Reflective Evaluation: Commission, Community, Collaboration.

Maidstone Studios: Contextual Background

As the UK'S largest independent TV studio, Maidstone Studios possesses access to professional equipment and high-profile TV shows , with opportunity to network with leading industry professionals.
Facilities include: 25 Apple editing suites, screening, audition room, sound booth, kitchen, kit room and library. Access to the actual TV studio spaces are also available, which is where we were able shoot 'Teach Em' A Lesson.' I believe we were making use of Studio 2 which is 6,000 square feet and equipped with the capacity for 200 seated audience and boasts a full saturation lighting grid of 116 barrel hoists.


Examples of shows filmed at Maidstone Studios:
Later With Jools Holland, Catchphrase, Take Me Out, Sports Relief's Top Dog, Mister Maker, Jo Brands Great Wall of Comedy.

Contextual Document: Partner Profile, TV Production student roles.

This is a list I put together showing all the names of the collaborating production students and their related roles as appear in the credits.

Series Producer: Wesley Denne

Studio Director: Jordan Parker

Assistant Producer/ Floor Manager: Adele Faldetta 

VT Producer/ GFX OP: Jessica Gray

P.A./ VT Editor: Alexander Barker

GFX/ Promo Producer and Vision Mixer: Megan Waters 

GFX/ Promo D.O.P & Studio Camera OP: Patrica C. Dixon 

VT Camera OP & Lead Studio Camera: Harry Taylor 

VT Camera OP & Assistant Studio CamOP: Plamen Dimitrov 

VT Director & Studio Camera OP: Lawrence Sedgewick 

VT Directors & Studio OP: Mary Green

VT Sound Recordist: Shannelle Laniyan 

Studio Sound OP: Mike Hoad 

Set Design - UCA Creative Arts For Theatre and Film:
Debbie Abbott, Jessica Ampleford, Carmela Arbelaez-McCarthy, Anna Beaumont, Charlottle Dean, Tara Dunne, Lily Greenhalgh, Bruce Hill, Louise Humphries, Leigh Osbourne, Hannah Quinn, James Wright.  

Contextual Document: Partner Profile, Del Brown.

Del Brown was the director and manager of the TV Production students at the UCA Maidstone studios while we collaborated on the 'Teach Em' a Lesson' project. Although our team didn't see a lot of him, he obviously managed the Production students well as they were all organised and his involvement meant that the project ran smoothly. I think without Del's supervision it would've been harder to come to definite decisions, and by having someone in that lead directing role that the Production students could run everything through, the project could be completed in time.



Information and Linkedin profile:
http://www.beds.ac.uk/news/2015/november/del-brown-masterclass

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/del-brown-876ba61

Final Prop Photoshoot.

Images above showcase all the props I had a hand in completing.

Team Credits:
1) Wooden prop trunk: Made by Leigh, Louise and I.

2) Firework: Majority made by Louise.

3) Medusa Head: I took the pins out and re-arranged the hair, ready to be stuck down. Majority made by Charlotte.

4) Chalkboards and Axe: Started and completed by me.

Prop Box: TV Production Prop

This 'wooden chest' designed prop box was made with the purpose of transporting all of the props (both the school themed scaled up ones and the historic ones) efficiently. from between the two UCA locations,  as well as moving the props from off camera to on set whilst shooting.

This was just a cardboard box that was painted up by me, Leigh and Louise. The rivets and beams down the side where wooden, as was the lock, but the rest was card that was reinforced with layers of glaze after painting. Having a specifically designed prop box meant that it matched the rest of the style of the props and blended in with the environment, rather than making do with a simple plastic tub.

Chalkboards Final: Oversized TV Production Prop

Final chalk board props 'over-sized school items' game round of 'Teach Em' a Lesson'; Produced by the Television Production students at UCA.

- Made entirely of of MDF, therefore cheap to assemble
- Wood grain made with scenic painting techniques: A rocker comb and layers of paint and washes
- Drawn on with chalk afterwards for authentic writing style
- Rounded corners: Much safer than the sharp, square corners of the MDF before being rounded off.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out in the end, as they look quite authentic. The grain-effect came out well, and these are one of the props I'm most proud of. The only criticism I would have is that they were a little heavy; maybe a lighter wood could have been a better choice? I don't think foam would have had the right consistency, and wood was already the right shapes I needed in order to form the base and the borders for the chalkboards, so in this case a kind of flat, light wood was the ideal material.

Credit: This was a prop I completed on my own, as similarly to the axe prop, not a lot of work was needed to get these from a start point to completion.

Rocket Final: TV Production Prop

Final firework prop for the history round of 'Teach Em' a Lesson' produced by the TV Production students at UCA.

Credit: This was a prop I only helped to finish by sourcing the fabric for the flames and cutting them to shape. Louise did all the making and painting of this prop to the extent of my knowledge.
I then took the final portfolio photos as seen above.

Axe Final: TV Production Prop

Final axe prop for the history round of 'Teach Em' a Lesson'; Produced by the Television Production students at UCA.

- Wooden handle shaped on a lathe.
- Foam blade, hand shaped.
- Silver metal effect obtained through buffing with graphite powder.

Overall I'm happy with the general scale of the prop, but there are a few improvements I would make in retrospect.
Creating the handle out of MDF would have made the 'blade' thinner and a lot less chunky looking. It would have also been easier to create symmetry through a thinner base material.
Carving designs or text relevant to the historic period also could have improved this prop, but with the available time and medium that the prop would have been seen in, I don't think it would've been worth this small detail.

Credit: I completed this from start to finish. This was a fairly easy prop to get done quickly so it only needed one person working on it.

Teach Em' A Lesson 2016: Final Piece

Here the full finished production of 'Teach Em A Lesson' can be seen, as uploaded by the Youtube channel UCATelevsion Production. The footage displays the completed professional collaborative product, combining the two UCA courses talents, and it's great to have the opportunity to see it as a  final piece!

Final Lighting tests: Dress Rehearsal

Photos taken after the final set up of both flats and props.
About half an hour was taken to set up lighting and cameras to the point where filming could begin. Being able to watch the set and props in use, both with TV crew running about before filming and actors in character pacing across the set was really rewarding! The blue and red lighting brought the set to life and gave the impression of three different sections of stage, supported by the three angled walls themselves.
Seeing the TV Production students carry out their part in the project now ours was finished was also really interesting, and we were able to see both teams work combine to create a really cool finished product that was fun and satisfying to watch.

Setting up for Teach Em' a Lesson.

After the design team set up the flats, the props team were able to go in and place the over sized props accordingly. At this point the final touches and reassembly of the flats had been made, and the cameras where getting set up ready to be filmed. The actors and TV production students where also running through their cues and lines in preparation for the dress rehearsal that we were able to view. 

Finished trunk holding both the historic and oversized school themed props. This was set the side, ready to be moved onto set during a break. 

Photo of the final set including desks and chairs, before lighting was set up (before props where placed.) 

Transporting Set; Tv Production

To move the set from where it was being worked on in our workshops to the TV studios in Maidstone, each flat had to be disassembled and packed up separately. This meant cutting through the paper that the chalk set was painted onto, unscrewing the supports and wheeling each one out to a van. These would then be reassembled in the studio where it would go on to be filmed.

The above images firstly show one of the five panelled sides in preparation of being taken apart after being lifted to the ground. The second image shows the finished separate panels getting wheeled away.

Completed Flats: Teach Em' a Lesson

With the design hand painted on by the design team, the 'Teach Em' A Lesson' flats are complete.

Recap: The design team decided to suggest changing the Victorian school house concept to a simpler, but very effective 'chalkboard' drawn backdrop. This meant less time spent sourcing, buying or building things for us, but the production students still got the immediately recognisable school environment that they desired.

Further prop work; Teach Em' A Lesson

Further props that I worked on collaboratively are pictured above. These are historic props that people either started and didn't have time to finish or were simultaneously working on other projects at the time.

(Top two images) The chest was a box made to contain all of the historic props so they could be brought onto set easily and quickly during a quick break. To go with the historic theme, we decided on an old chest or trunk design, and used the technique of base coating, then a rocker to create a grain in a darker colour.

(Bottom left) The Medusa head was left painted and with hair pinned in. With the prop being handled on the show, glueing the ribbons down to the head would be a safer alternative to sharp pins. Someone had already tried this using the wrong adhesive, therefore beginning to melt through the polystyrene.

(Bottom right) The rocket needed 'fire' coming out of it as a finishing touch, so I made a paper template before finding off-cuts of light lilac and sparkly red fabrics.

Oversized chalkboard props.

 Chalkboards x2 were requested as part of the school themed oversized props for a game planned to be in the 'Teach Em' A Lesson' gameshow.
As these are props I knew I could get done in a day and to a good standard, I opted to the this mini-project on solo, especially at this point the deadline was quite close. Getting props done efficiently without lacking in quality or safety was priority.
To the left shows the measurements on a piece of MDF for the chalkboard and the borders.

 Once cut out on a bandsaw, the separate pieces were painted. For the grey chalkboard base I made sure to use the same paint that was being used for the set itself, so the colours would match up. These were then left to dry, but as MDF is quite porous this didn't take long.

Once all dry, washes were brushed over the borders and then a rocker was used to create a 'grain' through them, emulating real wood planks. The pieces were stuck together with wood glue and left to dry, then the corners were rounded by eye on a belt sander.

 

 The finishing touches included making the chalkboards look used by drawing on them in actual chalk. A glaze could then have been brushed over to stop the chalk from rubbing off but I went without in case the Production students would prefer them to be blank or have a different image on them, in which case the chalk can simply be rubbed off. The backs and sides were also painted as I realised these props would be getting picked up and moved, so the front wouldn't be the only angle getting seen, so every angle was covered and patterns just incase.

Henry VIII's axe; Teach Em' a Lesson.

 For the history quiz round of 'Teach Em' a Lesson' several specified props were commissioned, one of these was a props to represent Henry VIII. As a group we decided that a small axe to symbolise the execution of his wives and his ruthless attitude would work well. I decided to make this out of foam and wood, as opposed to MDF alone, as this way it would look slightly more cartoonish and match the rest of the set and props style. I feel if it looked very realistic it could have looked out of place.

Marking out the width of the handle and the shape of the blade was the first stage. The diagonal lines in the image above represent where there would be an angle carved into the foam to begin creating shape.
To the left shows the final measured lines and the arrows indicated to me which lines to follow.

 Once carved and hand sanded I also hollowed out a hole in the base for the handle to stick into later on. To get the axe symmetrical was the hardest part of this process. Once I was happy with the shape a few layers of white paint were applied as a base coat.

 After a few failed attempts of trying to carve out a shape for the top of the handle, a technician introduced me to the lathe. This fixed up my errors and produced a channel to use as guidance for shaping the handle further.

After buffing with graphite powder, glossing and staining the handle, the axe prop is finished! I'm pleased with the coloration of the 'metal' and the introduction to the lathe machine. However, if I do something similar to this again, reference pictures of every angle would be something I bring with me rather than just ones from the side, as these would have been very useful. Further research into blade shapes and widths would also have been handy, but for a small prop seen on a TV screen for a few seconds, this amount of detail wasn't necessary with a project so fast paced.

Preparing Flats: 'Teach Em' A Lesson'.

As I was filling a support role in this project I focused mainly on preparing the old flats for refurbishment. This would mean that by the time the main design team had finalised their plans, the flats would be ready to be painted and have the designs transferred to them. Myself and Mel used a corded hand sander to remove all of the thick, dried paint, else the paper laid down with wallpaper paste would be uneven.

Leigh and I then spent a few evenings wallpapering the smoothed flats with paper and till roll. Under our supervisor, Bruce's advice, he suggested that till roll would neaten the edges that had to be cut when the flats had to be disassembled to be transported to the TV Studios.

The wallpaper itself was used to paint the design over, rather than paint straight onto a second hand flat that had a variety of paints and textures on them already. This was altogether a quicker and neater method.

Photos taken by Carmela McCarthy, Leigh Osbourne and myself.

Second TV Production briefing

3rd March 2016
Here shows the TV Production students visiting our work room for the second briefing. During this meeting all ideas for costume prop and set were pitched to the production team and discussed. As an outcome it was agreed that the set was two be shrunk down in order to cut our making time and material cost.
As I researched into costume, I realised that within the time restraint it would be difficult to create two adult sized Victorian school uniforms from scratch to fit two models yet to be decided. Because of this, as well as budget it was decided that the costume for the adult contestants would be sourced from the TV students and their own budget.
The props that were in a state of almost being finished were also presented to the students, who were really pleased with the progress and size/ shape/ style, giving good feedback.

Above is the mood board presented to the TV Production students at the briefing, displaying images of Victorian childrens clothing. The clothes pattern would be fairly simple for the girls pinny and dress, but the budget and time taken to gather fabric would have been unrealistic with the quick pace of this project.

Final Design choice

Uploaded to the Facebook group by Tara Dunne on the 25th February 2016.

Having revised that it was not a historically accurate Victorian school house that the students wanted but instead simply something instantly recognisable as a school environment, the design team pitched the above mood board.
This design meant a much simpler ask for us as builders and sourcers, as all furniture/ windows/ wall texturing could be painted straight onto a dark grey background. Even though it meant we were limited to a black and white colour scheme, the mood could be changed instantly with use of coloured lighting.
As a whole, this design meant a lot less construction, therefore more of a budget to spend on other aspects, as well as presenting a far quicker method of creating the set which was vital in such a fast paced project.