We’re now four days from the start of photography on Momster, a Screen West Midlands funded digishort directed by Steven Spencer and shot by me.
The short tells the story of Emily, a very young girl kept trapped in a 100 storey-high block of flats by her deeply unpleasant and cruel father, who forces her to spend all her days cleaning the flat and preparing his dinner. Every night he forces sleeping pills down her throat. Eventually she discovers a scrapbook that used to belong to her mother, and having drawn a friendly monster inside it is delighted to find that it comes to life. What happens next… well, you’ll have to watch it when we’re done 
The location for 95% of the film is the flat in which Emily’s kept locked up. We decided pretty early on that shooting in a studio would be the most practical way of ensuring we could go about establishing and maintaining the specific look we’re after. Steven and I are very keen that Momster stands out amongst the rest of the digishorts, which due to their ¬£10,000 budget (which is massively better than nothing but nevertheless gets eaten up staggeringly quickly) do have a tendency to be shot on location – and for us, ‘on location’ would have meant someone’s flat. Whilst it’s possible to shoot in that sort of environment and make it look good (DP Nick Beeks-Sanders has done a lovely job with fellow digishort English Bloody Rose), it’s certainly not easy. Fixed walls and ceilings lock you in to a limited set of camera and lighting positions, and the set designer’s job is made all the harder by having to work within the existing layout.
After a fair bit of scouting we decided on the theatre studio at Birmingham City University – largely because we were able to use it for free and it was available for a week earlier than anywhere else. We very nearly used the studio at Staffordshire University, which deserves a special mention for being by far the best equipped TV studio I’ve seen outside of the big broadcasters.
The BCU studio is completely swamped in old bits of scenery and “stuff” so we’ve spend the last two days clearing stuff out the way and bringing in 37 8′x4′ flats which will be the walls of Emily’s flat.
Here’s production designer Anna Shelton taking it all in…
For the last couple of days it’s just been a few of us in the studio but tomorrow the cavalry turns up with a set contructor, set dresser, producer and the runners. Hopefully Steven and I will get a chance to design the shots for the last half of the film as well. As Steven’s a very talented 3D designer and animator (he’s designed Momster himself!) he’s been doing some 3D storyboards based on the shot list, which are excellent.
Consciousness is fading fast, but next time I want to talk in more detail about my lighting plan for the film. For the time being, here’s the ‘basic’ lighting rig for all the scenes, which will be supplemented in each shot as needed.
And here’s the set layout:
And finally, here’s Momster!
Back in at 8am tomorrow. I’ve found an old eMac in a corner office with an internet connection (refuse to pay the ridiculous BT Openzone rates) so hopefully I’ll get a chance to talk more then.
