This is my day job

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Physics. That’s what I read at university: physics. My final year project was on the quantum measurement problem, and I was a damned good experimentalist too, though admittedly I was a crappy theoretician. Nevertheless, I sincerely doubt that my late tutor would have expected me to be, eleven years later, making things like this distinctly cutesy crab. On a Saturday. Professionally. As in: I get paid to do this shit.

It’s a fun job. Not, perhaps, quite as much fun as you might reasonably expect – hey, I was in the office for 11 hours on a Saturday – but still… it beats working for a living.

I’m particularly proud of the crab, incidentally. I don’t make that many props any more so I’m rather out of practice, and anyway I’ve never been good at cute characters. Yet somehow this little fella came together, and he only took about 15 minutes. He needs a couple of tweaks and a lick of paint, but he’s basically there.

In the background is the first picture of our fabulous set to be published anywhere, ever ever ever. You wouldn’t believe for how little money it’s been lashed together, John Gorman (the designer) having done a startlingly good job, with the construction boys throwing themselves into the spirit of the show by scrounging bits lying around the workshop. I was wandering around it with one of the cameras last night, looking at angles, and it’s going to be a dream to shoot. Assuming we can light it, that is – but that’s Monday’s problem.

One of the clever things: there’s a weird forced-perspective/wonky angles thing going on, which means the upstage shelves are much smaller than you’d expect. The back corners are, however, rather lovely to shoot in… except that there’s no room for the cameras. But lo! There is, since the cameras we’re using are dinky little ones. The whole set is about 15% smaller than it would have been with ‘proper’ cameras, which is part of how it came in on budget.

Monday is technically our first day in studio, though I’m choosing to call it a ‘Tech Day’ since I think it’s going to be a bit of a shambles. Tuesday, then, is when we kick off proper. Wish us luck!

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