One of the great things about filming in Ukraine is shooting in built scenery. When I say scenery, I am not simply talking about standard rooms, elevators or bathrooms that have to be built due to the impossibility of filming in real ones. In Ukraine, there are many different pavilions for the construction of large decorations, some of which are more than 1000 square meters in total area. In addition to this, there are also great set dec opportunities in hangars of aircraft manufacturing companies that are located in factories in Kharkiv and Odessa. This includes the hangars of the manufacturer of the largest cargo aircraft - "Antonov".
What if you Need Assistance With Set Decorations?
Should you require any assistance with your set decoration there is a fairly good school of art directors, for some of whom this is a family craft that has been practiced and honed for several generations. This is why the largest film project was filmed in Ukraine, a Russian movie that is 700 hours long, called "Dau", which was filmed from 2007 to 2019.
For the filming of the movie, the set dec department created a shooting pavilion with an area of 6 thousand square meters. This was a quadrangular building with a courtyard, well and facades decorated with monstrous bas-reliefs - communist symbols, heads in gas masks, caps of nuclear reactors. Actors and film crew lived and worked in this huge scenery, using exclusively props and costumes of the Soviet era both on the set and in everyday life. Such was the creative idea of the director.
Ukraine Has The Unique Imagery You are Looking For
“Dau'' is a great example of the diverse and amazing locations offered by Ukraine becuase the film crew conducted a long and exhaustive search for a location and country where they could shoot the movie. This was a large-scale project, and the choice was in Ukraine precisely because of financial and quality reasons.
By the way, on a side note, it is worth talking a little bit more about the era of the USSR. The traditions of preserving and storing things has led to the fact that shooting Soviet era movies in Ukraine is quite cheap - all the props can be bought off hand at any time, and the props' warehouses are rich in Soviet props, weapons, equipment and cars. In Ukraine, it may be a problem to find a red double-decker London bus, but a T-34 tank or all generations of Moskvich cars,any factory color, can be easily obtained.
In Ukraine, advertising agencies readily come up with rather bold staging ideas and, having a relatively small budget, the school of directors allows you to build the interior of a spacious apartment in 3-4 days, the interior of an aircraft in 5-7 days or a ship deck in 12-15 days. You can hire set decorators to build villages, spaceships, sci-fi interiors of the worlds of the future and anything else you may need for your visual storytelling needs.
Mighty Folks Has Extensive Experience With Scene Decorations
From our projects, we can note a decoration made of real ice. 150 tons of transparent artistic ice was cut into blocks, from which a 5-meter structure was built. Another example is the interior of a plane, which the artist Zhanna Kharkova had to build in three days, including unique armchairs and windows molded from plastic. We built the scenery in the field, in the Carpathian mountains, on the road and in the museum.
What is the source of such good opportunities in Ukraine?
Relatively low pay for directors, with good qualifications.
A good school of artists, architects and decorators.
Flexible legislation allows you to build scenery not only in the pavilions, but also inside the city and in complex locations.
Low prices for materials, wood, availability of various building materials.
A project-based approach to the work of the staff, which allows you to carry out a full-fledged construction both on weekends and for 16 hours if necessary
All of this serves as excellent motivation for both film crews and contractors. It is always beneficial for innovative companies to take part in filming projects and plan out their most daring and imaginative artistic visions, even if this requires working all night.
Let's face new challenges together, we will be happy to do so!