Production Designer, Editor and Locations 3

PRODUCTION BENT

We finally met up with our production designer who had been tied up with other productions for some time but met up on the weekend with Martin Butterworth, his company Do-Not-Bend productions had come along in leaps and bounds since I had first met him and was good to see him making a success of things. I had forgotten all about Martin’s great ‘Can-Do’ attitude and his excitement and enthusiasm for projects which is very infectious. Martin came up with some great ideas regarding the internal lighting, fittings and props for the shoot even suggesting a bed redesign from a solid wooden one to a brass rail-piece that gave a far more colonial Americana look.

EDITING SWEET

Andrew Mckee was someone I’ve have known for several years who edited a small but ultimately acclaimed feature film called Eaten by Lions. Andrew showed interest in the project years ago when I first mentioned it and asked me to keep him in mind about it so we met up to discuss the state of play. Martin was thrilled to be part of it and assured us the timing would be perfect for him to fit it in between other projects and we discussed a super slow to quick montage rhythm cuts we wanted to achieve.

The plan would be for Andrew to create an assembly edit under his own steam which I would then work with him on, this gave me the chance for Martin to add his own ideas to the edit without me influencing him too much and then I could steer it later.

IN ONE DOOR, OUT THE OTHER

Our location in Liverpool we planned to use for the front door turned out to be a bust, Netflix had reserved the location until the December of 2020 so we had no chance of getting in there, I spent one hectic night looking for locations and got kinda fed up… I was getting the same types of front doors offered to me when I asked for help that looked too much like a municipal building, out Production Designer Martin Butterworth suggested a place to us but it was too nice, modern and just not fit for purpose.
Having got a few new jobs through the door I decided to increase the budget… AGAIN! I decided a £1500 max additional spend on a front door set would be the right move which we could shoot in doors and control the lighting perfectly, also a slightly overstylized set would help with our style and production value.
the plan was to create a double-doored vestibule housed within Black cloth and back lit to silhouette everything which would help disguise out minimal set and create a comic book look to it.
Martin Butterworth of Do-Not-bend Productions suggested building it with some local joiners but Liverpool Scenic offered to build it for £500 dressed with the existing set flats from the main sets and the flooring.