work so such a tight schedule. The challenge started at 1pm on saturday, and as sunday was required for filming, I had very limited time to work with - around 14 hours, including several hours spent acquiring materials.
Several different items were required, but the focus was on a full steampunk robot suit for our lead actress. Producing a full hard shell style suit was out of the question in the time available, so we used surplus military clothing as a base for the bulk of her body, then added a series of hard components such as a helmet, breastplate and backpack to give character to the costume.
Materials were sourced from various sources, but primarily a local junkyard, fancy dress shop, and hardware shop:
There were 6-7 of us available to work on the props, so we split up into several groups. I tackled the helmet, while others in the team worked on a backpack and various props for the sets, such as a mechanical computer and metal flowers. This is the backpack WIP, being fitted to our lead actress:
It's constructed from an old hiking backpack, toy horns, PVC pipe, and a military tunic.
We built two helmets/heads for the film, one for a dead robot, and another hero helmet for the lead:
Dead helmet
Hero helmet
Both helmets are made from plastic armour sourced from fancy dress shops. The hero helmet was the more complex of the two; I added a pair of welding goggles using epoxy resin, a grill for the mouth, and a multitude of pipes and gubbins for detail. The dead robot was completed with a silver/black theme, while the hero had a bronze/green theme. Both helmets were weathered with ink, black paint, and a little highlighting. I had to add padding to the inside of the bronze helmet as well, to ensure a good fit. Despite being plastic, the helmet soon gained weight as I modified it, and it was in danger of falling off our lead's head at one point!
These are all of the "hard" props we built that afternoon/evening. We finished prop making at 3 am, before getting up at 7 to start filming.
Our lead being fitted out.
Final costumes. I'm very happy with the result - the challenge was great fun as a whole, and it was very satisfying to work directly on props for screen use. A1 Pictures were great to work with, they treated us very well.
All of the photographs here are courtesy of them.
You can find the twitter feed for the project here, along with more pictures:
https://twitter.com/A1_Pictures
Entry to the 48 hour film competition is now closed, but you can find the details of the competition here:
SCI-FI-LONDON 48hr Film Challenge | SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival
-Matt
My role in the team was props master, so I thought i'd share what we came up with for the film. Although i've been a modelmaker for many years now, it was the first time i'd had to create props for screen use, and the first time i'd had to work so such a tight schedule. The challenge started at 1pm on saturday, and as sunday was required for filming, I had very limited time to work with - around 14 hours, including several hours spent acquiring materials.
Several different items were required, but the focus was on a full steampunk robot suit for our lead actress. Producing a full hard shell style suit was out of the question in the time available, so we used surplus military clothing as a base for the bulk of her body, then added a series of hard components such as a helmet, breastplate and backpack to give character to the costume.
Materials were sourced from various sources, but primarily a local junkyard, fancy dress shop, and hardware shop:
There were 6-7 of us available to work on the props, so we split up into several groups. I tackled the helmet, while others in the team worked on a backpack and various props for the sets, such as a mechanical computer and metal flowers. This is the backpack WIP, being fitted to our lead actress:
It's constructed from an old hiking backpack, toy horns, PVC pipe, and a military tunic.
We built two helmets/heads for the film, one for a dead robot, and another hero helmet for the lead:
Dead helmet
Hero helmet
Both helmets are made from plastic armour sourced from fancy dress shops. The hero helmet was the more complex of the two; I added a pair of welding goggles using epoxy resin, a grill for the mouth, and a multitude of pipes and gubbins for detail. The dead robot was completed with a silver/black theme, while the hero had a bronze/green theme. Both helmets were weathered with ink, black paint, and a little highlighting. I had to add padding to the inside of the bronze helmet as well, to ensure a good fit. Despite being plastic, the helmet soon gained weight as I modified it, and it was in danger of falling off our lead's head at one point!
These are all of the "hard" props we built that afternoon/evening. We finished prop making at 3 am, before getting up at 7 to start filming.
Our lead being fitted out.
Final costumes. I'm very happy with the result - the challenge was great fun as a whole, and it was very satisfying to work directly on props for screen use. A1 Pictures were great to work with, they treated us very well.
All of the photographs here are courtesy of them.
You can find the twitter feed for the project here, along with more pictures:
https://twitter.com/A1_Pictures
Entry to the 48 hour film competition is now closed, but you can find the details of the competition here:
SCI-FI-LONDON 48hr Film Challenge | SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival
-Matt
Last edited:
