I got the chance to work with the power duo that is Production Designer Michael Groves and Art Director Mark Carchidi. It was such an honor to be on this art department on a film with such an amazing script. On this set I helped keep pace within the art department, because this film required a lot of its art team. I was assigned with assembling the plants for the lab set, putting together the fancier dining room scene, and concocting the "snot" for the end of the film.
There wasn't a second wasted on this film, and the whole thing was done on one location. In the lab there were about a hundred plants that had to be constructed, and then between scenes flowers were to be added to each plant. With our three-person team, we had one person stay on set upstairs, while the other two stayed in the basement where the lab set was. The plants were three assorted fake greenery strands in black foam traced, cut, and fitted into their pots. I was also in charge of the lab's counter which consisted of various tubes and flasks filled with different colors of slime. I mixed together slime and water with food coloring and used that to represent different science formulas.
The fancy dining room scene was a lot of fun for me because I was given some creative control here. If you look closely on the table, there is an apple that I cut into a swan placed center. Looking back, what I should have done is create a larger fake apple-swan statue, but as a gag we used a real apple. I spent about 6 hours and 5 apples trying to get this swan correct. I wanted it to look nice, to match the environment of the scene. I folded the napkins into hearts on their plates- very grateful to my origami phase for teaching me how to do that.
I also had the opportuniy to be makeup artist on this project which didn't take a lot- since as you can see the look can be described as "red". Every day I had to sponge red face paint all over this poor man's face, and come back to him for touch-ups. It was another very bonding moment for me on set.
