Here is a well-done video of Tom Fiocchi, my props instructor at Ohio University. He talks about running a props program at a university and what they try to give their students. I learned a lot from Tom, especially with steel working. I made my first sword in one of his classes, and this video spends some time with swords and stage combat.
All posts by Eric Hart
Win this foam baseball bat
Hey, everybody. I’m going to be running my very first contest!
Specter Studios is a props, costumes and mask shop out of Pittsburgh, PA. Their theatrical props include a number of soft foam and latex weapons, such as the baseball bat above. It looks real, but you can beat people over the head with it. For theatre, of course. It’s the prize of this contest here.
Specter Studios is a bit different from those pop-up Halloween stores you see every year. They employ a number of local artists to make all of their products. You can actually see photos and bios of them at the website. Their Facebook page has even more behind-the-scenes photographs.
So what do you have to do to win? Simple, just leave a comment at this blog post saying what play, movie or TV show would be improved by the addition of this foam bat. If you follow the blog by email or through RSS, be sure to visit the website itself to leave your comment. Creativity is key, here. The contest will remain open until 11:59pm on Thursday, May 24, and I will announce the winner on the blog that Friday morning.
(The baseball bat can only be shipped to the Continental US, so the winner will have to provide a US address for the prize to be shipped to.)
A Practical Guide to Friday Links
Mother’s Day is this Sunday. Bill Tull, the prop master on Conan O’Brian, has some Mother’s Day gift ideas for those on a budget.
Here’s a blast from the past: an Interview with Anna Marchant, who was a prop maker on the two Matrix sequels. It’s a great interview because it really cuts to the heart of what kind of materials she works with, how the prop department interacts with other departments, and all the other day-to-day details that other interviews forego to talk about “cool props” or “what it’s like to work with movie stars”.
Dallas Poll, a prop maker on Lord of the Rings, had his house burglarized recently, with a number of props and memorabilia stolen. To make matters worse, one of the items stolen was his Stormtrooper costume—and the thieves struck on Star Wars Day!
Rich Dionne’s latest post is about working together in the theatre. This isn’t just about how a playwright works with a director; this is about collaboration within the production department itself, and how important it is for props, costumes, lighting, sound and scenery to occasionally work together on tasks and not just throw walls up around their individual departments.
Robert Lang does a nice job summing up the advantages of not measuring your work. Relying on measuring devices introduces inaccuracies into your work. Sounds counter-intuitive, right? Check the article out.
The Covetous Property Man, 1904
The following first appeared in The New York Times, July 24, 1904:
“There is no more assiduous collector of odds and ends than the average theatrical property man,” said a well-known actor. “Everything is fish for his net, you might say, and the contents of the chest or trunk of one of these individuals after a forage through the country would easily hold its own with Dickens’s famous curiosity shop…
“If you wish to find out the thoroughness with which the average property man accumulates, just ask him for any article, I don’t care what, and see if nine times out of ten he won’t produce it.”
“By accident I was a witness once of the manner in which a property man adds a coveted object to his collection. Our show was playing at Richmond, Va., at the time. Among the ‘props’ furnished by the theatre’s property man was a handsome rifle, which he had borrowed from a local firearms firm for the week.
“On Friday I had occasion to go to the theatre to get something I had forgotten. As I made my way to the dressing rooms I noticed our company’s property man standing to one side of the darkened stage, in a ray of sunlight, examining this rifle with the air of a connoisseur. There was nobody else in the theatre at the time, and he apparently had not seen me. I would probably have passed him by unnoticed but for the fact that he was holding a conversation with himself, which ran thus:
“‘You seem to be a pretty nice gun,’ he said, holding the rifle up to his shoulder and running his eye critically along the sights.
“‘Ever been on the road?‘ he continued, carefully scrutinizing the stock of the weapon.
“‘Why, you have no idea what a lot of fun you can have out on the road,’ he kept on seductively. ‘A great deal better than being stuck in a little town like this.‘
“‘How would you like to go on the road?‘ he queried, as if he had a sudden inspiration.
“‘You would? All right. I think I can fix it for you.’
“And he made for his trunk to see if he could lay in the rifle crosswise. He was just able to get it in, and the last words I heard him say to the enraptured weapon were:
“‘I’ll sign you with this company right away.‘”
Originally published in The New York Times, July 24, 1904.
Cooking Pots History 1642-1969
H/T to Ron DeMarco for this info-graphic of cooking pot technology throughout history.