Advice on Building a Set in Basement Bedroom

D

DIY

Hi Folks,

I'd love to hear your advice on a proposed set. I have a 10x12 basement bedroom. 2 walls back to dirt, 1 wall backs to dirt and a window alcove (the fire escape). The last wall is adjacent to the bathroom and above this room is another bedroom.

I'm planning a simple short about an astronaut trapped in an escape pod. All the filming is of the astronaut inside the interior of the pod -- think of it as a gizmo'd up chamber. So no exterior shots. It's similiar to Buried (2010) with Ryan Reynolds.

I was looking for advice on sound and lighting.

For sound, I'm guessing I want to have as little outside sound come in. If that is correct then the issues are the bathroom side, the window and the ceiling. What are good ways to absorb sound on the cheap? The room has a 9ft ceiling height.

Also, should I be worried about echoes? (i.e. from the walls backing dirt?)

For lighting, I think I would want everything else to be blacked out. (No greenscreen filming, very cheap budget here.) What is a good inexpensive material that can absorb light? (Or put it this way, what black material won't work?) Can this material also help with sound absorption?

For the escape pod interior, I plan on using electroluminescent tape (EL Tape) to give a nice sci-fi techno effect. Anyone have experience filming this and are there any special challenges?

Thanks so much for your help!
 
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You mention no green screening...but would it hurt to make up some window surrounds, and screw them into relevant walls, with green paper in them, so you could at least put in view of space from the windows?

This would not be expensive. Just a few sheets of green paper slapped in there.
As long as you have a computer that can edit and render, then it should cope with
putting in these space view windows also.
 
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Will Vincent said:
Faking weightlessness is probably going to be one of your biggest issues that you didn't mention at all.
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I have a lot of good ideas for that one. And it should be easier for me since the astronaut isn't going to moving around at all. Just some shots of him sleeping with his hands and feet floating. Will also use blocks of woods and shape em to look like foam cushions to give the illusion of the astronaut barely resting on the cushions (since if I used real cushions, the actor's weight will squish em).

Probably need someone who can plank for a good amount of time LOL! But in all seriousness, I heard some films did it by filming it at 2-4x speed and replaying it back at normal speed to give a better illusion of weightlessness.

I am also considering hanging the pod upside down (both vertically and horizontally) for some other weightless effects.

I do have a crying scene and since tears don't actually fall away in space, I am considering using some clear viscous slime -- poor actor haha.

I have reasons for not having windows in the pod -- increasing sense of isolation and not knowing what is out there. But it's a good idea, I'll have to try that in a future project.
 
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you'll almost certainly want either entire walls removable, or small cutouts that can be removed to get the camera (and lighting) in.

There's another recent thread around here about building a space ship/station set. foam would be a good medium to work with, it can be shaped fairly easily and painted.
 
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For a dialog mic, he/she is an astronaut, they wear microphones in the suit.
 

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If your "set" is 12x10, you might as well just instead build a sturdy 8x8x8 cube (outside, not in the house!) with removable panels on all 6 sides (for the camera) and build a fake pod interior inside it. This way you can tip it around to get fake gravity-free scenes. Suspend victims . . . err, actors from a rope hanging from the upside end with the camera underneigth and you, too can be Stanley Kubrick and float your actors.

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2001.jpg
 
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Actually, blender guru had a space ship interior a while back that had some neat ideas for decorations on the walls. He basically built modular wall units and copy pasted them in different orientations to make them all look different from the camera view. Perhaps a single master build of these with a DIY vacuform table to copy it.
 
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