Recipe for Disaster

For my group's art project, "Recipe for Disaster," we first rummaged through the cupboard of our creative talents to find out what we had on hand to work with between all of our group members. Our majors were cinema production, fine arts with an emphasis in photography, fine arts with an emphasis in design, and theater, so we tried to think of what we could do that would best blend all of our creative talents. It seemed like a film would be the easiest thing to cook up as our group project, but we paused to think about what it was that we really wanted to make. We didn’t want to cook up a grilled cheese of sorts for our project. We wanted to do something we’d have fun with and that was a bit different from what we’d each done in the past. Call it an attempt at a soufflé or three-tier rainbow-colored birthday cake, if you will. Therefore, we realized that we all thought it’d be really fun to try a stop motion film, since that actually utilized all of our talents even better than a regular approach to a film. This way Caitlin, our photographer wouldn’t have to compromise her artistic practice due to the medium. Most of all, our group just wanted to have fun with this project. We hoped to create something that would be fun for us while we made it, entertaining for the class to watch… and would provide an excuse to bring in food for everyone during our presentation ☺ (Who doesn't love a good chocolate chip cookie??)

From there, we started to work out our plot. First, we decided that it would need to be set in an apartment, since it'd have to be somewhere we could camp out for the entire day because the process was going to take hours. We knew we wanted inanimate objects to come to life, and we brainstormed everything from kitchen appliances moving around to an alarm clock trying to strangle its owner. However, we ultimately settled on a story where baking ingredients rebel against the person trying to turn them into a dish (chocolate chip cookies). It was perfect because it could be done in one of our kitchens, had props that were easily obtainable, and, best of all, not only produced a film but also a tasty reward at the end of the process!

I worked as production designer on the film and offered up my apartment for our location. As far as dressing our "set" (aka my kitchen) goes, I didn't do a whole lot. I knew most of the film would be in close up, but I tried to rearrange things on the counter in order to make them a bit more visually interesting. The thing I learned the most during this part of the process is that my roommates and I have A LOT of cereal. Like three boxes a person. Ridiculous.

My role really came into play with all of our props, where I basically functioned as an "inanimate object wrangler." I made the faces for all of our "actors" (except for Brittany, that is) and nudged them along, snapshot by snapshot, to bring them to life. The real production design work for this project was figuring out the logistics of moving the objects down the counter, but a quick reunion with my trustworthy friend, duct tape, quickly met this challenge with a solution. We also blew the yokes out of the eggs so that they would be lighter and more easily suspended without breaking. 

During the week leading up to our shooting day, everyone we talked to about the project warned us against attempting such a time-consuming process, and we all started to get a bit nervous. (Way to have faith in us, huh?) As a result, we started brainstorming alternate solutions, such as turning the photos into a children’s book, in case we ran out of time. Luckily, though, that wasn't necessary, and we were able to get all the shots we needed in six hours. It took a lot of problem-solving and a very focused use of our time, but, in the end, we were able to do what we set out to in beginning: have fun, finish the film, and eat cookies. Therefore, I'd say our "Recipe for Disaster" turned out to be a sweet success.