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Interiors: The Courtroom


I think I've exploited the Courtroom set to the outmost limits possible. I've prepared just two sides of that room, with the idea to interchange sections from which both of the walls were assembled. The truth is, I've been in limited supply with everything, from raw materials for building the thing, to the number of actually finished elements. Every such element - the pillar, the column, the window, the sitting bench, the table (with working lamps), and even the simple wall segment - required some time and effort, so I did only what was absolute necessity, after I made precise list of exact number of possibly visible elements, at least according to the 3D animatic.


In the first draft of the 3D animatic I've tried to use as little background as possible (above). Perhaps that approach would work just fine, but backgrounds have soon expanded in final animatic visuals (below). There was no way I could avoid making at least two walls. But the animatic implied we'll see almost all four walls, so I opted for interchangeable segments.








Unlike it was the case with the Orphanage interior, at least here I knew in advance I'd have to combine and rearrange quite a number of things for every change in camera direction. There was no way around it: this set is pretty big, so building even one side (a wall) in one piece would prove impractical any time prior to shooting, because storage space was scarce. Even if it wasn't, transporting and handling such big pieces would damage the delicate materials, the only kind the production could afford. And I felt I had to be prepared in advance, as much as possible, to split pre-production and therefore shorten the actual shooting. So that was the only way to go.













Sidewalls had to be assembled from four wall segments, easily set in place between self-standing pillars. I've applied pretty much the same concept for the Judge's backing wall, as well as for the opposing wall. The only difference being in addition of Portic-like authoritarian piece in the central position of the first (below left), and similar type entrance in the other (right).

There's been remarkably long road from that early test (below left), to the final set (below right). I even had to disregard some architectural rules to make the background work at it's finest (the cornices are on the wrong height, comparing to window arches), and yet managed to retain the appearance of the classic architecture.


Above: Courtroom windows as they were finished in pre-production construction, before reshaping. Wall looked like it has no volume, very much cardboard - like. I felt that this particular Courtroom needs to reflect certain level of importance, and those windows gave me the impression of the most basic army barracks or cheapest prefabricated homes, just with some pillars out of place... It'd be simple to just add some more polystyrene, but the trouble was, I used particular kind for construction, the one in basic wall colour, and there were no more of it. Not even to buy some more. And painting another kind to match wouldn't cut it. So, I came up with a method to cut the same piece in such a way to add volume and facet the surface, without loosing the widths or heights of the window-wall elements. That took additional time. Was it worth it? You tell me...

Above: The impression of the Courtroom interior, based on the snapshot taken during the testing (above row; photo on the right). I've found out that I should probably minimalize the yellowish tone of the walls, because it blends with faces. How didn't I predict that? And if that wasn't a dissapointment enough, it turned so that I should also elevate the whole background wall quite a bit, yet in the same time it'd be better to keep the windows lower, on their original height, if not raised (note the right one). Now, all that messed up the original design and I had to implement all sorts of cheats and diggressions to avoid letting it look
	out of place just as it actually is. The architects of old buildings mainly wanted heavy, thick walls to appear lighter in weigh than they actually were, and they used tricks to achieve that. My mission was quite an opposing one - to make walls appear thicker, and it brought me problems I had to solve with tricks. Moving windows down just added to a problem.




There has been no need (at least, that's what I thought at the beggining) for distant wide shots, so the camera framed no more than one corner at a time (and limited portions of connecting walls, like on the images below left), or just slighty over two corners, if placed frontally onto a wall (images below right).




And no matter how wide some of the shots finally turned out, there's been, from the very beggining, a need for at least one wide shot - the one above the Judge, onto the Santa, lawyers, audience and the Jury (below).

*The cucoloris*




I have constructed this cucoloris (or cookie, if you prefere) and grid hybrid, from a leftover piece of pink polystyrene, to simulate Courtroom window effect in casted light/shadows. I had to do it in order to help disguise the fact that the lighting post is too close to the set. (Above)




I've applied the same principles (principles of cheap production, that is) when constructing 'the balcony'. The shot wasn't in the animatic, so there's a possibility that it won't get in (to the final cut) and therefore I shouldn't invest too much time on it. I shot both Santa and the Balcony separately. I've used as much as I could the previous set arrangement, which was back side of the Courtroom, supposedly just under the said balcony. I wanted impressive ceiling, but I assembled it quickly and simple as possible with maximum effect. Everything else is also an "ad hoc" improvisation.