Shooting day. Part 2. Location.

As I mentioned in part 1 in describing the practical part of our group we had two different made-up locations in a studio. Fist one was Detective’s office where walls were covered by posters, posters of Marilyn Monroe and newspapers about her. On Detective’s desk was a laptop which actually was the only one item which remind a viewer that this modern days with an investigation of 50 year age. One of the key items which shows us that we are in Detective office but not in a room one of fans of Marilyn was a Suspect board with lots of links of famous public people as John Kennedy and his brother Robert with 50’s unknown gangsters pictures who might kill a famous superstar.
The second scene in which we transformed Hurtwood studio was a 50’s studio with appropriate equipment as old-fashioned fake video camera, filming crew chairs and the scene itself which was a miniature copy of the same stage in the clip ‘Diamonds are a girls best friend’ so we made a real identical copy of 50’s environment in the studio. In addition we owned such items as speaking trumpet, small old-fashioned camera for producer, red hearts for every dancer in a scene and lots of secondary items which were handed by member of 50’s filming crew in the film.
So the only one location in our film was the Hurtwood studio, however we managed to transform it in two different environments (one of present days and one of 50’s film studio) so we made exactly what we wanted to show to potential viewer.

Finally, here is a comparison between our drafts of the two scenes and how we managed to recreate them in real studio.

Detective Office

50's Film Set

Detective office with loads of Monroe' photos and film posters with her. Old monitors, a laptop and lots of newspapers represent an extreme interest of such sort of person in Marilyn Monroe and a suspect board which we placed later give us a perception that this accomodation belongs either to crazy fan of 1950's pop-star or to Detective.

This is a final scene of our opening sequence where Joanne as Monroe was surrounded by gentlemen and an old-fashioned camera give us a clue that, firstly, all this is filming of video clip and that it takes place in sixties because of the hugу size of this camera.

The role of lightining and elements of mis-en-scene are very important here. The lightning was coloured by red thanks to studio facilities and the key light was a bit darkened in order to create a bit intimate and mysterious atmosphere. Props and costumes were picked very carefully as well. We managed to get the exact copy of Monroe dress and some black suits for actors. Finally, studio was coloured red and there were some stairs in order to create the same backstage as it was in 60's video clip so our viewer would be convinced that he is watching a real film but not a rough student work.