Set Design - And Additional Feedback from Dan (The Production Designer)

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party Room - this is the final 'fantasy' room of our music video. It is where the young girl finds solace amidst all the chaos and madness from the rest of the house. This is the final room she ends up in before waking up in her own classroom. It is also a 'sanctuary' - where she finds the band members who play to her, this is a safe room. Which is why we want it to greatly juxtapose the rest of the house. The house is very gothic and dark but this room is full of light, pastel colors and lively shrubbery. This room will be well lit - contrasting to the dark shadows of the other rooms - and overflowing with cakes, cupcakes, candy, marshmellows, streamers, party-poppers etc. It is the room where the performance element is heavily based. 

Below are two alternative ideas for the Tea Party Room:

#1

#2

After talking with Dan the production designer, we showed him the two alternative ideas we had for our Tea Party Room and we all decided to make a hybrid of the two. It will be a canopy room strewn with large shrubbery and fairy-lights. With soft lighting on the canopy itself and multiple light sources. We want this room to be "loud" but pleasing to the eye. 

The Bedroom - This is the room our main character discovers Red Riding Hood and The Wolf 'canoodling' (so to speak) in bed with each other. This room is lit with heavy shadows and candlelight that surround the bed. On the floor is the quickly discarded materials of R.R.Hood and The Wolf, such as a basket, a grannies wig, a shoe and two bras. We didn't want the bedroom to be too elaborate and draw attention away from the action and what the little girl is seeing. 

After discussing with Dan, we agreed to shoot this in the studio and make it a black room with just a simple bed in the middle. We would dress the set well and rely heavily on shadows to give the atmospheric mood of the room. We also discussed using Gobos - gobos are filters you can put over lights in order to create a lighting 'shadow' to cast over the bed. We were going to use a gobo that simulated barred windows and cast it over the bed as the only/one of the only sources of lighting. 

This main staircase is one of our main rooms - we had hoped to make it a set piece but we were told it would be too expensive. Nonetheless, we are using our location staircase (featured in a previous post) and dressing it well - this will be a lot more difficult but over half term i am going to keep experimenting with how to dress the set nicely in order for it to look like a gothic haunted mansion.

The Bathroom Scene will be executed similarly to the Bedroom Scene, it will be in a black studio and lit very dramatically so only what we want to see is visible. 

Our Corridor Scene is also being used on location - pictures will be available soon - and this too, to match the house, will be lit with heavy shadows and soft candlelight. The corridor scene is very much about "watching your back" and shadows dancing around the young girl.