All posts by Eric Hart

Showcases

Nathan Santucci

photograph by Leila Navidi
photograph by Leila Navidi

The Las Vegas Sun has a little article about Nathan Santucci, the prop-builder for Penn and Teller.

Good ‘magic’ is bloody science – Las Vegas Sun.

Santucci – who has many skills, including woodworking, plastic working, milling, welding, painting and SCUBA diving for underwater props – spends most of his days with blood on his hands and his clothes and the seat of his car. It gets everywhere.

Mostly this is because of the trick where the guys use a timber mill-size circular saw to cut their lovely assistant in half.

The article also has a great story about a fake snake.

I’ve always thought trick props can be approached in the same way as magic props. Building a prop for a stage illusion requires the same sort of creative thinking and knowledge of mechanics, pneumatics, electronics, and other control systems.

Unfortunately, information about magic is a closely guarded secret. Information in books tends to focus on sleight-of-hand tricks, or well-known illusions. Magic websites suffer from being overwhelmed by spam sites, link farms, and plain old con jobs.

Surprisingly (or not), some of the best information on these kinds of tricks can be found on DIY Halloween decoration websites.

Showcases

Mary Robinette Kowal

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Mary Robinette Kowal is a puppeteer and science-fiction writer in New York City. She is also works in props. Her blog contains the occasional post about the interesting props she’s built, and fascinating stories about the day-to-day life of a NYC props master (such as getting a moose-head down five flights of stairs, or carrying an axe on the subway).

You can quickly peruse all the posts dealing with props. Be sure to look at all the pages, as there’s quite a bit of great information there.

How-to

RAC Props

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RAC Props is a website and online magazine run by Richard A. Coyle. Mr. Coyle has made props for Star Trek II, IV, V and VI, as well as Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The magazine has a wealth of articles on props, written by Coyle and others. Some highlights include

It’s an interesting mix of original prop making and fan replica prop making.

Reprints

The Property-Man in Vaudeville Theatre

The Property-man

(from The vaudeville theatre, building, operation, management, by Edward Renton, 1918)

“Resourcefulness” should be the middle name of the individual who is competent to occupy the position of property-man in a theatre. There are other important qualifications, but this one is essential. He may be called upon to supply anything from an Egyptian mummy to a three week-old child, upon a moment’s notice. He must be a bit of a carpenter, something of an artist, a great deal of a diplomat, and he must be “on the job” from the rising of the sun to considerably after the setting thereof-in other words, this is not the place for a lazy or a shiftless man.

A property-man should have the ability to meet people pleasantly and to make a favorable impression. He should cultivate cordial relations with transfer companies, with the various merchants of the city, and with other persons from whom he is likely to need favors in the way of borrowed properties. He will be faced with the necessity of requesting loans from homes, pawn-shops, museums and other public institutions, stores and individuals. He should be able to convey the impression of responsibility- and should live up to it. To a peculiar degree, he has the reputation of the theatre in his keeping; it is absolutely essential that he call for properties loaned or rented at the time agreed upon, that he care for such articles most assiduously while they are being used and that
he return them promptly and in the same condition as when borrowed.

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