Tag Archives: television

Useful Sites

Mixed Links

Next week I will be back in New York City building props for Shakespeare in the Park.

It’s been quite the week for props in the news. The first three stories all came from mainstream newspapers, and all four have been published in the last week!

Weapons Specialists are back in the news, and it looks like they have officially finished their name change to The Specialists Ltd. The New York Times just published an in-depth story on the history and future of this company, one of the premier weapons suppliers and fabricators for film, television and theatre on the East Coast.

The Guardian ran an excellent story this past week called “Time to give props to theatre props“. It talks about the vital role props play in many productions, and how most plays cannot be done without them. Of course, if you read this blog regularly, you already know all that; it’s nice to see a mainstream outlet acknowledge it, though.

The Huffington Post, meanwhile, has an interview with Ellen Freund, prop master for such shows as Mad Men. Are there a lot of props in that show?

Finally, DirecTV (?) interviews Jill Alexander, prop master on the show Damages. The interview gives a good sense of the hectic pace of working on a TV shoot.

Useful Sites

Friday Props Links Roundup

The Guardian has a nice little article on How to Make a Haunted House. It details how the set dresser, prop master and other members of the art department use locations, architecture and props to create the mood of the upcoming ghost film, The Woman in Black. They purchased and borrowed tons (or “tonnes”, as this is a British film) of Victorian-era objects and paraphernalia to dress the sets.

Have you heard of the new show Prop Freaks? Because it’s a TV show about people who make and collect props. Well, it’s a show in development; you can watch short clips on the website until it finds an audience. But it looks pretty cool, and I can’t wait to see more.

Here is an interview with Russell Bobbitt on how he uses 3D printing technology to create many of his props. Russell Bobbitt is the film prop master who has made some fairly recognizable props, such as the glowing chest piece from Iron Man 2, or the wristband laser gun from Cowboys and Aliens.

Here is an interesting video on using a vacuum former to make masks. There’s a few things that make this especially intriguing: his rig is portable so he is able to take it to an event where other people can vacuum form their own masks, and he uses a bicycle pump to draw out the air rather than a vacuum cleaner. Also, the music playing in the background is a Nintendo beat version of MOP’s “Ante Up” with computers rapping (done by an artist named “Danny Drive Thru”), so that alone makes this worth watching.

While not prop-related, this last link is pretty fun. Watch this time-lapse video of stagehands from IATSE local 33 set up the orchestra pit at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It’s a pretty ambitious sounding project too; over 1,000 musicians will perform.

Showcases

Snake Puppet Test Video


Here is a great video showing puppet and effects tests for the “Goa’uld” aliens from Stargate SG-1, one of my favorite sci-fi television shows. This comes from the Steve Johnson FX channel on YouTube; I’ve linked to it before, but if you haven’t seen it yet, it has dozens of videos like this one to watch and enjoy.

We are three-quarters of the way through technical rehearsals of Shakespeare in the Park, so I’ll be back to a regular writing schedule soon. I also have some potentially exciting news coming up around the middle of the month. Stay tuned!

Showcases

Behind the scenes at Dexter

Over at the LA Times, Maria Elena Fernandez recently met with prop master Josh Meltzer and assistant in the prop department Dave Maguire. They show a lot of the props, body parts and blood used on Showtime’s Dexter.

We learn what a “gold room” is in television parlance, how they stab somebody, and many other nifty little tidbits. One surprise is that they use retractable knives for the stabbings; these have almost universally fallen out of favor with theatrical prop masters. Perhaps the repetition of performance in theatre makes it more likely for an accident to happen, as opposed to television, where it is used only once under the eye of the experienced prop master.

Also: thirty more days until Halloween!

Showcases

Warehouse 13 Props

2 Comments
The characters of "Warehouse 13"
The characters of "Warehouse 13"

This past Saturday, I had my first day to myself in about a month. So I spent it doing what I love to do when I’m on my own: watch sci-fi. I saw Hulu had the first four episodes of Warehouse 13. I hadn’t seen any of it before, but had heard good things.

I loved it, but that’s beside the point. This is a blog about props, so let me talk about the props. This show has many. There are many steampunk-inspired gadgets, gizmos and set dressing. But more on that in a minute.

The show itself is essentially about objects. Two Secret Service agents find themselves transferred to a secret warehouse in South Dakota which holds artifacts from around the world with various magical, mystical, or otherwise unexplainable properties. Their job is to hunt down these objects and safely store themn away. Every episode is essentially about one of these objects. They range from an Aztec blood-stone; Harry Houdini’s wallet, a psychiatrist’s chair that unleashes your subconcious desires, and the guillotine that killed Marie Antoinette. In other words, every episode is about a prop.

The gadgetry is the other exciting prop topic on this show. Sal Rubinek’s character has a whole collection of strange paraphenalia, as well as a steampunk-ophile’s dream office. I thought I recognized the computer keyboard as one created by an artist named Datamancer; indeed, on digging through his blog, I found the post where he details being contacted by the Syfy channel to use the Sojourner keyboard he had built.

Other gadgets include a Tesla-built electric stun gun, and a two-way video communicator called the Farnsworth. You can catch a good writeup on these props at Wired and in the Steampunk Fashion.