Over the last few months, Jahnavi and I have been busy with the script and design of our next couple of films, and things are now finally at the stage where filming can begin. One of the key decisions we’ve made when designing the look of our next film(s) is to use a multiplane stand with a camera pointing downwards, instead of using the set on a table & camera on a tripod method we used for The Sweetmeat Boy. The decision itself was easy – shooting downwards onto several surfaces stacked on top of each other provides a bit more control, and is also a tad easier than manipulating puppets on a full set on a table. The hard part was actually designing the stand and gathering the tools and materials to put it together; but now, after some elbow grease, we have the stand ready for filming.

We found that the easiest design would be to separate out the camera section from the stand holding the glass.
Here’s what we used to make the stand:
Wooden offcuts – 4 pieces of 3 feet height, 8 pieces of about 50 cm length and 2 pieces of 65 cm length. The lengths were chosen based on the fact that we’d decided to use 3 A2 size glass  for our ‘planes’.
Screws to hold the frame together
A hand drill
Black spray paint (to reduce reflections when filming)

Each side of the stand has four 50 cm pieces drilled with suitable holes and screwed on to the pieces of 3 ft height (like a ladder), then the two sides are connected using the 65 cm pieces. We then spray painted the whole frame black in our backyard. The little handles on the sides are basically little leftover cuts used to cover the sharp screw heads poking out.

For the camera stand, the idea is to create a wooden stand that can be held up by two tripods, with the camera attached to the wood using a clamp. For this we used:
A long wooden offcut approx. 6 ft long
4 Threaded inserts (1/4 – 20)
Two HAMA tripods
Hand drill with 9mm head
A manfrotto super photo clamp to hold our Canon camera
Black spray paint
Four holes are drilled onto the wooden piece using a 9mm drill head, and the inserts are pasted into the holes using super glue. We then spray painted it and mounted it between two tripods. The manfrotto clamp is clamped onto the piece with the camera pointing downwards.

The overall downshooter with the camera, complete with an OYPLA studio lighting system and three unopened A2 acetate glass planes is assembled. Finally, ready to start filming!