Hi guys. Ben here. Quite a lot’s happened since our last post and things are really getting into gear with “Sol.” Casting is almost complete – we have 5 of our 6 principal roles locked. Our equipment is about all lined up and next week we’re going to start interviewing to fill out our crew positions. It’s great to hear from so many energetic and (very) qualified craftspeople from this area and it’s been a pleasure to meet so many filmmakers from here (and from all around) that want to help bring “Sol” to life. But more on that later. Today’s post is all about creating the sets for the film…
One of the great things about making a sci-fi is that you can come up with some really interesting set pieces and find cool ways to make something that no one has seen before. A lot of the story involves young adults being lost on a desolate planet so there aren’t too many sets to build (nature has given us some great ones) but the ones we have built have been exciting to watch come together. Our first set is The Slip Gate – a framework housing a doorway that allows instantaneous travel:
Should be pretty crazy.
It’s being built in Asheville by the Production Designer and two local artists that have come on-board as well. They’re a wonderful group to work with so it’s really productive every time we get to sit down and toss around different design ideas and discuss how to bring all the sets and props to life. We’ve got a really tight schedule with all of these so putting them all together has been a huge exercise in working as fast as possible while still trying to design something that’s new and interesting.
The Slip Gate is made with a combination of steel plating for the structure and supports, and thick copper tubing that’s going to house the portal in the film. It’s been really important to me that everything in the film looks real so almost all of our props and sets are being made with materials that would be used with something industrial like this. It can make things pretty difficult to work with at times (and heavy) but the look has been really paying off with our camera tests.
All the props and sets in the film are also supposed to look quite worn and weathered – they’ve been on the planet for a very long time – so we’ve been experimenting with ways to make something new look old and distressed. One great method we’ve come across is mixing types of paint. We’ve done several different coats on all the materials and, when mixing gloss, semi-gloss, and matte, the end result is a look of lots of wear and tear. Once we’re out on location with the set we’ll also take the blow torch to its surface to add some really great burn lines that simply just make this thing look like it was dragged through hell.
Our second principal set piece is a crashed spaceship that we’ve been building for the last few weeks. We’ve got about another week left for construction but it’s coming along well. We wanted something really sturdy to function as the ship’s foundation so we decided to clean out the frame of a fiberglass boat and build from there.
Finding the right boat took a bit of work. I wanted something pretty large because this set is supposed to dwarf all the characters. After an extensive search around the area we ended up finding a 16′ Fiberglass V hull boat on Craigslist. We really wanted a boat with a V-shaped hull because it looks much more graceful and helps break up the “boat shape” in the foundation. So after spending an afternoon driving out to TN and lugging this thing back up the mountain we got to work stripping it down and building our set on top of it…
We wanted to give the ship a pretty interesting look so we’ve started adding all sorts of materials on to its surface. Jinx and Bob, our two lead set builders in Asheville, have come up with pretty cool ways to bring this to life. It’s definitely picked up some size over the course of construction too:
More to come! Four weeks until production…
BC