Talkin’ ’bout Props

What Does a Prop Master Do? A Conversation with Elisa Malona – Elisa Malona is the head of props for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.  In this great interview, she talks about how she got started in props, how her career led her to The Tonight Show, and some of her greatest successes and fails in churning out crazy props on a daily basis. You can’t see it on any of the photos, but my book is sitting on her bookshelf.

The Prop Master Behind ‘Arrested Development’ – Supporting Players - Now the story of a prop master who had everything. In this short episode of “Supporting Players,” we visit Todd Daniels in his prop truck while working on the set of Arrested Development, which recently finished filming its fifth season.

Glossary: Dunsels, Nurnies, Greebles, Gundans, and Fuidgets – Christopher Noessel goes into the history of these terms, used to describe various decorative details on models, sets, and computer screens in sci-fi films. If you delve deeper into the history of design and art, you can see these are all just modern forms of diapering, which is the use of decorative patterns to break up a plain surface.

How Altered Carbon’s costume designer created the fashions for its futuristic world – Sure, it’s clothing, but it is so futuristic it may as well be props. Right? Ann Foley talks about the design and fabrication of the outfits in this new sci-fi series, including the hard armor of the Praetorian Guards.