Tonight's Dinner - Pre-production

Shannon Murphy’s Tonight's Dinner is a three-minute short film that we took from the first idea through to the screen during a challenge from director, Georgia Redman. As a dark comedy, set in a 1960s TV studio kitchen show, we had our work cut out from the start.

Researching 1960’s cooking shows and kitchen design and colours was fun as it was an era that I wasn’t familiar with.

Designing a 1960’s set without a budget was tough and there was no other option but to put my own money into the film. The suggestion of finding a skip full of free 1960’s kitchen units and kitchenware was just a nonstarter, as much of this type of thing is fashionable and out of our price range.

As the set builder, I had to work quickly and make some robust decisions! First, I found the most important prop in the script, the fridge, retro and red in colour!

After working out how to get it to the 4th floor to our studio and hours of cleaning, it didn’t just look good, it looked amazing and would turn out to be an iconic part of our film.

The Red Smeg Fridge

Next came an original 1960’s double unit; shopping around for cheap secondhand furniture meant that I had to travel further, however, with the added time and fuel costs it was a false economy, but the instruction was to get either free or cheap items.

The original 1960s double kitchen unit

I found the three rear units free to collector on marketplace, but they were far away in Bristol. With no other leads from my several ‘wanted’ ads, I had no other option but to drive there to collect them.

Free to collector! The three units for the rear of the set

The paint colours were chosen by the Director and I had the paint mixed up especially to the exact colour match.

Choosing the paint colours

Having the paint mixed to the correct colour

I stripped apart the units and rubbed them down so that the paint would stick.

Painting the units

To save money, I used the studio tables and bought a tablecloth, which I cut in half as we had two tables to cover.

Retro tablecloths

Our make-up artist brought in her collection of antique 1960’s kitchen items and I made the prop for inside the fridge and the director made the food for the show.

A collection of 1960s kitchen props

I worked with the actresses during practice, blocking them, and helping to work out their movements through the set.

Blocking and practice

A last-minute decision meant that I had to move the set to the white part of the studio, but that was no problem as every item was standalone, just like in Fanny Cradock's 1960’s TV series.

The set is almost finished

The sign on the back of the wall turned out to be a bit tricky as the CNC machine broke down, so I cut out the individual letters by hand and stuck these to the back wall.

The sign is stuck to the wall

I felt the set worked really well, I had tested the colours on film and added LUTs to make sure that the red popped out as the dominant colour, which I enhanced to a retro cherry red using Premier Pro.

Ready for filming!