News

Maker Faire 2011

This past weekend in New York City I attended the second annual World Maker Faire. Readers of this blog may recall I attended the Maker Faire in 2010 as well. If you read Make Zine or follow their blog, you can guess what the fair is like: a strange mix of science fair plus craft fair, with a Burning Man—vibe thrown in.

Floor of the interior portion of Maker Faire
Floor of the interior portion of Maker Faire

I headed to the Instructables booth because they were giving prizes to their authors, of which I am one.  If you don’t know Instructables, take a moment to check it out; it’s usually one of the first places I visit when I need to figure out how to make something or work with a new material.

General Electric tweeted me while I was there, which was kind of strange. Maybe it’s because I talk to light bulbs.

60-Foot Dragon
60-Foot Dragon

The 60-foot long fire-breathing dragon constructed of scrap materials was quite a sight to behold. Check out the video detailing its construction and the story behind it.

Speaking of videos, I meant to get a video of Arc Attack, who I missed last year. My phone kept crashing, but you can find plenty of videos online. It’s pretty breathtaking to watch in person.

A MIDI-controlled drum machine
A MIDI-controlled drum machine

The Faire certainly steers towards the science and technology side of making, with lots of circuit projects, computer-controlled devices and engineering solutions. Still, a props person can find a lot to keep occupied while here. Companies like Smooth-On, Autodesk and ShopBot were there, as well as organizations such as Materials for the Arts, many of which are familiar faces to those of us who work in props. It’s always fascinating to see what people with similar interests and skills are doing outside of the entertainment industry.

Mario Kart in real life
Mario Kart in real life
Reprints

Shams in the Theatre, 1880

The following article comes from The Daily Dispatch, Richmond, VA, December 2, 1880. I added a few paragraph breaks to make it a little easier on the eyes.

Shams in the Theatre

The Ingenious Work of the Property Man–Remarkable Effects Produced with Cheap and Common Materials.

(New York Tribune.)

Theatrical properties, so called, include all things placed upon the stage except what are painted as part of a scene by the scene-painter. Urns, vases, flowers, pictures, pianos, carpets, rugs, furniture, and all ornaments are “properties.” Besides these, all articles used by the actors in the performance of the play, such as canes, cigars, pistols, clubs, knives, pocketbooks, money, and other things of similar nature are properties. The property-man of a theatre has a responsible and arduous-position. Upon him depend many of the important points in a play. The check for $30,000 that saves the impecunious artist from an untimely grave; the secret drawer and hidden will, which, when revealed, restore the wandering heir to his rightful inheritance; the marriage-bell that hangs above the heads of the happy lovers in the fifth act; and the pitiless snow through which the shivering blind girl wanders singing her mournful songs, all are prepared by the property-man. Sad is the lot of that luckless wight who forgets to load the pistol with which the desperate villain is slain. The property-man is provided by the stage-manager with a complete list of the properties needed for each scene, and it is his duty to see that they are prepared and in their proper places before the curtain rises.

In the earlier days of the drama it was customary for the property-man to make all his own properties. Continue reading Shams in the Theatre, 1880 →

Features

Working with What you Have

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Ripping a long board, circa 1443
Ripping a long board, circa 1443

It’s easy to think how hard it is to get started building props. Tools and machines are expensive, materials are hard to work with, and there are just so many to choose from. But think of this: the vast majority of materials we work with today were unavailable before World War II: all manner of plastics, all foams, all our composite materials, even our glues and paints. Nearly every kind of coating and adhesive has some form of synthetic polymer in it; before that, we had hide glue, wheat paste and rubber cement (well, after the 1900s that is). Even plywood as we know it was not something you could just go out and buy. It existed, but it was made by the carpenter himself, by laying up layer after layer of thin veneers.

For most of our theatrical history, props have been constructed with little more than papier-mâché, real wood, plaster, clay, leather, and natural fabrics. Animal glue and wheat paste were among the few adhesives available, and paints were limited to oil paints, casein, and varnishes. Think of all the theatre which was created and performed with this limited technology: everything from the Ancient Greeks, to Shakespeare and Molière, or Kabuki in Japan, up to the grand operas of the Gilded Age.

Think too of the tools we have available to us. Electricity and pneumatics have given us incredible power and speed in the palms of our hands. The industrial revolution and machine age have brought us standardized parts and precision unimaginable in previous times. Even our simple hand tools have benefited; a hand saw blade today is produced more quickly, cheaply, and precisely than before the industrial age. The steel it is made from is stronger and more consistent (and far less expensive).

From the weapons used by Alexander the Great to conquer the world, to the furniture found in Versailles, our museums are filled with amazing items created with nearly none of what our props artisans have available today. We can purchase a sheet of metal from a hobby shop which is superior in properties than the metal used by Genghis Khan to create his weapons which conquered the world. We can buy a Dremel tool for a pittance; imagine how envious the people who built the first railroads would be to see such a tool.

So if you are just starting out with prop making, or want to practice doing more of it, don’t wait until you can afford the fancy tools or can master the most modern materials. Think about what you can do with what you have, rather than what you can’t with what you don’t.

Useful Sites

Monday Link-o-Rama

Welcome to the first full work week of September! I’ve been away all weekend, so enjoy these articles and sites:

The Art of Manliness has a nifty guide on sharpening your edged tools. It deals mainly with knives and axes, but it covers a lot of the basics.

Once you’re finished sharpening your tools, you can find out why your teenager can’t use a hammer. The decline of shop and industrial arts classes are leaving even the most basic of manual jobs with a dearth of skilled young workers.

Air and Space Magazine has a nice little gallery of Vietnam War—era Zippo lighters.

I recently came across The Clubhouse, an online community for model-builders, sculptors, and collectors. It seems to be a good resource for help and information on working with plastics and resins, as well as painting and weathering.

News

Backstage helps out on September 11th

Ten years ago this weekend, I was working as a stagehand apprentice at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. I’ve gathered some news stories about how fellow technical theatre and film employees stepped in and helped out on September 11th and its aftermath. If you know of any others, leave a comment or drop me an email.

IATSE Local 52 Volunteer Their Expertise To Rescue Efforts in New York

Local 52 is coordinating with New York-based Production Houses that are providing generators and back-up equipment at no charge. Studio Mechanics are working voluntarily (at no compensation) around the clock manning spot lights, flood lights, torches and mechanical cutters to cut through the steel, concrete and other debris in efforts to rescue those who may be trapped in the rubble.

September 11: The Industry Pitches In

On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 11, Musco Lighting received a call from the NYPD requesting the use of its mobile lighting trucks.

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Another story of people in our industry pitching in comes from Charlie Libin, a DP/grip who, along with David Skutch of Luminaria Ltd., have been volunteering to help with the lighting at the World Trade Center site.

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“On Wednesday, the city wanted to use Pier 94 as a morgue and asked us to put up drapes and lights to create a welcoming place for the families,” explains Longert. “On Thursday they changed their minds and asked us to help in the construction of the Family Assistance Center.”

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“In five minutes the Local 52 crew and I got it up and running.” With some supplemental lighting from the Law & Order lighting package, they turned a darkened sound stage into a makeshift hospital.

IATSE Donates $50,000 To New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund

In the wake of the horrific events at the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D. C. and in Pennsylvania, the IATSE has donated $50,000 to the New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund, it was announced by Thomas C. Short, President of the International Union. These monies are intended to aid the relief efforts of the New York State and City emergency response, Short added.

IATSE New York Locals One, 751, 764, 798, ATPAM 18032 And USA829 Accept Limited Wage Reduction To Keep Broadway Lit

In an effort to keep legitimate theater productions on Broadway lit, New York locals and the IATSE have jointly agreed to a 25% wage reduction for a four week period, it was announced by Thomas C. Short, President of the International. This decrease came in response to the economic chaos created by the recent attack on the city. As a result, five major productions including Chicago, Full Monty, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and Rent, are threatened with closing unless substantial economic relief can be found.

Monona Rossol is well-known to many in the technical theater community. She has been working for decades to make our theatres safer, and many of us have attended her seminars over the years, which is usually the first time we hear about how hazardous all the materials we work with are. She was also one of the first to speak out about how toxic the air around Ground Zero was. In this interview at Green Theater Initiative, she says:

I live on Thompson right near Houston, and when the wind shifted on September 11th and all that dust and odor drifted uptown, I had my first ever asthma attack. They were announcing on the radio that the air was fine, and I said, “I don’t think so!” Any common-sense chemist knows that you cannot grind 16 acres of buildings into dust, with all of their computers, plastics, asbestos, fiberglass, and metals, and tell people the air is okay. So I formed an alliance with the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project, and their lawyer, Joel Kupferman. I told him how to take samples and create a chain of custody to the lab; and we had our own samples analyzed. I did a radio broadcast on the 17th of September on PBS saying, essentially, “Are they crazy? This air is horrendous and people should not be cleaning up this dust on their own.” We did our first joint press release on September 22nd, making us the first people to speak out, and that was just because no one else did it.

You can read Comments on Exposure and Human Health Evaluation of Airborne Pollution from the World Trade Center Disaster, co-written by Rossol, as well as the the report on The Public Health Fallout from September 11, published by the New York Environmental Law & Justice Project.

Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies