Things continue chugging along here. King Lear began previews. I’m furiously preparing the first four chapters of The Prop Building Guidebook to submit to my publisher at the end of the month. Yet I still have time to find fun things on the internet.
Here’s an interesting story on how a film prop (technically, a mask) became a real-life prop used in protests around the world. This article on the V for Vendetta masks shows who is behind them and how this all came about.
Christopher Schwartz, former editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine and current founder of Lost Art Press, has published 14 principles of shop setup which he has developed over 20 years of woodworking.
In the same vein, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage of Mythbusters’Â fame have 15 DIY Workshop Tips, including an ingenious nesting work table and indispensable tools to have.
In our current production of King Lear, we needed to provide them with a paper bag. Not just any paper bag. Only a specific size would do. I eventually found a place online we could order a close-enough size, provided we cut a few inches off the top. So I thought this history of the paper bag posted on the MoMA site was particularly apropos to the situation.
I don’t mean to nerd out, but did you know there’s a whole club of people who build R2-D2 replicas? I haven’t signed up to view the forums, but you can still browse the galleries, and read a few issues of the online magazine they publish.
On the second full day of this year’s S*P*A*M conference, we watched a presentation by Rebecca Akins. Ms. Akins has designed costumes for Childsplay Theatre (our host in Arizona) for the past twenty-five years, and has been constructing costumes, puppets, costume props and masks for at least that long as well. She divided her presentation in two parts. The first was on materials and methods she’s used in the past which she now knows to be hazardous to your health. The second was on “new good things”, which are less-toxic replacements for these.
A puppet couple by Rebecca Akins
One of her earlier shows was a production of Devils in 1971. She created latex masks, Celastic armor, and sprayed the costumes with aniline dyes. Anyone who has worn latex knows it does not allow the skin to breathe, and the latex masks were very uncomfortable to the actors with the heat and build-up of sweat underneath. Aniline dyes are extremely toxic, and spraying them is a great way to fill your lungs with poison, especially with little ventilation and no respirator.
Ms. Akins used Celastic a lot in those days, starting with Celastic mitres, crowns and wigs for The Balcony in 1969, through at least 1981 with masks for a production of The Pied Piper. For those who are unfamiliar, Celastic is a fabric impregnated with plastic. When you soak it in a solvent, it becomes soft and flexible, hardening to a stiff but lightweight shell when the solvent evaporates. The toxic part is not the Celastic itself, but the solvent used to soften it; common choices include acetone and methyl ethyl ketone (MEK). All solvents are harmful to humans, and can enter the body through the skin, lungs, stomach or eyes. Not all gloves will protect against them, and not all respirators are designed to filter out their vapors.
She mentioned a material I had never heard of called “blue mud cement”. It is a powdery mixture of asbestos fibers and “spackle-y” binders; when mixed with water, the paste will dry hard and lightweight (it was originally developed for plumbing pipe insulation). For a 1974 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, she created forms in chicken wire, wrapped them in plaster bandages, and coated the whole thing with blue mud cement. It sounds like a mix between Bondo and chopped fiberglass, except that it’s, you know, asbestos.
Cutting and carving Styrofoam with a hot knife or wire is another technique she described; the fumes created when Styrofoam melts are fairly toxic.
In 1984, Ms. Akins worked with fiberglass for the first time to create a mascot head for a Phoenix sports team. Fiberglass creates strong and lightweight shells, but she found the individual particles got into her skin and clothes and irritated her immensely, and the resins used give off a lot of fumes while curing; it is also an inhalation hazard when sanding the hardened fiberglass. She used fiberglass again in 2002 with more adequate protection (ventilation, a respirator and thick sleeves), but decided it was too much of a hassle to continue working with it.
The second half of her presentation dealt with “new good things”, that is, newer materials which attempt similar results with less toxicity. Examples include Fosshape, Thermaflex (or Wonderflex), leather, fabric, paper and silicone casting gels.
Fabric is another less-toxic material. She uses soft sculpture a lot for puppets; fabric, thread, fiber fill (stuffing) and paint are the only materials needed to make three-dimensional shapes.
She showed us a number of examples of “found objects as materials”. An old leather handbag became a dog mask, a group of woven baskets transformed into a camel, and dryer hoses turned into snakes and an elephant’s trunk. Though using found objects has long been a staple of propmaking, Ms. Akins reminded us it remains a fairly non-toxic–and environmentally friendly–method, even today. Below is a photograph of a dog mask made out of wooden bowls.
In 2004, she began using Fosshape to make a head for a production of Big Friendly Giant. Like Themaflex and Wonderflex, Fosshape is a plastic-impregnated fabric which becomes soft and pliable when heated, and retains its shape when cooled. In many ways, it is similar to Celastic, except you use boiling water or a heat gun to soften it, rather than a bucket full of solvents.
Finally, she described her first forays into using silicone mold materials. She would make a model in clay, mold it in silicone, and then cast it in resin. In one case, she mixed resin and Bondo together to make a puppet head; this gave her a translucent pinkish head which looked a lot like skin.
At the end of her presentation, Ms. Akins reminded us that whatever materials and methods you choose, you should endeavor to make the prop with as much care as possible. She left us with these closing words: “The more gorgeous a thing is, the more respect it is treated with.”
Some may question whether masks are actually props. Often they are considered costumes, and in some cases, they can be considered a completely separate department. However, I feel that because they are physical objects of the theatre, they are worth investigating for historical purposes. In Ancient Greek theatre, the mask-makers were the same craftsmen who would make other theatrical props called for in the show (read my article on Ancient Greek Theatre props for more information), and it is not implausible to believe that such was the case in other theatrical traditions.
I would like to add one further caveat as well before continuing. Masks were used in many early societies as parts of rituals. Ancient Greek theatre rose out of such rituals, and many other early rituals evolved into forms of theatre as well. While rituals are not theatre per say, they can be considered part of the theatrical tradition. In any event, masks and mask-makers may be viewed as the earliest predecessors of props and prop artisans.
Though no Greek theatre masks have survived to the modern day, we have some examples of Roman New Comedy masks which have evolved out of the Greek tradition.
Terracotta mask from 395BCE-332BCE
Many early theatre traditions made masks out of leather or hide, and included feathers and fur as decorations. While clay and stone masks may been less prevalent, they are the only kinds which have survived, as anything organic has long since decomposed.
Preceding the Greeks were the Ancient Egyptians. Here we see a ceramic Anubis mask, one of the only surviving helmet masks from Egypt.
Ceramic Anubis mask
Currently held in the Hildesheim Pelizaeus-Museum, the mask weighs about 17 pounds and is believed to date from about 600BCE. Notice the two holes below the head; these are eye-holes for the priest who wore it. Unlike the Roman mask above, this mask was used in a more ceremonial rather than theatrical purpose.
One of the oldest masks believed to be in existence is this stone mask from the neolithic period.
I’m in North Carolina visiting my wife and talking to her classes about being a props person (she teaches scenic design at Elon University). So enjoy the links below and have a Happy Halloween!
The Early Office Museum has an amazing amount of information concerning all the props and accoutrements of offices going all the way back to the sixteenth century.
What the World Eats is a project by photographer Peter Menzel which documents what families throughout the world eat in an average week. It’s helpful if you ever need to set dress a kitchen in say, Japan. It is also a book: Hungry Planet: What the World Eats
Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies
