All posts by Eric Hart

Useful Sites

Valentine’s Day Links

Happy Friday, everyone! For those of you in my part of the country, I hope you survived the winter storm(s) alright. Whether you are back to work or still stuck in your house, here are some prop-related articles for your reading pleasure:

The ever-inspiring prop maker Ross MacDonald has a post on some of the period paper props he has made for HBO’s Boardwalk Empire over the past four years. His props are always well-researched and produced on vintage machines as close to how they were originally produced.

Collector’s Weekly has a great piece on the fifty year history of Easy-Bake Ovens. If you have never checked out their blog, this is a great piece to start on. Their stories are always a cut above the rest, filled with tons of great photographs, and delving into the history of various objects in great detail.

If you are interested in making props while spending barely any money on materials, check out the Cardboard Armory. As the name suggests, this blog details various armor and weapon projects built with little more than cardboard, hot glue and the occasional piece of PVC pipe.

Though directed at woodworkers, Popular Woodworking’s “Top 6 Ways to Become a Better Woodworker” is just as relevant to the prop maker. Ok, it’s actually five ways, since one of the ways is to read Popular Woodworking (though if you build prop furniture from wood, it’s a good magazine to check out).

Alpha Officium makes historically-accurate coins out of real metal. His website has some common coins like Florins and Groats, and he can also do custom orders if you need something more specific.

Reprints

Picture Producers Buy Goods on Army Scale, 1926

The following article comes from a 1926 issue of The Washington Post:

Culver City, Calif., Sept. 25 (By A.P.) — A speck of radium or a refrigerating plant capable of freezing a lake are all in a day’s work for the motion picture property man when he goes shopping.

The purchasing department of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shows both items on the list of supplies for pictures, the radium playing a part in one film while the ice plant prepared an artificial lake for a winter scene in another.

This picture producing plant buys in army quantities—200,000 gallons of paint, 4,000,000 feet of lumber, 10,000 sacks of plaster, and tons of explosives being included in its annual purchases. A mill was chartered to weave plaids for a Scottish army in the filming of “Annie Laurie.”

Furniture is bought in carload lots and virtually every make of automobile is found in the transportation department.

From these wholesale purchases, the versatile property man turns to buying flower bulbs, a dust pan or an old oil lamp.

The studio bought a fox terrier puppy for one picture and the same day a pullman car for another.

The diversity of the products over which the movie dollars are spread is shown by the fact that 22,000 purchasing orders issued by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in one year were for 100,000 different commodities.

Originally published in The Washington Post, September 26 1926, pg M8.

Useful Sites

Friday Prop Notes

These guys made a life-size pirate ship using nothing but cardboard and hot glue. And they did it all in five days.

I’m looking forward to the film Monuments Men, about a team of art preservationists who go behind enemy lines in World War II to rescue artworks stolen by the Nazis. Credits talks with the production designer, Jim Bissell, on how they created the locations of a ruined Europe for the film.

Here are some blank vintage labels you can download and fill in with whatever text or logos you need for your next period show.

If you ever wanted to get started with circuits and electronics in your props, but didn’t know where to start, Tested has put together a nice little guide to getting started.

And finally, here is a brief history of the coping saw, which I am sure will answer all the burning questions you have had about the coping saw.

Showcases

Forging the Sword from the Hobbit

I’ve pointed out Tony Swatton’s video series in the past; he is a blacksmith for film, television and theatre, and in this short series, he recreates famous weapons from films, video games and other pop culture using real blacksmith and metal-working techniques. If you haven’t seen it yet, this is a great one to start with: Swatton forges the sword “Sting” used by Bilbo in The Hobbit.