Art Direction

Adam Praed and John Greene would be wearing the same clothing in the film, so the outfit had to be pretty much identical for both characters. I kept in close contact with the main character played by David Parkin when in the process of finding a suitable night guard outfit so that he felt comfortable with what he was wearing, on the first meeting with David myself and the cinematographer quickly realised the enthusiasm he had toward the film which put us in good stead early on in the production. I as a producer had no problem with discussing the uniform with the actors as I have learnt from seeing how closely the actors in larger films work with the producer and director to create an image. David had the idea of using ex military uniforms rather than the uninspiring baggy jumper that the actual security guards wear in castle market, we couldn't agree more with the recommendation of the military tunics as they gave off a suave clean cut image which I though would complement the style of cinematography. 

We met David on numerous occasions to sort the jackets successfully finding two of the same in sixes that would fit both of the actors, I had previously got David Worden's sizes on our meeting earlier on in the production whilst discussing any questions he had with the film or script, unfortunately the director was away during these weeks we had the actor meetings however the cinematographer kindly stepped in to have the meeting with me. 

Once we had both the jackets we deiced that we would take off the golden sewn on patches on the lepels and epaulets on the shoulders as they still looked like military jackets. As I didn't want to damage the jackets by cutting them myself I went over to the fashion department in Sheffield Hallam to get assistance, a second year student kindly unpicked the badges and cut off the epaulets.



The location of Castle Market made the art direction easier as it was already a working market and so was fully decorated with all furnishings, however in the interview scene we were blessed with an upstairs disused office space which was complete with desks chairs, blinds, computer etc however needed to be cleaned up and organised as it was a mess of paper and waste. Myself and the cinematographer dressed this scene in the half an hour we had before shooting.

 In the above screen grab the room looks reasonably tidy, everything is organised so that it evokes that of an normal office space. We felt the plant was a necessary element as it draws the viewers eye toward John Greene and away from the window space creating a more natural less artificial geography to the room. The blind next to his head couldn't be fixed though it seems fitting with the rest of the out dated market with a time/year that isn't ever explained.

David Worden's (John Greene) arrived on the shoot with red braces which we never originally asked him to wear however we felt that they gave him authority over Adam Praed as well as suggesting that he's a possible threat and so permitted him to wear them, another great suggestion from the actors.