Creating Noodle bar
There's a small scene in "Slice Of Life" film where the main protagonist visits "The White Dragon" Noodle bar to buy some food.
You can't find a sci-fi diner just around the corner, so we decided to build it as a set. It was built in our small home studio in a week. We started with a wooden construction, and dressed it with cardboard, plywood, and interesting styrofoam pieces. A coat of white paint brought it all together.
"The White Dragon" name signs were printed and backlit with neon lights to give them a realistic glow. Finding the most horrible dishes to put on the menu was really fun.
Now we had a bar, but to give it that real life credibility you need to detail it - a lot! We used literally every frying pan from our kitchens, bought some chinese decorations at the chinese store, and taped tons of post-its with all kinds of orders around the set. Add a lot of fog, steam and a cool lighting to the mix and you got yourself a pretty convincing noodle bar.
Our friends were standing in as White Dragon customers, and we also hired two chinese extras as the employees. Overall, a week of building, two days of filming, and the scene will be 20 seconds long. That's the harsh reality of filmmaking.
