I am Judah, directed by Bashart Malik
Art director, set dresser, costume designer
simultaneously, which I thrived on. Below is the first example of a set piece that I created to be used in the film. It was a set of prison bars for use in a scene featuring Bristol poet Lawrence Hoo. The scene was filmed in an abandoned prison and the set piece was placed in front of Lawrence to mimic him being in a cell. The set design and location mirrored perfectly the words of Lawrence's poem.
To construct the set piece I enlisted the help of my dad, who I knew would know exactly what I needed to do in order to achieve the look I wanted. So after a quick trip to B&Q where I bought 7 pine dowels and 4 wooden planks we got to work. The construction part was relatively easy since dad is an expert, he hot glued the dowels in place which worked out so perfectly because I knew as soon as I painted it all silver, the glue would look like welding marks in the metal, and it did.
The painting process was a little more complex, I bought silver spray paint, thinking that that would be my best option to cover more surface area in a quicker time. However, due to the shape of this particular set piece, the paint just flew threw the abundant gaps in it and barely hit the poles themselves, wasting a painful amount of paint, and at £18 a can, this was not okay. I had to make a second trip back to B&Q to buy more spray paint, and still, two full cans of spray paint was only enough to cover one side of the bars. If I ever make another set of bars again, its going to be acrylic paint and a brush all the way. Lesson learned on that one. However the end product looked so fantastic I didn't care about the journey I took to achieve it, and neither did our producer (who of course was funding the construction). Seeing the set piece on camera, lit and in our amazing location was so exciting, I felt so proud of what I had achieved. (Thanks dad!)
