OUAN406 - Constructing Sets

Once the set had been cut out using the CNC the next part of constructing the actual set was fitting all the pieces together and correcting any mistakes with the measurements if there were any. The way the walls and the base of the set were designed was so that a trench, outlining the walls of the set ran along the 12mm thick sheet of MDF with the trench around 6mm deep. This was so making the cut was deep enough to hold the walls in place without them bending or feeling too loose. Furthermore it was important that the cut didn't affect the sturdiness of the base by going to deep, and risking it collapsing or breaking. I also made sure that when the pieces were all cut out to run over the edges with some sandpaper, just to take off any of the excess splinters of wood or protruding pieces that could actually have effected the way the walls slotted together since they were measured to be exact within a mm or so. Overall I was quite anxious about this stage in the project, because in a sense it was make or break. The designs that took so long to plan and execute on AutoCAD as well as the complex method of cutting and thinking about how the entire set would fit together was going to be determined when I tried to piece it all together. If it hadn't worked the way it was intended to, it would have required more work and reworking the mistakes that had been made. At this point in the project, time was becoming a more pressing matter because despite this being the most time intensive section of the project I still had to furnish it and create footage that I could take forward and make the final piece. So everything had to work as it was intended to.



To create a professional looking set with a good amount of versatility when shooting the footage I wanted to be able to have any number of walls as part of the set at one time. This meant I could shoot at a variety of angles and produce some overall interesting footage for the final title sequence. So everything slotted together comfortably at the corners, the individual walls had to be rebated. This meant taking the edge of the piece of wood and running it past the saw, set at the appropriate angle. The majority of the walls met perpendicular at 45 degrees, which was easy. However, there were several pieces of the set which met at angles such as 53 or 54 degrees. To get these figures for cutting I had to look back at my AutoCAD designs and make sure the angles were correct so they fitted together well. There were several instances whilst rebating that the wrong side of the wood was cut the wrong way. For example, there are walls in the set that have to be rebated one direction on one side and then the opposite direction on the other side because of the way the walls fit together. The first time this occurred when the wood was being rebated I didn't realise and consequently I had to re-do a piece.



Below shows the progression of placing the various pieces of the set into the base. Furthermore, it shows the way the space that the set occupies looks when different walls are removed, and also when looking through the window or door space for example. At this point I'm already getting a huge range of ideas of different shots that could be achieved, I just have to remember that the title sequence is only 30 seconds long, so I don't actually need that much footage overall. The bottom images show the size of the set and the floor space in comparison to some of the furnishings such as the book case and the staircase, which at this point are nearly finished but just need to be painted and some of the set pieces I bought placed on them. Overall, the construction of the set was a success in that it comfortably fit together and looked like it was designed to.