Häävalssi (Wedding Waltz) short film
I worked as a production designer for a university project of a fellow student. He had written a script about the struggles of a wedding band drummer who is unable to tie his tie. The same student would also produce and direct the short film and he had very strong ideas of what the set would look like.
The set would be a backstage of a wedding venue that has been used mostly for storage, and the whole room would be build in the studio. The only location would be the exterior of said venue.
I made the first quick visualisations for the director/producer with SketchUp. These were after the first meeting with the director and after reading the script to give some idea of the scale of the backstage room.
I also made the construction drawings with SketchUp. At one end of the set would be a removable wall for camera access and two small corridors would lead out of the set, one to the stage and one to the great hall where all the wedding guests would be. In addition one door would lead "outside".
The more finalised visualisations were made with Blender. These were the images used in the pitch to get funding from the university for the project. The green walls and the orange plastic chairs were the biggest visual elements the director was very specific about.
The set was assembled from ready-made elements in a workshop space. Everything was also painted ready and some props were sourced so the whole unit would be ready to the transported into the studio. Some minor changes were done at this stage from the original plans, e.g. instead of one window we had two, and the paneling was changed.
First shooting day was of the establishing shot of the location. The building was dressed to look like a typical Finnish summer wedding venue.
Detail shots of the decorations.
The set ready almost ready for shooting in the studio.
Inside the set was dressed to look like the backstage room had been renovated in the 1970s and not been touched since. The room would have been mostly used for storage over the years as well as a backstage for the bands performing at the venue.
Shots of the final film with the wedding band getting ready to go on stage.
