Props» Showcases

White Collar: Behind the Scenes with the Prop Master

Eric Hart — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:00:39 +0000

I have my next big deadline for my book this coming Wednesday, so I haven’t had much time to write my blog. But I did just finish watching Season 2 of White Collar. They have a pretty cool behind the scenes video with Duke Scoppa, the prop master. What is especially interesting is he visits Weapons Specialists, one of the weapons places we used at the Public Theater. They have an incredible workshop and storage facility inside, and all the guys there are pretty cool to work with. So enjoy the video!

Behind the Scenes with the Prop Master of White Collar.

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The Making of the Props for The Making of a King

Eric Hart — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:00:29 +0000

I recently finished my first major gig down here in North Carolina. I was building props for the productions of Henry IV and Henry V at PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill. It was a lot of fun, and also an interesting change of pace to return to a job where I am building all day without any managerial duties.

base of a chaise lounge

The base for this chaise lounge was fairly straightforward. I began by building a nice sturdy frame out of oak. The design evolved later to a piece which was completely covered in moulding. The oak ended up being completely obscured by all the moulding. Ah, well.

CNC routed headboard design

The king’s headboard had a fairly intricate cut-out design, so the props shop sent a piece of 3/4″ plywood to the scene shop to be CNC routed.

Completed headboard

When I got the CNC’d piece back, I cleaned it up and attached some other layers, moulding, posts and finials to make the full headboard.

Trestle table base

Above is a nice trestle table base I built for the tavern scene. The feet and the pieces on top of the legs are made of solid wood; I had to laminate a few pieces together to get those thicknesses. The legs themselves are actually boxed out, with a two-by-four hidden inside for strength. The wedged tenons on the sides of the legs are just fake pieces glued on the outside.

Finished table

The table top had already been built for the rehearsal piece, so I just had to attach it. The scene shop also added some metal diagonal braces, which were needed to keep the table from collapsing under horizontal forces.

Papier-mache tub

Finally, the props shop was building a hammered copper bath tub out of some good old-fashioned papier-mâché. I jumped on this project in the middle, adding a few layers to what was already started and attaching the large Ethafoam rod along the top. The initial layers were done with an ordinary flour and water paste. The next few layers were done with strips of paper and a product called “Aqua Form” to make it harder and more water-proof. Aqua Form markets itself as a nontoxic water-based polymer which replaces resins for use in laminates; it worked great with the paper, but it also claims it can be used in lieu of resin for fiberglass. I certainly look forward to learning more about it.

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Hugo

Eric Hart — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:00:42 +0000

I saw the film Hugo last month. Have you seen it yet? A large portion of the plot revolved around an old automaton shaped like a metal man. When the characters managed to repair the automaton, it drew a picture on its own. While that was cool, it became even cooler when I later found out that this automaton was created without CGI or visual effects. The prop makers actually built an automaton that could draw an entire picture with a pen and ink. Check out this video:

The company who constructed the automata, Dick George Creatives (based in the UK), took 8 months to create 15 different automata. Two could actually create the drawing, while the rest were used for various stunt and action sequences. It’s well worth watching.

You can find also check out some photographs of costumes and the automata while on display.

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New York City 2011 Christmas Windows

Eric Hart — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:02:45 +0000

New York City retail stores are known for the grand and highly imaginative window displays they unveil every Christmas season. I spent my first two autumns in New York City working on some of them. I did not work on them this year, though some colleagues of mine did. One of my former coworkers shot the following videos. You can find more videos searching on YouTube, but what makes these great is that they start off in the workshop showing the constructing phase, and moves to the inside of the windows showing the assembly before showing the final result.

First up is perhaps the lynchpin of NYC Christmas windows: Macy’s.

Macy’s is certainly the most well-known of the annual Christmas windows in New York City, but Saks Fifth Avenue does a good show as well.

Finally, we have the Lord & Taylor windows.

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Video: Props in “True Grit”

Eric Hart — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:23:51 +0000

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the props in the 2010 version of True Grit. Property Master Keith Walters gives us a much more in-depth look at the research and process which goes on in developing the props than is normally found in these kinds of videos.

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Videos: Seán McArdle and Faye Armon

Eric Hart — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:50:36 +0000

Here are some videos from some folks I’ve worked with.

First up is Seán McArdle. Former prop master at the Public Theater, he has since moved to Minneapolis. Here, he is showing off a blood rig which he has used in, among other things, Broadway Baby in the Tiger Zoo. Sorry, I got that title wrong; it’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, on Broadway.

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Next is Faye Armon, whom I worked with on both The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide… and Merchant of Venice/Winters Tale. She walks us around the set of 4000 miles at the Duke on 42nd Street this past summer.

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Preparing for King Lear

Eric Hart — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 11:28:34 +0000

Tech rehearsals for the Public Theater’s production of King Lear start this Thursday, and we are busy as ever in the props shop. My life is busy as ever between writing my book, preparing for Lear, tech rehearsals for Mike Daisey’s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, and some minor revolution in New York City. So I don’t have much to write, but I do have a sampling of photographs of some of the props we are constructing for King Lear.

Jay Duckworth working on the map table

The “map” in our production is a tabletop topographical model of Lear’s kingdom. King Lear, played by Sam Waterston , actually kicks the whole table over, and pieces of the map break off. At least, that’s our goal. Besides Jay, a lot of the work has been undertaken by Fran Maxwell, with some help by Sara Swanberg and Raphael Mishler.

Partially finished dead pheasant

We need a variety of dead game for Lear’s men when they return from hunting. After last spring’s Timon of Athens, I already knew we had nothing decent in stock nor anything worth renting in the city, so we had to make some. Pictured above is my first attempt at building one from scratch and covering it in hackle pads and feathers. We then found complete pheasant hides, so we started using those as coverings, which freed us from having to glue individual feathers all over the bodies.

A sheep in wolf's clothing

In addition to the pheasants and some rabbits, they wanted a larger dead animal as well. We gave them my fake dead lamb for rehearsals, which longtime readers may remember from last year. We then located the hide of a jackal which turned out to be nearly the same size as the lamb, so rather than construct a new dead animal, Sara Swanberg just set off covering the lamb with the jackal hide.

We have more cool stuff coming up, such as Michael McKean’s eyes which get torn out of his head. That should be quite a sight!

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Video: The Walking Dead props

Eric Hart — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 11:25:31 +0000

The Walking Dead is a pretty cool zombie show on AMC, and it is starting its second season soon. In this video, John Sanders, the props master, brings us inside his prop trailer to show us around. He also does a show-and-tell of the various weapons they use, such as rubber knives and electric guns.

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Tour of an Animatronic Workshop

Eric Hart — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:01:00 +0000

I love this; it’s a neat little inside look at the workshop of Lou Nasti of Mechanical Displays in Brooklyn.

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Set Dressing in The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

Eric Hart — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:32:40 +0000

Last week at the Public Theater, our production of The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures held its final performance. The set was a very realistic (and very cluttered) brownstone in Brooklyn, NY, circa 2007. In today’s post, I’m going to take a look at some of the little touches in the set dressing which you may not have noticed.

Bulletin board on the desk

In the farthest upstage left corner is a desk belonging to Gus, the father and apartment’s owner. The desk is overcome with papers, books, files, furniture and other knick-knacks from a lifetime of accumulation. Notice the article in The New York Times: “Dockworkers Slow Shipping.” In the course of the play, we learn that Gus was a longshoreman, and a strike by the dockworkers marked a turning point in his life. All of these papers and ephemera came from the Guthrie Theatre’s production, and were created there by Nick Golfis.

The bookshelf in the room

The set contained a large number of books—stacks and stacks of books, in fact. When the production moved from the Guthrie Theatre, many of these books came with it. However, most were law books and other nondescript leather-bound tomes. For our production, Tony Kushner and Mark Wendland (the set designer) decided we needed to replace as many of these as we could with a more realistic collection which Gus would have owned. If you took a closer look during the production, you would have noticed a remarkable collection of Communist, Socialist, Marxist and leftist books.

Inside of the broken wall

It is a shocking moment when Steven Pasquale first puts a statue through the wall of his father’s apartment. A close look at the wreckage would show the old and crumbly lath of the wall behind it, as well as the horsehair used to hold it all together. An even closer look would show cloth-covered wires along with porcelain electrical wire holders running along a wooden stud.

Phone number

Here’s something you wouldn’t have seen. Above the main set was Gus’ room. During various scenes throughout the play, the audience can see Gus in his room walking around, reading, writing and engaging in other solitary and silent business. At one point, he makes a phone call. Near the end of the play, a new character named Shelle O’Neill shows up with a “suicide kit” for Gus to use. If you watch the show again, you may infer that Shelle is the person Gus was phoning earlier. In the photo above, you can see a note card with Shelle’s phone number actually written on it next to the phone Gus used. This little detail was visible only to the actor playing Gus.

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