Category Archives: Useful Sites

Useful Sites

A Special Tuesday Props Links

You may have noticed these posts have gotten a bit sporadic lately.  I’m not busier than before, but my mornings have become much less predictable, which is when I do most of my writing. I should be getting back on track soon as I adapt to my new life.

From Goodwill to Home Depot: Where the Guthrie Theater gets its props – Fantastic little article about Rebecca Jo Malmstrom, the Guthrie’s props shopper and fabricator. It’s always nice to see the different roles and in a props shop get some attention.

R is for Robot – Cinefex blog takes a look at the history of robots on film, from early costumes and stop motion, to today’s marriage of motion-capture and CGI.

30 Days Until Halloween: The Home and Family Yard Design – Though we’re already halfway through October, it’s not too late to catch up with Dave Lowe’s Halloween project. Every year, he creates a massive outdoor Halloween display for the Hallmark Channel’s Home and Family show, filled with dozens of handmade props.

They Don’t Make Theatre Sets Like they Used To – MessyNessy talks about when shows used to have hundreds of props, and has pictures to prove it. I think we can still find contemporary examples of set designs with intricate detail and an antique’s store worth of dressing, although none of it comes close to the Hippodrome in the early twentieth century.

Fit Irregular (Impossible!) Shapes with ‘Ticking Sticks’ – This is a ridiculously useful trick that I wish I had known sooner. It’s kind of hard to explain, but if you check out the pictures, you can see exactly what a “ticking stick” does.

Useful Sites

Last Props in September

Top 10 Resource Websites For Prop Makers and Art Directors – The Frankly Materials store has started a blog, and their first entry lists ten websites worth checking out. You’ve probably seen some of these, but others may be new.

Get Up Close With the Props of Dear Evan Hansen - Buist Bickley brings us backstage with this hit musical to share a wealth of photographs of the props.

How to Age and Distress Wood – Make Magazine shares a couple of videos that demonstrate techniques for making your wood look old and worn.

How To Make a Silicone Brush-Up Mold – In this video, Frank Ippolito demonstrates how to make a mold by painting silicone rubber over a surface.

Present To Past – Stage Directions magazine talks with Natalie Kearns, the head of props at the Grand Theatre in Canada. They look at her career and some of the props she has built at various other theaters.

 

Useful Sites

Props for the Weekend

Turning a Realistic Harry Potter Wand on a Wood Lathe – Make Magazine has pictures and a video to show how easy it is to crank out a wand from Harry Potter in less than a day.

Faking It: How Outlander Got That Battle Scene To Look So Real - Outlander is a time travel story set in the 18th-century British Isles. Jim Elliot, props master and resident arms expert, talks about how they recreated the historic 1746 battle of Culloden for a recent episode.

Creating Evenly Spaced Intervals with Dividers or a Sector – Learn how to create a number of evenly spaced marks within a length of material using a sector. I haven’t heard of a sector before this, but Lost Art Press wrote about how to make one last year, and even included a downloadable template.

OMG…I Had a Productive Production Meeting – Finally, Jenner Butler talks about the importance of keeping a production meeting on topic and under three hours.

Useful Sites

Weekly Props Roundup

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For the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s props director, one blood is not like another – The Washington Post does a fantastic job interviewing Chris Young, Properties Director of the Shakespeare Theater Company. Chris shows off all the different kinds of blood he uses, and why he needs so many. The article has some great photographs, including a few of the blood delivery devices he incorporates into props and costumes.

I Ain’t Got No Body – A lot of dead bodies seem to appear in Jay Duckworth’s props shop, so it’s about time you get to hear his side of the story. For Shakespeare in the Park’s production of Cymbeline, Jay used the Saran wrap and packing tape method for making a body, and he gives a good step-by-step tutorial in this article.

Midlands Professional – Set Designer and Prop Maker David Hardware - David Hardware tells his story of how he became interested in working in film. He started out working in craft services, and eventually opened his own prop-making studio in Leicester, England.

Pressure Casting a Glow-in-the-Dark Slimer Model – The folks at Tested have a video showing how Frank Ippolito cast a glow-in-the-dark sculpture of the Onionhead Ghost from Ghostbusters.

Finally, in an update to last week’s story about the devastation to The Alley Theatre in Houston from Hurricane Harvey, the theater recently posted some videos and photographs from their prop storage area. It looks like it will take awhile to clean everything up, and a lot of it may end up being unsalvageable.

Useful Sites

First Links After the Eclipse

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Star Wars set decorator who ‘cobbled together’ props reflects on film 40 years later – Roger Christian, one of the prop makers and set decorators on the original Star Wars film, takes a look back at how he made some of the most iconic props of the franchise.

Stage Properties student lives the dream behind the scenes – The University of North Carolina School of the Arts blog highlights one of their props students and where she worked over the summer.

The Death Of Local Craftsmanship Is Causing Problems For Costume Designers – Though this article is about costume design, you can see a similar thing happening with props. As more manufacturing moves overseas, we are left with less local craftspeople and shops who can fulfill our needs under the crazy time constraints of our jobs.

Genesis of the Cybermen – Part Six: Designing the new series Cybermen – WhoSFX takes a look at the team who designed the current Cybermen for Doctor Who.  They show how the design went from sketch to model to final product.

Turning Your Garage Into an Intergalactic Weapons Factory, with Prop & Model Maker Bill Doran – The “Busy Creator” podcast interviews Bill Doran, aka Punished Props, who has turned his cosplay and prop-making hobby into a full-fledged business in Seattle.