HELP! Turn white walls into....

T

therussian

Well-known member
HELP!
I will shoot a no budget feature which takes place mainly in an apartment. The problem is I want a gritty look like Blade Runner, Seven, but the walls are very bright (not exactly white but a light beige). I would like to get a solution here, because i could use it for free and it's full equipped and furnitured. (While renting a flat is usually comes at a cost + empty...).

What could I do with these bright walls to make it more gritty? I can't paint them and destroy them...

Thanks

(I posted this in the cinematography topic as well, because I didn't realized there's a prod design topic... sorry..)
 
Paint the walls? Yes it takes time, and yes it is hard work, but it's not THAT expensive, and can be undone as long as you are careful and good at it.

You said you can't do that, not sure why since it's a very common thing, but the next step is fabric. I have worked on many productions where we go find a fabric that works for our aesthetic needs and we pin it or double sided tape it very taught across the walls. Yes it won't look perfect, especially if the environment desired is supposed to be clean. But if it's in a distressed and worn looking apartment or location, it works well.

We wanted something distressed, so we picked a "wallpaper" fabric that was ugly, the right tone and color for photography and then stained it at strategic places as to mimic wear, fading and water stains from leaking pipes, etc.

Here is the video on VIMEO of an example of this method. I shot it as DP about 4-5 years ago. This was shot on an HVX200 with a RedRock adapter a long time ago and I was 22 years old! Don't judge too hard, although it came out rather well.


http://vimeo.com/51485801

But in the opening scene and all the other scenes that take place in the apartment (most of them if I recall) all the walls were white! We used this fabric as a less destructive method of wallpapering them. Had we needed to simply paint a solid tone/color, I would have fought for real paint. The design in the 'fake' wallpaper helps hide the inconsistencies of wrinkles and etc.
 
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Thanks!
Congratulate to the great short film!
So the room in the first 30 sec, is a modified wallpaper? You just taped it on, and after the shoot took it off without any damage? Won't it do any damage to a white wall?

What color would you recommend for the Blade Runner look?

BTW, how did you light this short film? What lights did you use? It's awesome!
 
That room in all the footage (the wall behind the refrigerator, the wall behind the desk, etc.) is all fabric, bought in the fashion district in LA, NOT wallpaper. It's double sided taped to the wall and occasionally tacked. We got it as taught and smooth as possible to give the illusion of cheap wallpaper, and without actually having to wallpaper the wall.

The "Blade Runner look" is an accumulation of creative decisions that were made by the artists of the film to achieve a specific tone and aesthetics that was just right for that film. Your film, I assume is not in the exact same Blade Runner world, so I would caution you to not simply try to emulate another's work. Figure out why you like that look and how certain aspects of their work could benefit your story. I assure you, any story different from Blade Runner will have demands and creative choices that will vary as well, as they service the story.


Regarding my film. It was lit by various types of lighting. We had a very specific color theme we tried to attain, and it was shot all daylight with lots of warm gels or tungsten lamps. We wanted the interior to seem warm, but cool, so we underlit it, as one would cool off by sitting in the shade. The exterior, especially the light coming through the apartment window where we used 4k mole richardson soft zip's, is made to be much warmer feeling. We wanted the outside to be hot and really hard, harsh and at times blown out. We wanted the hard reality of the streets to seem that way through the image. Her life is hard and the real world is unforgiving. We wanted it to be more harsh than the interior, a less hot and safer place for the mom and child.

I'm glad you liked it.
 
Props help a lot for this. you can cover a lot of wall space. Wall art, shelves, furniture, boxes, coat racks, random stuff. If a place is grungy and gritty it would also stand to reason there could be trash or just random stuff around that has accumulated along with the dirt. If you can find elements of the character/s that you can reinforce with props and furniture do it, it adds depth to your storytelling. And not just the obvious stuff. Give the audience some backstory with elements in the room. Thrift stores are your friend with this. I've proped out whole multi set projects with $400 and a few good thrift stores.
 
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