Monday was spent taking down the set from the week before and having a big tidy up. The Old Library as a shooting space is pretty cramped and we have a lot of set and lighting equipment with little place to store it all. I found some old shelves by the skip and we repurposed those into puppet shelves. I organised everything beautifully. The real work that I got done was finishing the wigs for Burger Man heads and making more new rod mechanisms.
On Tuesday morning the set needed a few more adjustments and Steve needed to finish lighting it so I started preparing the puppets. A burger had been made earlier in the summer but we had no way of keeping it in the Burger Man's hands. The scene starts with a man eating a burger (Burger Man) and throwing the box on the floor while walking off. Glenn and Manny walk towards the night club but Glenn stops to pick up the litter and put it in the bin, Manny stops him. Later in the montage it comes back to the Burger Man, about to eat his burger and Manny comes along and takes his arm rods and makes Burger Man hit himself in the face.
I used a dremel and a 2mm drill bit to make a small hole in the burger so that I could put a wire into it to push into the silicone hand of Burger Man. I made the hole big enough so that I could also put a rod in the burger for the later scene when he drops the burger because Manny takes control of his rods.
We started shooting before lunch, I puppeteered Burger Man's legs. Simon puppeteered the burger box that would be thrown away (Katie, the art director made it and attached it to a rod), William puppeteered the body and head, and Hedley was on the arms... This was a real team effort! We did quite a few different takes, some with the burger box falling to the ground naturally and some very dramatically. Simon wasnt sure which he would prefer so we got several versions to give him the choice in the edit with Paco Sweetman, the editor. After lunch, we got the shot of Glenn and Manny. I did Glenns body and head and Katie did Glenns arms. Will and Hedley were on Manny. I was surprised at how little takes we did on this shot as there were some fairly complicated moves. Katie and I work really well together as puppeteers.
Wednesday I pinned Manny's hands to Burger Man's rods while the set was changed slightly to look like it was in the same area but not exactly the same. I pinned the hands onto the rods in such a way that Burger man's rods were the only rods that needed to be controlled to do both Manny and Burger Man's hands. I was puppeteering the burger, it needed to fall out of Burger Mans hands as soon as manny grabs his rods. We did the same with the burger box and got some natural and some dramatic takes of the burger falling. After that was done we got a few extra shots that we weren't sure we'd have time for. The first was a close up of Glenn's hand picking up the burger box, and the second was Glenn miming some fighting moves while watching Manny make Burger Man hit himself.
Thursday started with everyone working together to strike the set (take it down and clean up so Steve the cinematographer can take down his lights and get ready for the next set). After lunch I started to make a wig for Glenda, a female character that will be sat next to Glenn on the train. Lex is the costume designer for manOman, and she's absolutely incredible. Glenda's costume is very glamorous so I needed to create a wig that matched that style. Simon didn't give me any instruction on how he wanted it to look other than she needs a fringe. I tried giving her a short bob style but she looked more like a man trying to be a glamorous woman rather than an actual glamorous woman... I added some length to it and tried a different fringe and that seemed to work well. After I finished the wig, I put some new arms onto Manny because his previous arms were very tatty after the amount of pins it took to get them to stay on Burger Man's rod!
First thing Friday I used psycho paints to put makeup onto Glenda while Steve was finishing prelighting the set. It took too long to set up the train carriage for him to finish on Thursday. To use the psycho paint, I mixed equal parts A and B onto a little tray and then added silicone pigment. I used black for the eyeliner, and mixed red, yellow and blue for the lipstick. Normally white spirit should be added to the psycho paint before use but I needed it to be quite thick and a strong colour. I did a few tests on heads that had defects on them first. Once I got my technique down, I painted on the eyeliner with a very fine paintbrush and a lot of patience. I used a cocktail stick to do the lipstick as I found it was easier to get a more precise shape.
Glenda's costume arrived mid morning, I put a rod into her puppet and put the costume on. I then tidied Glenn and Manny up. We rigged all the puppets in place before lunch. After lunch we started filming. I was the light behind the windows. I had a big torch and was moving it across the window to make it look like the train was moving. Simon was shaking the set to also give movement to the train. Katie, Will and Hedley were puppeteering. I think this shot is going to look fantastic, I cant wait to see it in the edit! After we had finished the shot we had to make the set look like it was the other side of the train, so the camera would be looking from Glenns point of view. We changed the position of the newspaper, added graffiti on the window (KL+SB in a heart, meaning Katie Lenton + Steph Bolduc!) and also some litter on the ground. Steve didn't need to change any lighting for this set as it's basically the same, and it needs to look the same because it's the same train carriage. It's all ready for us to shoot on Monday with a new character, Mandy. This lady will be flirted with by Manny. I need to do three wigs for her this weekend as she will have three different facial expressions.
