Ross MacDonald has built period props and vintage books for dozens of films and television shows over the years. Check out his web page for a portfolio of his work. I recently talked with him about making props and working in the industry.
Ross MacDonald. Photograph by Greg Preston
How did you get started doing props?
Weirdly enough, I had been doing some television-related work, even back when I was starting out as an illustrator. I was doing this thing, this was up in Toronto, called the Artisan’s Schools Program. It was a grant program. It was me and a couple other guys, we would go into the schools, and we’d start off performing poetry, I would do big drawings, and the third guy, if he was there, would do music. Continue reading Interview with Ross MacDonald→
The following article by Ron De Marco is a summary of the interviews of props professionals conducted by his students which ran last month.
The Prop Master Interviews: A Reflection
By Ron De Marco
Ron De Marco
I’ve been teaching four stagecraft level prop courses at Emerson College every year for the past ten years. One of the topics my students and I discuss on the first day of class is the various challenges that people who create props all over the country deal with in their daily jobs. The internet is abundant with newspaper lifestyle articles on solutions that prop people have developed while working on productions, and these articles usually address the sometimes wild and sensational tasks that they are currently tackling. For years, I’ve brought many of these articles in with me to class on day one and we’ve oohed and aahed about the clever approaches and solutions to seemingly impossible challenges: an actress needing to “vomit” on cue in God of Carnage, digging up and smashing bones in a graveyard for The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and all manner of special effects designed to be reset quickly for the next show. Continue reading The Prop Master Interviews: A Reflection→
This week’s must-read comes from The A/V Club, who interviewed props master Chris Call. This very in-depth conversation takes a look at his career, propping everything from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Alias, to The Closer. The article takes the time to really dig into the nuts and bolts of a TV prop master’s job and Call’s career path, going far beyond the standard “what’s the craziest prop you’ve ever had to make?!?” kind of questions.
Wired takes a look at Adam Savage’s replica prop-making hobby, and asks the burning question of why he does it. Spolier alert: it’s because props can tell a story.
What did Kermit the Frog look like before the Muppets? Collector’s Weekly takes a look at the history of the Muppets, including photographs of a pre-Sesame Street Kermit, and delves into Jim Henson’s journey from five-minute sketches on a local TV station to a worldwide empire of puppet and creature manufacturing.
Steve Levine has been a prop master for 40 years, working on films like Airplane!, Cocoon, and Apollo 13. Check out this great interview with him where he goes into detail about his lengthy career. He also has a book coming out soon, which is probably the first book about working as a Hollywood props master.
In sadder news, Joe Longo has passed away. He was a long time prop master for Star Trek, working on The Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock, the first five seasons of The Next Generation, and all seven seasons of Deep Space Nine. Trekcore has a collection of old interviews of Joe, including a video, while Star Trek.com has some remembrances by long-time colleagues of Longo.
Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies
