Wojahn Art Directs Miniature build

In January of 2020, Mark Wojahn's prop shop art directed and built a model town for the Duke Cannon company's advertising campaign. Wojahn hired Tiny Proctor as his lead builder and Benjamin Bayne with Kellie Larson dayplaying on the build. Together they executed a 9x9' layout of; dozens of buildings, a resin lake, a woodland stream, a farm & UFO, a downtown with a warehouse district and a neighboborhoods. This was built in the HO scale of 1/87 to the inch.

The model town had its' challenges, as there is an almost infinite amount of detail you can include in a miniature set. With Wojahn's shop working on a tight schedule, of a 9 day build, and closely with the production company and the ad agency, Wojahn and his team were able to pull a fine degree of detail on a modest budget. One item had to be 3D desgned and printed, it's an inch tall statue of man holdig a toilet, you can see the statue in the picture below lower right corner.

Builder Tiny Proctor adjust a miniature on set. The buidlings were a combo platter of minature kits purchased at the hobby shop, to pre-assembled buildings. Here is scenic painter Ben Bayne aging the Woodshop set. 

Painter, Ben Bayne, paints a model. The layout and models were built in Wojahn's and Proctor's studio in the Casket Arts Complex in NE Minneapolis.

The model layout under construction in Proctor's shop.

The layout, once completed, was moved to Cinequipt studios and shot in their Studio C. Once in the studio, DP Steve Holm used a microscopic lens at F14 to shoot the minatures. The high F stop required over 60,000 watts of light to illuminate the set, Gaffer Dave Palm used a 20K mimic the sun.

Director Cory Bauer illustrates the positon prop flames to builder Tiny Proctor

Channel Z Post's Cory Bauer directed and Kelly Nelson produced the spots in 2 days of shooting. Minneapolis agency Hunt Adkins was the advertising film. Many of the spots are now live on the Duke Cannon Youtube channel and elsewhere on the web.

Tuscaloosa premieres at Nashville!

The film Tuscaloosa, based on the book by the same name by W. Glasgow Phillips and staring Natalia Dyer of Stranger Things, premeired at the Nashville Film Festival on October 5th. The film was directed by Philip Harder and production designed by Mark Wojahn in 2017. Wojahn led the art dept and coordinated set decoration, props, construction and paint. He had a great crew of Sarah Jean Shervin as his decorator, Elizabeth Richardson as his propmaster, Cooper Sheehan as construction boss and Benjamin Bayne as charge scenic. Many others supported these dept heads. The challenge was large for the crew to supply a vintage 1970s Alabama look in Minnesota locations. The team rose to the challenge.

Tuscaloosa - Festival Trailer from Patrick Riley on Vimeo.

The big set to design and build was the BBQ shack. The shack took over seven design drafts and 3 different locations to find the right fit for the film. Director Harder pushed Wojahn to build something that felt historic and that alligned with the directors image of the deep south. They both agreed that the below sketchup was a good basic design to start the build.

Decorator Shervin scored big points and found an organic farm in Anoka county that was to become the location for the shack, drive in movie and grandpas house.

Construction started and the crew transformed this garlic drying shed into the films Paradise BBQ shack.

After much work, sweat and skill the shack was complete.

Wojahn is very proud of his crew and hard work they all performed to get this film across the art dept finish line.  According to the producer Patrick Riley, the film will play festivals in 2019 and have a general release in spring 2020. To see more info on Tuscaloosa go to their website.

@Tuscaloosa Movie, #Tuscaloosamovie

Wojahn begins new film project!

Mark Wojahn announces he has begun a new documentary film project on the dancer, activist and choreographer Patrick Scully. He is excited Patrick is eager and willing to have this film made about him. The film will cover Scully's recent sold out performance at the Guthrie theater, it will explore the dancer's career, Patrick's Cabaret and how Scully takes his message of queer performance and sexuality freedom to metro and to rural communities.

If you'd like to support this project, pls go to this link at the GofundMe page. We hope to greenlight the film in the next few months. If you'd like to make a tax deductable donation, Film North is our fiscal sponsor. Go to this website: http://myfilmnorth.org/fiscally-sponsored-projects/patrick-scully-the-dance-is-not-over/

The director has assembled a veteran crew to make this film.

Greg Winter is the director of Photography. Julie Kaupa, the Producer, Skip Davis is the Editor,  Conduit and Jim Morgan is providing sound, David Pope is the key Grip and Electric. 

Wojahn hopes this film will play at festivals, stream online and play on public television. Wojahn predicts the film to be 50-80 minutes in length. We are still looking for select crew and interns. Message Wojahn if you desire to be part of thisamazing project.

For more info, pls visit the film's website, https://patrickscullymovie.com.

Wojahn opens show at St.Paul Gallery

Wojahn opened a solo show of his artwork December 30th 2017 at the gallery Artista Bottega.

postcard design by Amy Patrick-WojahnOpening night was one of the coldest nights of the year but it was warm inside

for the well attended event.

Dan Hunter & Mark Wojahn talk & describe the artistic process, photo by Tinker CH.

The show features a mix of new and older work pertaining to Wojahn's fascination of manipulating the photographic image. Works range from 8 new "Concentrations" that feature layers of transparent photos cast in layers of resin to Wojahn's photo paintings of doppelgangers and silent film stars. The work will be up until January 31st 2018. The gallery is located at 937 West 7th Street, St.Paul, MN 55102. Hours are Tues, Weds, Friday 12-7pm, Thurs till 8pm, Saturday till 9pm. http://www.artbottega.com

Wojahn Production Designs "Tuscaloosa"

Wojahn spent most of September and October of 2017 production designing a feature for MN director Phil Harder. The film has been described as a coming of age drama set in 1972.

Assitant to the director, Mike Dust, stands with director Phil Harder with Production Designer Mark Wojahn.  ‘Stranger Things’ Natalia Dyer and Devon Bostick to Star In ‘Tuscaloosa’, photo by Mark WojahnThe film is currently in post-production and a release date has not been set.