Four Rooms - Channel 4 Series
Assistant art director & prop maker
Assistant art director & prop maker
I was assistant to the art director on this series for Channel 4.
Our role was to design and make display solutions for a diverse group of objects whilst keeping all fixtures and plinths as discreet as possible.
-If you can’t see what we did on the show then we did a good job!
Our main challenge was in finding solutions for suspending artifacts at a height and angle where both long shots and close-ups could best be filmed whilst rotating through 360 degrees.
We had to safely suspend delicate and cumbersome items whilst ensuring the fixtures didn't cause any damage.
With no access to the items before the day of filming, we often had to improvise display solutions at the very last minute so as not to keep the 30 strong crew waiting.
Many of the items came in in a condition unfit for filming so we had to prepare and restore them to show them at their best – my favorite piece was a set of 6 beautiful Alexander McQueen dresses that came in all screwed up and stuffed in an Ikea bag!
Our role was to design and make display solutions for a diverse group of objects whilst keeping all fixtures and plinths as discreet as possible.
-If you can’t see what we did on the show then we did a good job!
Our main challenge was in finding solutions for suspending artifacts at a height and angle where both long shots and close-ups could best be filmed whilst rotating through 360 degrees.
We had to safely suspend delicate and cumbersome items whilst ensuring the fixtures didn't cause any damage.
With no access to the items before the day of filming, we often had to improvise display solutions at the very last minute so as not to keep the 30 strong crew waiting.
Many of the items came in in a condition unfit for filming so we had to prepare and restore them to show them at their best – my favorite piece was a set of 6 beautiful Alexander McQueen dresses that came in all screwed up and stuffed in an Ikea bag!
65 year old wedding cake from the marriage of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh.
What we can’t do with a candle stick, a plate, some old material (or a yoghurt pot, a toilet roll and some sticky back plastic ;) ) is really not worth doing!
The Alexander McQueen dress challenge: Make 5 delicate and heavy dresses hang athead height whilst turning through 360 degrees…
Some coat hangers and a can of spray paintand whole lot of ingenuity it is then!…
Some coat hangers and a can of spray paintand whole lot of ingenuity it is then!…
This piece was unbelievably delicate and was just about ready to disintegrate at any touch or slight movement. Supporting it at a 55 degree angle for the cameras meant building this frame and attaching the suit using some well disguised fishing wire and hocks.
A 10,000 year old pair of woolly mammoth tusks.
We designed and commissioned a frame for the display of this 19th century shaman outfit and dressed the accessories at different heights to be best viewed from all directions
Human Skin Wallet
This was a tiny object so to dress it for the camera without crowding it we elevated it with perspex box to allow light to flow around the object.
This was a tiny object so to dress it for the camera without crowding it we elevated it with perspex box to allow light to flow around the object.
This is where the magic happened, we made this little workshop behind the scenes. Our home for two months during filming!
The one that got away..
We had a constantly changing list of objects to dress for the show, some of which didn’t make it to filming.
This was a test mannequin I was making out of some left over material, intended to display some ‘Doggy Bling’ – a set of diamond bracelets, tiara and collar and a dress for the ridiculously pampered lap dog – that unfortunately didn’t materialize.
The mannequin subsequently became our house pet during the filming and was given a set of wheels to make up for his unfinished back legs. He’s very happy.
We had a constantly changing list of objects to dress for the show, some of which didn’t make it to filming.
This was a test mannequin I was making out of some left over material, intended to display some ‘Doggy Bling’ – a set of diamond bracelets, tiara and collar and a dress for the ridiculously pampered lap dog – that unfortunately didn’t materialize.
The mannequin subsequently became our house pet during the filming and was given a set of wheels to make up for his unfinished back legs. He’s very happy.
