Stefanie Goh : Design

LOCATION SURVEY

Address: Dr Sun Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden

578 Carrall St, Vancouver

BC V6B 5K2, Canada

I remember getting a lot of weird looks as I stood with an umbrella, my measuring tape and my juggling my sketchbook and a huge backpack in the other hand. I figured, these people will probably never see me again, so I really went all out. I was splayed on the floor, squatting at a corner like a homeless girl, and even subtly trying to divert the tourist to the other side of the garden first so I could take my measurements. Hehe.

I also managed to get a hold of a pamphlet of the park and as I was walking through it, I made some notes on it and highlighted some of the features I thought was fascinating. Since I have not yet decided on which part I wanted to focus yet, I just did a rough (not drawn to scale) drawing of the park.

The measurements were in Metric form as I forgot that we were going to trying it in Imperial this time round. As you can see, I obviously struggled with the conversion in the beginning as underneath each measurements I had the conversion in decimal points! And if you have worked in Imperial, you will know that you do not EVER do that. You either leave them in fraction or inches. But do not worry, I think I am well equipped with filtering between both Imperial and Metric scales now.

Rough Floorplan Of Park

And the following is a to scale version (in imperial) of a selected portion of the park which I wish to focus on.

Location Survey With Pictures

Update:
I realised I've done my location survey wrongly. I forgot to label my picture elevations by indicating from which angle are the images seen from on the floorplan. Also, if you know which area is facing North/South, it is good to include that as well, so the DOP (Director of Photography) will know how to fight the battle with the Sun while shooting.

While I was at the gardens, I also took the opportunity to get some other measurements as I knew that I would not be able to revisit the place. Apart from doing some measurements on my own, I also took a whole bunch of pictures with my cousin holding a measuring tape set up at 1m so that I had a baseline to estimate heights from after.

That coupled with some of my own basic measurements, it is easier for me to design my elevations and make estimations later on from other photos archives found through books and the internet.

LOCATION ADAPTATION

Ideally, I would love to shoot Macbeth in Sun Yet Sun, the same garden I used for my primary research. In fact, that was my original idea. It was only when I was conversing with Paul, that he mentioned by choosing a Chinese Garden, I am not really adapting a location but rather, dressing it up. I guess somewhere along the way, I was too caught up in my excitement that I just wanted to start straight away. So for the purpose of this project and to make it more challenging for myself, I chose an English garden somewhere in London to adapt the location to suit my production.

After visiting a few different parks, I thought of using Kyoto Gardens in Holland Park as it follows a Japanese design, which has some similarities to Chinese Gardens. But it is rather small and I feel like for the shots I wanted, the space were a bit limited. Another push factor was the crowd and animals there. You can close off the area from HUMANS while filming, but I do not want one of the many peacocks that frequent there flying into shots. I think that might be quite a hassle later on, so I ended up looking at other parks and settling for Cannizzaro Park.

In my opinion, Cannizaro park is a brilliant location to film, as there is not much human traffic up there, so you get good audio, an undisturbed set and unfiltered nature sounds in the background. There is also a lot space and many different angles and adaptation one could do to the park.

I chose these two particular shots as Chinese garden are often linked by many walkways which looks out to a pond. I added on additional Chinese elements such like the leak windows for the first adaption and other features like the man made stone/rocks that surrounds the pond, the patterned tiles, and some lilies and lotus that floats on the water. Optional: I am not sure if they will allow you to release some koi fishes into the pond as well. But I think the bright pop of colours from the fishes, might make some good shots.

Original Location

Adaptation

Original Location

Adaptation

I tried to reinvent both shots in such a way that not many trees, flowers are seen in the background/foreground. This is because I feel that the plants are a dead giveaway as the two varies drastically in both of the respective countries. (China Vs England) But at the same time, it might be a little weird if you showed a garden with no plants, therefore in the second picture, I chose a pond which does not showcase much of the existing plants so that there is less to hide and instead, you can add in your own like what I did in the adaptions by giving in some shrubs by the corner of the pond, the lilies and lotus in the water and maybe even a hanging droopy plant that covers the top half of the screen.

I am actually very pleased with how this turned out to be. To be honest, I was going to provide some other sort of visuals. I was thinking more on the lines of drawing the envisioned room up with colours and proper point-perspective, drawing. However, I surprised myself with this.

Prior to this, I have only tried Sketch Up once before, and for a design far less complicated. I also followed a template for that, but this is completely all on my own. Initially, I was only going to do the back half of the room, and leave holes in place of the doors and windows. But it is addicting. I guess you can call me a perfectionist, because once I started I could not stop. I even especially went out to buy a mouse so I can work on it from home!!

STRUCTURE
Instead of building the structure of the whole room first, I actually worked from my floorplan and then work on each elevations as a flat surface before putting it together. I find that I rather work this way as it does not make the space appear claustrophobic. As you are working on each elevation as you go, there are no walls on the opposite side that hinders your sight. Once this is all done, then I will draw in wall and align them nicely.

Also, a quick tip before you start. Go to view > Customise toolbar > Add Standard View and Styles (Optional). Both of these additional tools help makes it easier for you to select and go back to see your model as you are designing it.

DETAILS

I knew that I wanted a contrast between the two portions of the room, the part where Macbeth sits vs the area where he receive his guests. And one way which I thought of showing this is through the amount of attention and details in his half of the room. Not only will his seat be elevated, but the walls and windows will be more detailed.

For his portion of the room, I decided to design something called a leak window. It is called a leak window as there are no glass or anything that separates it. Instead, the two sides of the wall are divided by an intricate pattern which allows you to look out into a small boxed/ planter area. It got its name because it allows light to leak through the cracks.

Leak Window

Details

My concept behind putting this in Macbeth section is because he is very paranoid, so I thought this is a wonderful way to introduce the outside element without him having the fear of being too exposed to the outside and danger.

My Dad is rather traditional and follows the Chinese mindset. Each time when we go to a restaurant, he always insist of having his back towards the wall instead of to the entrance. He says that in case if there is ever an attack, he do not have to worry about being attacked from the back. Personally, I think he watches too many movies! Haha!

WINDOWS (Components and Grouping)
There is probably a lot of faster ways to do certain things, but for the good half of the time, I manually made each panel and window. Then I realised you could actually group it, make it into a component and duplicate it. If I had done that from the start, it would have saved me a lot of time.

In this picture, I tried to make one quarter of the design so I could duplicate and rotate it to make the full window, but I spent an hour on it and I still could not figure out how to do it. Each time I try and move it, the whole image becomes lopsided. I later found out that this is because I needed to group them together first so that they are all on the same plane before I played with the overall positioning of it. If you wish to edit it, you need to edit WITHIN said group. One thing I found quite cool is that with components, if you change the main one, all of the other components automatically updates as well. However, if you copied something and simply changed it, you have to change all the other copies on your own as well.

Original Design

This was the original design I wanted for Macbeth's half of the room. However, after working on it. I did not really like how it was coming out to be, thus the following design. I tried to incorporate more hexagons and circles in the later design as I notice these were the two prominent features and adored by the Chinese.

Final Design of Leak Windows

Less elaborate version of a window for non-Macbeth's half of the room.

I felt like this upcoming elevation was the "exams" that I have been preparing for, as I took everything I learnt while doing the other elevations to make this. The grouping helped tremendously as it allowed me to flip and move and all without compromising the original image.

Window Panels on a separate axis to final layout

Ps When dealing with windows, it is good to do it separately from the main structure on the same axis. This way you would not get confused with the design and the window frames. You also would not accidentally delete a major part of the structure by mistake. And once you are done, all you need to do is to shift it back into place! (As depicted in the above pictures.)

To ensure a continuous design throughout the room, I also did a similar pattern for the top of the divider in the middle of the room.

Divider for Middle of the Room

In relation to space

FINAL

Overall, SketchUp is quite a lovely thing to use and after working on this, really changed my opinions on it. I felt that it actually helped me speed up with the design process as I get to see it in 3D as you come up with designs. This is good as it allows you focus on the design rather than the minuet stuff like the tiny measurements (which I always do). Once the design is set, you can always use the measuring tool to find out your dimensions.

Here are some of my elevations of my SketchUp Designs.

In my opinion, I think everyone still needs a good technical drawing, but once your floorplan is solid and you already have some measurements and a good idea for each elevation, it is much easier to see it in SketchUp than you would in a 2D drawing. For instance, I actually ended up changing some of the dimensions on my elevations after seeing it in perspective to the human figure and in relation to some other elements in the space. In 3D, you can immediately tell if a door is too small, the windows are too close together...etc. It is also brilliant as it allows you to see how the camera/film might view it from multiple angles.

For more pictures of the room and a coloured visuals, please refer to the later post on "Visuals".