Category Archives: Useful Sites

Useful Sites

Welcome, Links of 2016

The New York Times’ Vocations column interviewed James Blumenfeld, the props master at the Met Opera. He runs a staff of 35(!) and has been there since 1983.

The Algoma Mop Manufacturers were pressed into service to make the 500 mops needed for David O. Russell’s latest film, Joy. They had one of the few machines needed to recreate the Miracle Mops from the 1990s that figure so prominently in the film.

And since we’re talking about Joy, how about this article on creating the vintage singles’ ads from the movie? Ross MacDonald also made the children’s book that appears in the film.

Sticking with Ross, he has a whole lot of information on his latest props; he made tons of vintage packaging and paper props for The Hateful Eight, Tarantino’s latest film. He also designed the vintage packaging for Red Apple Tobacco, Tarantino’s signature brand that appears in all of his films. You can read more about that in my interview with him last year.

The Rosco Blog shows how Techland Houston made a foam model of the Starship Enterprise. Just in time for The Force Awakens!

Fox 12 in Portland catches up with Portland prop master Greg McMickle. McMickle is currently the props master for The Librarians, but his work has also been seen in the Twilight franchise, Wild, and Twin Peaks.

 

Useful Sites

Twas the Week Before Christmas

Though there’s only one more week until Christmas, you still have enough time to order The Prop Building Guidebook for that special prop maker in your life!

Frank Ippolito has a post out called “Blame the Maker, not the Material“. He reminds us that many of the more complicated materials – resins, rubbers, laminates, etc – have so many specific variations, that you cannot expect consistent results if you use them in a different manner than expected. Or if you substitute brands when following directions. These materials are manufactured to do what they are meant to do, and if you are not getting the results you expect, you are either using the wrong materials or using the materials wrong.

Now this is street theatre: La Machine brings massive mechanical marvels to life, free to roam the streets around the world. François Delarozière is the artist behind these gigantic moving contraptions, such as a 50-foot spider or Da Vinci-esque elephants.

Michael Gump is an LA-based prop master for TV who has spent the entire year making a new disguise every day. He posts the photographs to Instagram; it’s great to see all the various objects he has stuck to his face.

Make Magazine has 8 clever jigs for your workshop. Some great ones here for making perfect corners or for adding a bead to your wooden furniture.

Useful Sites

Props is Tops

American Theatre has highlighted 6 Theatre Workers You Should Know, and one of them is props designer Noah Mease. Yay Props!

Brandon Alinger at Prop Store has a fantastic history on the making of the Dewback creatures from the original Star Wars film. Some of the photographs detailing their fabrication are being shown here for the first time.

This link is almost ten years old, but I just found it, and it’s a good one. The forums at RC Groups have a ton of information on working with foam in terms of sculpting, gluing and coating. This thread has collected dozens of the most useful sites in one place.

The Stan Winston School had a Halloween Costume Contest. Check out the photographs of the winner and several runner ups. They will convince you that your homemade Halloween costume is shameful and you should just give up forever.

Make Magazine has a quick tutorial on making molds for jewelry. It shows how to make molds out of vulcanized rubber, which is not a process you see much in prop shops.

Useful Sites

Friday Webby Goodness

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I am the Master of Props. I am the Devourer of Foam. Ok, that’s a bit much, but you can check out a Q&A with me in this month’s USITT Sightlines. I talk about my blog and reveal a bit of my origin story.

Tested takes a look at this very cool animatronic Skeksis puppet being built by Chris Ellerby. He’s using a great mix of traditional and high-tech techniques to bring this creature from Dark Crystal to life.

Lost Art Press introduced me to the Index of American Design. This WPA project had artists drawing and painting all manner of household items, toys, furniture and tools in an attempt to document and define the American aesthetic. You can follow the links on his page to get to the online Index, which has over 18,000 of these images for your viewing pleasure.

Finally, if you’re really bored, check out this board foot calculator you can use on your next carpentry project.

Useful Sites

Bossing the World part 2, 1921

The following article comes from the 1921 collected edition of “Our Paper,” put out by the Massachusetts Reformatory. The first part was posted previously:

Bossing the World

by John B. Wallace

The property men of the various studios about Los Angeles, where two-thirds of the motion pictures are made, work harmoniously and borrow and rent various properties from one another.

The advent of the motion picture has created a number of new businesses in Los Angeles. Not only are there several establishments that rent exclusively to the studios but some of the large retail furniture houses and department stores have rental departments devoted to supplying the needs of the film colony. The visitor may also see the unusual spectacle of antique shops refusing to sell their curios to collectors, because they prefer to rent them to the studios. This is easily explained, however, when the rental price of certain rare antiques is learned.

While expense is the bugbear of the property man it is the least of the worries of the directors and some of them will go to any extreme to get just what they want for a certain scene.

But even with the dozens of antique dealers scouring the remote spots of the earth the property man often runs against what seems like a hopeless impasse. It is then he must bring ingenuity into play.

For instance, Mr. [Howard] Wells told me of a particular scene that was supposed to be laid in Scotland. In a city like Los Angeles, where the architecture embraces every variety known to civilized man, it was easy to find a house that would pass for a Scotch manor house.

But the rub came when Wells learned that he must supply a lawnmower for the principal character of the scene, to operate on the lawn. An English lawnmower differs in several particulars from an American machine. There was not time to send abroad for one, and as far as Wells knew there was none in the country.

To make it worse, Wells had never seen one of the foreign grass cutters. With the aid of the research department Wells finally found a book containing a picture of an English lawnmower. He studied it carefully, then took an American lawnmower and made it over so that an expert could not distinguish the difference in appearance when it was shown on the screen.

Wallace, John B. “Bossing the World.” Our Paper. Vol. 38. N.p.: Massachusetts Refomatory, 1921. 153. Google Books. Web. 24 Nov. 2015