Last weekend I left for three days to be a production designer for a student film thesis. It’s called Taking The Road and it is about two characters that murder hitchhikers as they make their way across the nation on a road trip. This was set in the 50′s. This means we had to find someone who had brand new cars from the 40′s or 50′s. Lucky enough, we found a guy. He hooked us up with a lot of stuff..but one problem. We needed a 1950′s gas station. We ended up finding a nearly gutted one. No walls..just exposed 2×4′s and plywood. I talked some of the guys into cutting me pieces of Masonite that fit in front of the exposed insulation. After that, it was up to set dressing and a good paint job to make it into a convincing gas station. I decided to make it look dingy since, in the script it’s supposed to be on the side of the road in an isolated part of the state. I pulled tons of props and set it up to look like the owner had cans of oil and roughed up magazines. I paid attention to all the little details.. i even asked our crew (the smokers at least) to donate some of their butts and ash to an ashtray that sat at the edge of the counter. I’m still waiting for the rest of the pictures to be uploaded, but here’s one…
By the way..I must add..I worked on this for about six hours..with no heating. IT WAS SO COLD.
