Hello again, welcome back to the adventures of Brian Sarvis and Joe Carabeo, as they try to get their feature film (Working Title) Help Wanted, made. Right now we’re at the construction stage. A lot has been done so far, but now our heroes must deal with the winter cold, lack of electricity, dying spirits and now…
a broken boom box.
Besides that, everything is coming together with hard work and inspiration.
But on this day, a deal was struck.
Electricity is coming!
Now it’s time to clear everything that didn’t need to be there , so that in the process of the electricity coming through, we don’t set the whole place on fire. Just in case.
So it’s time to clean up.
Good bye to all of our fine art.
Below – Where did these pans come from?
Below – This is how the cabinets will look like, but imagine it sitting up.
Below – Another view next to our blue corner.
It’s time to get that chalk board up. We start by places the braces.
Then Brian lays in the final touches, cleaning up little sections of glue.
And up it goes!
Not bad.
I can’t wait till there’s electricy, then we can put the over head lights in.
Anyone want to buy some stools, they really are for sale. Just contact us or leave a message below.
Below – The chalk board.
I also can’t wait for the set dressing to come in and really make this place a full character.
Below – The on lookers
Below – The look of the diner with the sun coming in.
A lot is gonna happen in these booths. Watch and see.
You’re not gonna believe this, but chalkboards don’t exist any more.
How do we know? Well, basically we thought that the task of buying a chalk board was gonna be the easiest step for us. Nope. We searched in ever single store that we could drive to, in the normal driving vicinity, and guess what? They were no where to be found. We couldn’t find chalkboards anywhere. Ether that, or we really are in the middle of no where.
But in truth, it’s hard believe that in this day and age chalkboards do NOT exist.
So we found us a sink instead.
But back to the chalk board.
So basically what had to happen is the same exact process that seemed to happen with everything on this project.
We had to make it ourselves.
Below – Brian creates the frame for the what would be the size of the chalk board, which is gonna be placed on the wall as our menu.
With that frame done, it was now time to make the black board section of our chalk board. It amazed me that you can really just buy the material for a chalk board and lay it down anywhere, then boom, you have a place to write with chalk.
Below – Brian lays down the black of the black board.
At the same that Brian was putting the works on the chalk board, it was also time we finished up the cabinet doors that were gonna be placed on the back counter. This would be another bit of fakery for the sake of movie making, because there is not gonna be any cabinet’s, just the door. But these doors needed color though. So what batter color than the awesome blue that we’ve been rocking the whole time.
Below – Brian has finished the black board section of the chalk board.
Below – The back cabinets getting their coat.
Below – The cabinet doors with their new coat of blue.
Below – The doors now with their knobs.
And now it’s dark outside.
Which means its time to stop working cause we can’t see, and it’s very cold at night time.
Below- Our only warmth is this working light.
It’s so nice.
Tune in next time as there’s a possibility that our hair styles will change even more!
I wish there was a story to tell about this, but there really isn’t. We rode up to the set like we usually do and…
There it was.
Long story short (I guess) I’m just gonna say that I wanted that thing knocked down anyway.
Below – The Diner so far. Now with it’s newly created stools. I dig.
A real cool thing came with the stools when we bought them, AGE!
You really can’t buy that type of age anywhere. We just thought it was a cool incentive. In the ad it said that the stools came with 60 years of history. I wonder what type of people have sat in these stools in the past 60 years? Who’s butts have glided across leather, what stories their asses can tell, where did they go, who they’ve met. Where are they now??
I bet they didn’t know that 60 years later that they would be in a feature film by two crazy film makers.
But we did.
The stools still had to be melded together to complete the illusion, but that could wait.
Below -After a lot of rubber mallet hammering, we have the beginning looks of the wall slot. Soon will come the kitchen set dressing behind the wall and then we can slide plates of food across it all day long. That should really put it together.
Below – Ohh spacious.
Below – A view from the “kitchen”
We also took some aluminum and connected it to the wall. Will it stay, will we take it off, time will can only tell.
Below – Things are getting messy again.
Below – Another view of the stools, the booths and our floor. Where do we go from here?
I know that some of the stools are gonna go to a stool hospital. Their heads have fallen off.
It’s also about time to start thinking about what the outside of the diner is gonna look like. We have the ideas, but stay tuned to see what we actually do.
Remember back in the day when we were thinking about make diner stools that would be a conglomerate of car parts?
Well, we never gave up on the idea. That’s why we took another road trip, back to the Sarvis shop!
Today we play with steel!
So as you could tell from the images from the last few posts, the new stools “Look” the part, but they don’t quiet measure up. But we found a solution, and that solution came from the mind of the man of steel himself, Brian Sarvis.
Below – The devices that make the impossible, possible.
So, what Brian proposed that we do, is basically take muffler piping, cut it to the length that we would need to expand the stools to, and squeeze the ends down so that they would fit snug into the holes of the bases and that rest the chair together as one piece. Easy right?
Oh yeah, none of that can be done with human hands. But that never stopped him before.
Since the last time you joined us, we finished the diner floors and jumped up and down for days.
Then it was time to get back to work. There was still much much more work to do.
Like for instance, one of those holes in the wall the food travels through needs to be made (Image below)
Also, it was about time that we started thinking about the exterior of the diner.
Say…like how the diner’s front would look like?
While traveling to the Pittsburgh Comic Con (For those of you who don’t know, I also write comic books for Curls Studio, which you can also check out here. We’ve toured up and down the east coast and have been apart of such great conventions as Heroes Con, SPX, Baltimore Comic Con and New York Comic Con every year. The comic book art form is actually where I get a lot of my inspiration)
So, while traveling late at night to the Pittsburgh Comic Con, we stumbled upon great inspiration for the exterior tone of the diner.
If you were wondering how our diner set is supposed to look like at night, here are few inspiration from real life bel0w.
The greatest part about finding these locations was how we stumbled upon them.
So basically we took a wrong turn on the highway and thought we should just get off on an exit and turn around. Well, that wasn’t so easy and actually it made us more lost. What ended up happening next was that we took a turn and started driving down a dark and desolate road. Then whoa! Suddenly we found these buildings. SO of course the first thing that popped up in my head was, “That’s totally perfect for our set!!” So, while peeking out the window of the car (Cause I was too scared to get out) I took photos. It was a pretty scary area. In actuality, the images are a million times brighter than how it was in real life. But it was perfect to capture for inspiration. Because that scariness is what we want.
I just have to say that Esta Esta in Pittsburgh has some great food. I’m just sayin…
So after the convention was over, it was time to get back to work.
We need to cut out that rectangle.
Watch as Brian slices and dices. Yes indeed, VIDEO!
Below – The next step is to add the platform for where the dishes and meals will be passing on.
Below – We were surprised too.
When I was looking at the diner as a whole, something was bothering me, and that something was the counter top. You see, the mixture that we placed on the counter top wasn’t exactly working the way we wanted it too. It was too shiny, there were air bubbles, blah blah blah. We decided to start over, sand it down and put a deeper color on it. Actually, the same color that was on the love booths. The diner needed more of that color.
Brian and I are back at the Diner, and things are getting messy!
During the course of laying down these tiles, there were certain sections where the tile needed to be that were just josh darn painful. For instance, if you can tell there are about half tile spaces left underneath the platform where the booths and the stools sit on. We had a choice of ether meticulously cutting each of the tiles so that they fit in they’re proper spots, or we can, with our Superman strength, lift up the platforms and place the tile down easily in their spots.
No, nothing comes easily.
So we chose which path to take and decided to do something else first. Like make cabinets behind the counter.
And clean up our mess.
Then we did it.
There was no easy choice. But we didn’t want to do all that math that could have been wrong. So we decided to lift each platform and slide and glue each tile into place.
Sorry, but there are no images of that process because it was a serious moment. Brian is indeed strong ladies.
But…here’s the aftermath!
The tiles are almost done!
Below – A wider view of the diner with the tiles laid in.
Below – Just a few more to go. Brian sculpts the last tiles that will be placed behind the counter.
Below – One last spot.
And it’s done!
Below – More of our modern art.
Check out our diner floors!
ohhhhhh…
Below – A shot of the life behind the counter.
Below – The view from behind the pathway.
Below – Our “Kitchen”
Below – New stools with finished floor.
Below – Old Stools – On sale now! Contact us if your interested. I bet we can work something out. (I’m serious)
Below – Where does everything go. It’s like the land of forgotten toys.
Armed with his trademark Vans shirt, Brian and I are ready to get down to it. (It would be awesome to get a sponsorship from vans)
It’s time to lay down some tiles.
BUT, before we get to that piece of business, we decided to make a little bit further progress on our counter top.
It was feeling a little bit bland with it’s roadster blue, so we decided to gloss it up a bit. So we did our usual number of inquiries and bought a coating that would finish up the look of our counter top. This material, to tell you the truth, like I always have, was intense. It truly became the theme of the day of us having to deal with material that could only be used for a short time before completely hardening and ruining our set goal.
So the material that we were using was a liquid gloss that we would evenly apply to the counter top to give it it’s shine. The challenge was that we had to do it in under 10 minutes. That means it had to be smooth, bubbleless and evenly applied to the whole space, or it would just harden into a lumpy muck. Also, lets add to the game that we had really no tools to do this with, so we just improvised with sticks that you get when you buy paint. (I know…)
But we got it done.
Now were were ready to get to tiling the floor. First thing that we had to do was set our starting point on the ground and that would be our guide so that hopefully all of our lines will be straight when we apply the tiles.
Below – A lot of snooty contact glue.
Below – Time to roll up our sleeves, it’s about to get sticky in here.
Below – The first tile to be glued to the diner floor (Yippie!)
Below – The second tile to be glued to the diner floor (Yes!)
And then we repeat this process…
And repeat…
It was pretty exciting seeing the floor come together. It was also nice and super smooth. I almost didn’t want to touch it when it was settle in. But then I had to come to the realization that this was made for people to walk on.
Below – The sign still stands.
Below – Our doors are turning blue.
Below – Our addictions
Below – Whoops. It’s ok, it’s gonna be covered by tile anyway. But it sure does look cool.
Below – A closer shot of the glossy counter. Hmmmm….
Below – We also spotted a deer on the lot.
So the process of laying down the tile has begun. Where will it take us from here…?
Welcome to “The Great Stool Adventure”! On this adventure, Brian Sarvis and I are joined by our friend Kuni Ohi. He will accompany us down to Chesapeake, Va to take hand in the mass creation of the car part designed stools that we will be making for the diner set. It’s always fun traveling with Kuni, he has insight like no other.
Below – The three of us in the truck driving down 95 south.
Below – Kuni contemplates on the stools.
Mitch Sarvis, Brian Sarvis’s dad is race car driver and he also own his own shop. He was gracious enough to let us use the very own garage that he uses to create his own race cars, as well as create cars for other clients. This shop had everything we could need to create these stools so we’re very thankful for Mitch letting us work there.
Below – We bought the foam for the cushioning, now here’s our template measured to fit the head of the stool.
Below – Let the cutting begin.
Take in consideration that it’s been years since I’ve had to cut anything with any dangerous saw machinery, but I have to say, once the opportunity came and I was put in that position, I think I started to feel at home. I really enjoyed slicing things up. I guess that might explain why I write stories like I do.
Brian and I did a comparison of which process was better, the knife or the saw. I think the knife might have been funner though.
Below – Who watches the…
Below – Brian measuring the length of the cloth that we needed to cover the head of the stools.
The plan was that we would take the cloth and cover the complete head of the stool and staple it down. Sounds easy…
Below – Brian is about to cut one more circle so that we could compress the cushion foam down while the other staples it together.
Below – Kuni shows the world the process.
Below – Now we staple.
Once the stapling is done, we would screw in the aluminum trim around the edges of the stools.
Now by just looking at the images the process might seem like it didn’t take long at all. We’ll in real life, it took quite a while. Here are the complications that arouse as we were building this stool. You know when you see a stool at a bar or a diner and the cushion is absolutely smooth. Well we learned the hard way that that’s almost near impossible to do with just human hands. We tried everything to get the cloth to appear smooth. We pulled on it with all our might together while one person stapled it, we clamped it down. But still, we could not figure out how to make the cloth be completely smooth. It was indeed frustrating and it also took a lot of time and we still had to make 8 of these stools.
But we were able to get ONE to be as smooth as can be. I can bet money that the people who create these stools have machines that we don’t have. But anyway…
Below – Lets test the stool.
So now that made one and sorta a second one, we decided it was late and we’re just gonna head back to the diner and drop off all the materials and continue the process over there. Also, we were running out of day light time and also we have a shoot the next day for other another person’s project.
Below – Kuni
Below – Brian getting the stools out of the car. As you can tell in the background, the diner area gets pitch black during the night time. There’s nothing around really except farms and some factories. That’s absolutely perfect for the movie, but it’s also very scary and difficult to construct in, especially when there’s no power to the building.
Onto our next order of business. Now that we have the booths in place and the back wall up, we needed to decide what our next step would be.
Here were the choices that we wanted to do next.
1) Choose the diner color scheme that would now match the booths.
2) Find OR create stools that would look perfect with the overall look of the diner and the time that it’s been in the world.
3) Decide what look our floor would be.
We went with what was easier and started laying out what color would be perfect for our back wall.
At the same time, we had a perfect idea about how we wanted the diner stools to look like. The stools would be a conglomerate of pieces that would give it it’s flavor. I remember watching the behind the scenes of Buffy the vampire slayer, season 3 I believe, and I remembered the process that they took to make the stools on their coffee shop set. They took car rims and made them into their stools. Actually their whole coffee shop had used car pieces as their theme, and we thought that would a perfect direction. So we wanted to see if we could add a little subtle thing like that to our diner, and that started with the stools. Brian Sarvis knew pieces from a car that would fit perfectly to make a stool. So we gathered those elements and created a prototype.
Below – Brian sitting on the prototype stool made of car pieces, but different from what was done on Buffy.
Below – Our friend Jessica sitting on the prototype stool and her husband Lee looking at something off of frame.
Below – Seven could not test the stool for he was tired.
Below – Close up shots of the stool without it’s rim.
Below – The base of the stool.
Below – Comparison to a normal stool.
Below – Robert Gava compares the booth cushion to the paint samples for further color evaluation.
Now that the prototype of the diner stools have been tested, it was now time to mass produce this bad boy. This means it’s time for another road trip. But this time we’re heading toward the south, to Chesapeake.
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