Gopher Golf: Backgrounds and Layouts

I plan for my film "Gopher Golf" to only use three locations - the film is meant to be three minutes in duration, so I aim to keep every element of my film simple, given that the film will not be long enough to include any details which are too complex and affect the storyline.

The three locations are:

• Golfer's house - interior
• Golfer's house - exterior
• Professional golf course/field - exterior

The interior of the Golfer's house only appears on screen for an approximate duration of twenty seconds, even though it will likely be the most complex set to build. This will be the only set where every prop will be sculpted from scratch. For these, I plan to use a combination of silicone, plasticine and pre-built props. These will depend on which materials match the scale of the Golfer puppet, which, at the time of writing, is yet to be built.

The exterior of the Golfer's house and the exterior of the golf course will likely be easier to build. I will be shooting these scenes simultaneously, so I will be able to build one of these sets to film on, then build another using the same basic materials. I have a roll of fake grass which I will be using for both sets. I will also be sculpting props such as a tree, fence and pond which another prop (the golf ball) will interact with. Any other props (which the main character does not interact with) will be hand-drawn/hand-painted onto different backgrounds.

Below are some real-life photos of how I would imagine the golf course to look:

The Golfer and Gopher puppets will be different scales, although neither of these two characters will be required to appear in the same shots together. Therefore, I will be using two different scales for the golf course exterior set - one for the Golfer and one for the Gopher. The same roll of grass and range of backgrounds will be used, creating the illusion that the scene is filmed on one set of one scale.

The Gopher is a hand-operated puppet (e.g. Sooty, Basil Brush) who will be appearing out of a golf hole - so, for this particular scene, I will cut out of a piece of the fake grass to act as the golf hole. A jack will be used to push the Gopher out of the golf hole, as tested and demonstrated in the pictures below: