Forming my idea

"How do I keep a similar feel of Saul's office, yet make it look completely different?"

This was my first question and hardest challenge, and it did take a while to over come it, but after thinking about and analyzing the original set for quite some time, I have come to the conclusion that the most well hidden, yet right-in-plain-sight thing about the office, IS the office! The shape of the room is one of it's best features. It's curved back wall is essentially the "home" of it's main decor; the pillars and the U.S. Constitution Mural.

I find the curved wall to be very empowering, it makes Saul appear to be dominating and confident which I feel is what his character his aiming to be. To portray this, I would also like to incorporate a curved back wall into my final design.

Recently, I watched a film called "We're the Millers", and one of the characters, played by Ed Helms, is an eccentric, wealthy business man who doesn't care what he does, he only cares about money. This is reflected in in office. He has a gigantic fish tank surrounding his office, and he recently bought an Orca whale for it because he, and I quote "Makes a lot of money", end quote.

This is a perfect example of being wealthy and stupid as this character bought a whale for the sake of having enough money in order to afford one. Although, it also well demonstrates how wealth can be on par with power, which is what I want to show in my interpretation of Saul's office... Just with a bit more elegance than having a giant fish tank just for the sake of having one.


The pillars in Saul's office served no other purpose than for decoration. They did not support the building and they weren't even made from stone, they were just for display. It is because of this that I feel I could have complete creative freedom with them in my model. To do this, my first step would be modernizing them, but keeping a similar design. Referring back to the script that I have chosen; Saul mentions lasers. This got me thinking about not only lasers, but lights overall, and what would happen if I were to mix the old (stone) with the new (lights), and I ended up with a pillar with LED lights in the grooves of it. This is another feature I will be incorporating into my design.

Self Directed Study Week

During the self directed study week, I had originally booked the week off work in order to get up to speed with all of my modules ready for when I return to lectures, but this was not the case. 

I work for a company called "BlockBuster" which for the second time this year has entered administration at the start of last week. Fortunately the first time it entered administration, the company was bought out and was able to continue as normal, however this time it is not looking as promising. The manager of the store I work at asked each part time member of staff (which I am) to work as many hours during that week as we possibly could so that we have some money to fall back on if we do lose our jobs, which at this moment in time it is looking as though I will, as I will not receive a redundancy payout.

This unfortunately resulted in me not being able to make it into University as much as I had hoped to during the week, but I did do some work when I got home from work at 10pm each night, and I did make first draft set using SketchUp! 

On Wednesday night, my only means of working from home, my laptop, broke. Fortunately for me though, I regularly back up all of my work to three different storage locations; two external hard drives and a cloud server, so I still have everything I have done so far to work from upon my return to university. I have already sent my laptop away for repair, with an estimated 28 days to fix.

Beginning the modeling process

In another module, CMT 511, the lecturer has been teaching us how to use a 3D modeling software called "SketchUp". We followed many basic tutorials of how to use it during those lectures, and as extra curricular learning, some students followed the advanced tutorials in their own time.

I have chosen to use SketchUp rather than use Maya as I find that I am more familiar with the software which should reduce the time it takes to create my final model.

To start, I thought I would try and replicate Saul's Office in SketchUp to be able to have a 3D visual of it, which would then help me think of how I could create my own interpretation of the set. This is how far I got with making the original:

This is the basic shape of Saul's Office. He has the six pillars circled around the back wall of the office with bookshelves on either side. Whilst making this basic model, it made me more aware of how Saul likes things to be symmetrical and of equal value (e.g. six pillars, not five. Four windows, not three, etc.

As you can see, this model is nowhere near finished. The reason why I did not finish this is because I felt like I would be wasting time if I were to carry on.

Shortly after I made this decision, the group discussed all of their ideas and opinions in a group critique. I told the group why I decided to remake the original set before I began my own, and what ideas I had developed during the time of drawing it.