This is from last year, but I just came across it and found it interesting. Martha Stewart maintains a prop library for all her photo shoots and television segments. On her blog, she gives an inside look at this props library and how it is maintained. The place looks huge!
They use a bar code system to track and inventory all the props. I know the Santa Fe Opera also bar codes all their props kept in stock. What kind of inventory management system does your shop use?
I had the pleasure of working at the Actors Theatre of Louisville back in 2006-7. This time of year, they begin working on the Humana Festival, a festival of new plays. It’s a hectic time for the props shop, with six new plays, three short plays, and apprentice scenes all being fully produced within two or three months. That’s a lot of props.
This year, Mark Walston, the props supervisor at ATL, is writing a blog during this process. It looks pretty interesting so far, and really gives a good inside look at life in the props shop at one of America’s great regional theatres.
I’ve linked to Mark’s Flickr stream of photos from the production studio a while back, which gives another great look behind the scenes at ATL.
Alabama Public Television has produced a video focusing on the production of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. The video on props is pretty good, showing one of the fastest life-casting processes ever. The rest of the series, called “The Art of the Theatre“, isn’t bad either.
It’s videos like this that make me wish more theatres, especially prop shops, had their own video series. If your prop shop has any videos anywhere, or if you know of any that do, let me know.
If you haven’t already found it, be sure to check out the History of Props: A Timeline of Props and Product Usage. If your show is set in 1879, and you need to know whether toilet paper rolls had perforated sheets*, then this is the site for you.
Also, if you head on over to the Designboom history page, you can dig through any number of other historical product timelines, such as the history of shopping carts, the origin of rocking chairs, and a short history of anatomical maps.
If you have any other good historical research resources, let me know. Good research is every prop person’s duty.
*perforated toilet paper rolls were first produced in 1877.
Lost in Schlock is a blog by Tim Shrum, who creates props, monsters, and costumes for super low-budget films. The site has been around for awhile, and is chock full of tutorials and guides for all manner of objects. It is geared to the DIY crowd, so almost any prop shop can pull off the projects. I found some great tutorials on how to make Monster Mud, low budget fake heads, and molded gelatin prosthetics. I also found this old video with Leonard Nimoy about making spaceship models out of junk, which I swear I saw as a kid.
