Category Archives: Useful Sites

Useful Sites

Friday Week in Review

This week, famed illustrator and designer HR Giger passed away. Perhaps best known for his work designing the creatures in Alien, his aesthetic has found its way into numerous sci-fi and horror films, and even theatrical productions. BFI has a great post showing behind-the-scenes photos of Giger working on Alien,  while Creative Review has a good round-up of his conceptual and illustration work.

BBC Culture shares a viewpoint that filmmakers are returning to old-school special effects and real miniatures. While CGI can accomplish things that are impossible in reality, real sets, props and models still give more authenticity to a film, and in some cases, can be cheaper and easier to incorporate. So keep on proppin’!

The previous article stems from the announcement that Disney will be incorporating more practical effects and less CGI in their upcoming round of Star Wars films. Esquire also had an interview with Roger Christian, the set decorator on the original trilogy. He talks about how he took scrap metal from airplanes to make the halls of the Millennium Falcon, and other interesting tidbits.

Sticking with the Star Wars theme of today, Tested has the tale of how obsessive fans built a better Han Solo blaster. Several fans spent countless hours reverse-engineering the prop weapon used in the original film to come up with a replica that was as screen-accurate as possible. It’s like a detective story and a prop-making story all wrapped into one.

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Mid-Week Links

Things have been hectic here in the Hart Household, and you may have noticed I’ve missed a few posts. So I am switching things up and posting a bunch of links on a Wednesday rather than a Friday. Here we go:

Chris Ubick has been the props master on dozens of films, such as The Help, Practical Magic, Milk, and The Internship. Dianne Reber Hart has written a great article on her life and career which you should check out.

This article is a few years old, but worth mentioning: The Last Electronics Project I Completed. It’s a little deep and heavy at times (the author was building a fake bomb prop in lower Manhattan in early September of 2001) but it brings up some questions about the questionable legality of what we sometimes find ourselves building.

On a lighter note, here is how to force a patina on carbon steel. Short answer? Shove it in a lemon.

And finally, here is an interesting Instructable on assembling a vacuum-formed model. If you have tried vacuum-forming before, you will know that making the parts on the machine is just the beginning. You still have to trim, assemble and reinforce the parts to get a usable prop. This Instructable steps through some of those processes to make a fake ammo drum.

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Last Links in April

Hey, if you haven’t gotten my Prop Building Guidebook yet, you can get it direct from Focal Press for 20% off until April 29th! Just use code MRK95 at checkout. It makes a great gift for graduation (hint hint).

This seems like one of those weird Buzzfeed articles, but it actually has a whole lot of cool photographs from a tour inside Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.

Legacy Effects has a great video on the making of the suit from the new Robocop film. Sure, there is a lot of 3D printing and digital fabrication involved, but there is also a surprising amount of traditional artistry going on, including sculpting, painting and sewing.

La Bricoleuse discovers an armor maker right here in North Carolina. Dr. Eric Juengst is the Director of the Center of Bioethics at UNC Chapel Hill, and he spends his spare time fabricating historic suits of armor (and suits of armor for animals). Check out these photos and video of his workshop and his creations.

Here’s a good step-by-step tutorial on how to do a life cast of a face from Lauren Daisy Williams, a student at UNCSA. I met Lauren at the USITT Young Designer’s Forum this year, where she had all sorts of fun molding and casting projects on display, so it’s nice to see her share the process for some of her work online.

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Mysteries of the Prop Room part 4, 1902

The following tour of a property room at the Grand Theater in Saint Paul, MN, first appeared in The Saint Paul Globe in 1902. This is the third selection from that article, with the first appearing here, the second here, and the third here.

Like the property room on the stage floor of the Metropolitan this property room behind the stage of the Grand serves to house the “props” that are in immediate use. And these “props” as a rule belong to the company that happens to be playing the week’s engagement. However, there are many little things in the way of stage furnishings that few companies carry and these, of course, are supplied by the house. Adjoining the property room at the Grand is a completely fitted out carpenter’s shop, the sanctum sanctorum of the stage carpenter. In this shop all the stage furniture is made. Just now the stage carpenter is at work on a set of parlor furniture of Florentine design. As soon as it is finished this furniture will be placed in the property room and designated a “prop.”

The Grand possesses something that is not often found in theaters in this country and that is a property room in the fly gallery. This fly gallery is nothing more than a platform that swings out half way between the stage and the roof of the theater. The gallery is reached by means of a spiral staircase made of iron. Two windows looking out upon a court furnish a dim light for the room. […] The property room of this fly gallery at the Grand is peopled with odds and ends that, looked at separately, would never be connected with the stage below. But all of them have played their brief part in some drama and because of this have earned their right to the dignified title, “prop.”

For instance, there is a complete outfit for a cosy corner to be found in this particular property room. This outfit consists of three long pikes with broad heads, a flimsy covering of Oriental stuff, a seat cushioned with Oriental cotton and a swinging Oriental lamp. Seen from the auditorium the effect of such a cosy corner is always picturesque. A nearer view takes away all the enchantment that distance lends. The wobbly pikes, the flimsy faded cotton and the seat that is anything but “cosy” are suggestive of nothing so much as those magazines that tell the credulous how, with the cut of a tomato can and a few tacks, almost anything in the shape of furniture can be evolved. Opposite this fly gallery, to the left of the stage, a place has been found for two more property rooms of the Grand. In one is neatly arranged a variety of chairs and odd bits of furniture, card tables, hat trees, foot stools, etc., each one fitted deftly into its proper place. All of this furniture is kept in excellent repair and although of inexpensive woods, is substantial looking enough to harmonize with the most elegant stage setting.

Originally published in The Saint Paul Globe, February 23, 1902, page 22.

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Good Friday Links

1 Comment

David Neat starts us off with making smooth shapes from Styrofoam. He’s dealing with the real-deal Styrofoam here, not that white bead foam stuff. And sure, this article is over a year old, but it has some really useful techniques.

Bill Doran has a helpful video on adding rust to your props. Ninety percent of the time when I show a completed prop to a designer, they say, “that’s great… once we age it down a bit.” Knowing how to weather, age, distress or generally tone down props is an essential skill for a props person, and adding rust is one of the ways to do this.

Make Magazine takes a look at some Maker-Friendly hardware stores from around the US. It’s a fascinating look at the vast array of materials a store might choose to stock, as well as a sobering reminder of how awesome hardware stores used to be to those of us whose only local options are Lowes and Home Depot.

I covered some basic stitching for fabric in my Prop Building Guidebook, but if you get into embroidery and ornamental stitching, there is a whole other world of ways to manipulate needle and thread. Tipnut has some great vintage illustrations of ornamental borders and the basic stitches to make them happen.  It’s a relaxing project for when you are bored in tech and the designer wants the napkins to be “fancier”.

Finally, here is an article called “The Most Important Lessons in Woodworking“. Robert Lang uses his experience cutting plugs as a lesson in woodworking in general, and I think this lesson can be expanded out to prop making in general. It’s not just about how to use specific tools or techniques, but how to approach your whole project in the most efficient and easiest manner possible.