Buying Props & Costume | Development

To prepare for our shoot, one of the main tasks we had to do was to find and buy props & costume for our set and characters. Due to our setting being a modern house, we knew we needed to find some dated ornaments and decoration in order to create the mixture of old and new - linking with the theme of the show.

When going into the project, we knew a lot of the decorations and props we would need would be available to us through family members and objects we already owned. This meant that we wouldn't need to buy a large amount of props and our budget can be focused a lot on travel expenses. Laura made sure that we had a fair amount of money in our prop budget so we could go out and buy extra props so we would have a lot of choice when dressing the set.

We all went away and had a look at the props we owned ourselves. I found a vintage table runner, that I thought would show the age of the characters. I also found a couple of lace table clothes, which we all thought would be found in old aged people's houses, so in turn it would help highlight the age of the characters.

I also found an old-fashioned silver photo frame with floral details. I thought this would work well in the couples house as it's something Annie would have bought before she wanted to become young, or something that has been passed down in generations. Along with that, I had a jug type decoration that we could put flowers in or just have it on show as decor. 

We talked about having a knitted cosy to go on top of a tea pot, and my mum made one for us. This can go in the kitchen and will help carry on the theme of the old age couple. My grandparents also allowed me to borrow a sign they own with the text 'A Lovely Lady and Grumpy Old Man live here'. I thought this would be a humorous sign to include in the set and it helps show the personalities of our characters. I also thought using some framed photos that are already in use would be effective as well.

Along with these props, we organised a shopping day in which we would walk around the high street and find any other props we needed or thought would work well in our set. We bought the likes of flowers, potpourri, ornaments, jugs, vases and more. We found that buying more props for a cheap price was helpful as we would have an option when dressing the set. We found the majority of our props in charity shops and cheap shops such as Poundland, Wilkinsons & more.

Now we have all of the props we can go to our location and dress the set to see what it would look like. This will mean we are prepared for our shoot days and there won't be a lot of wasted time in deciding what goes where on the day.