By Her Wounds - 2026 Graduation Film
Highlight Stills and Behind the Scenes Shots
'By Her Wounds' was my primary grad film for my final modules of my university course in 2026, on which I held the role of Co-Production Designer.
Dir. Freya Parton
'By Her Wounds' is a fictional piece about the horrifying reality of sex trafficking and baby farms, told through the eyes of 14-year-old Kathleen, who is deceived by an institution hiding a far more insidious truth. It explores a brutally real narrative built upon the themes of exploitation and organised abuse conducted by real life trafficking rings, from the standpoint of one of the countless victims stuck beneath their thumb.
'By Her Wounds' was shot inside the prestigious Royal Bath Hotel, with our most in-depth built of the project being created within the Mezzanine Room of the establishment.
In order to create the space of the girls dormitory, we custom-made eight interlocking fake wall segments - these were supported by metal shelving sets, and grounded by sandbags. These walls blocked off a wall mounted TV we had to obscure for the sake of the films setting, simultaneously solving the issue of its presence while cutting the space down to the directors preferences.
These precisely measured set pieces allowed us to do a hybrid set design of on-location and set build, all while avoiding any damage to the location. By ensuring the walls were smaller than the ceilings clearance, we could maneuver the pieces into position after assembling them on-site.
Styrofoam skirting boards bridged the gap between the fake walls and ceilings, creating the illusion of a full wall without the chance of scraping the ceiling. Gaps between sections of skirting boards were packed with PolyFilla to hide the seams, creating a smooth wall that was indistinguishable to an unknowing observer.
In addition to the creation of the fake walls segments, we used our leftover MDF materials to create two gobos to be used by the lighting and cinematography departments.
These were assimilated into the preexisting wall segment layout, creating a natural space for the lighting to serve as diegetic light from outside of a window in the dormitory.
In order to maximise on resource and time use, as well as overall efficiency, we designed the next set in the shooting script to be within the Mezzanine room, but with a new configuration of the fake walls.
This meant we could create an entirely new 'room' in a very short amount of time for the next series of shots, in a fashion similar to how live theatre productions quickly translate from scene to scene.
As an addendum to the set-reconfiguration, the shelving sets we used as support skeletons to keep the walls upright were now able to serve as making the set visually translate as a storage room - the sandbag support weights still in place, simply cut out with careful framing.
The members of the art department who contributed to this project, as well as the rest of the films crew, can be found on 'By Her Wounds' dedicated IMDb page, linked below.
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