Meatheads Of Manchester

Meatheads of Manchester is an adaptation of the film Manchester by the Sea. We were given a modifier and ours was we had to include gym rats in our film. We had to have the characters be addicted to going to the gym and bodybuilding. We chose the breakdown scene from Manchester by the Sea and figured out how we were going to adapt gym rats to this. We decided on having the main characters in the film, Patrick and Lee be the gym rats. We wanted to show how they were both bodybuilders who were living with each other in an apartment. We had to also make sure we had key elements of the breakdown scene like Lee asking Patrick if he needs to go to the hospital and Patrick telling Lee to leave him alone. We also had to have it take place in an apartment and have a similar dynamic to the actual film. We decided to make the breakdown about Patrick running out of protein powder but the deeper meaning was that Patrick thought his muscles were not big enough and his dad was not proud of how big his muscles are. We wanted to have Lee try and help Patrick calm down like in the movie but this time it was by offering protein powder. Patrick is also someone who only uses organic protein and seeing Lee’s protein drives him even more crazy. Lee is bigger than Patrick and tries to explain how using his protein is more beneficial to get gains. We wanted to show stereotypes of bodybuilders like gym like Lee wearing workout clothing and blender bottles around their kitchen. Also, them talking a lot about protein powder and how big their muscles are getting. We also wanted to show Patrick working out and gym weights in the apartment. We had Patrick try to impress his dad who is a bodybuilding champion and we wanted to show how his dad is not impressed and how this disappoints him. We also had Patrick talk about his goal of benching his own weight and his personal trainer. We wanted to show Patrick telling his dad about a new accomplishment in the gym and his dad not caring and insulting him. Patrick does not care about the praise from Lee and only cares about the praise from his personal trainer Sebastian. In this film, I worked as Art Director along with Holly Myers. We added a lot of bottles of protein powder to the kitchen because we wanted to reinforce the gym rats theme. This also enforced how obsessed Patrick was with his protein powder that he wouldn’t use any of the other protein powder bottles. We added many blender bottles and rigged them to fall from the kitchen cabinet to add comedic value and add to the fact that they go to the gym a lot. That they would really need many blender bottles with how many times that they go to the gym. My roommate gave me his weightlifting gloves and we added a gym bag to the beginning of the film because we wanted it to appear like Lee just got back from the gym. We instructed the actors to bring clothing that someone would wear to the gym. We were lucky that our actor Noah whom plays Lee, had some experience with weightlifting and was able to give us some guidance with some of the scenes. Noah also brought some of his protein powder bottles from his place and his gym bag. We were able to portray how obsessed they both were with the gym and that they both were bodybuilders. We made sure to also have dirty dishes in the sink and make the kitchen look pretty messy so it fit the characters who lived there. We wanted to portray that they were gym rats who did not make time for cleaning because they were too busy getting these gains. We added a bottle of protein powder and a blender bottle in Patrick’s bedroom to explain how the grind never stops and they start their morning workouts with protein when they wake up.