Props: In Memoriam, 2014

We lost a lot of good people in the props world this past year. Here, in chronological order, are the props people who have completed their final note:

Though she passed at the end of 2013, news of Anne Sidaris-Reeves’ death did not break until last January. She worked in the props department on films such as The Goonies, Edward Scissorhands and Father of the Bride, and was one of the first women to be admitted into IATSE.

Joe Longo passed last January. He was the props master on Star Trek II and III, as well as The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.  He even had his own trading card in a 1993 set of Star Trek: TNG cards.

In a very tragic accident, Seamus O’Bryan was killed by a hit-and-run driver who remains unidentified. Only 32, he was the prop master at the Old Globe in San Diego, and had just left work and picked up a friend on his motorcycle when they were struck.

While not strictly a props person, H.R. Giger’s passing was felt by many people in the field. His work designing and building the creatures and sets in Alien paved the way for what sci-fi horror would look like for the next three decades.

In July, Kenneth Schwartz, the prop master at Loyola Marymount University, passed on.

Madison, WI, felt a loss when Jen Trieloff passed on. He was properties director at the American Player Theatre, but worked on shows throughout the city. At just 43 years old, this fellow SPAM member’s death came way too soon.

Finally, it’s important to remember the death of Sarah Jones. She was a camera assistant who died while working on the set of a film, and the lack of safety protocols could have easily affected a props person. The ensuing Slates for Sarah campaign has been raising awareness for the importance of safety in our industry.

So be safe in the upcoming year. If there is anyone you think I have missed who should be here, let me know.

Unboxing Some Props Links

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

Smithsonian Magazine has a great article on the history of the humble suitcase. It seems that every show that takes place in the twentieth century involves a suitcase. Even the shows that don’t require a suitcase often get them added in rehearsal (only to be cut during tech rehearsals when they realize they can’t carry their other props, and they don’t know where to put the suitcase at the end of the scene).

Speaking of histories of objects, the Toaster Museum is a whole website dedicated to the history of the toaster.

Popular Woodworking has posted a quick guide to screws. This downloadable PDF first appeared in a 2004 issue of their magazine. Now you can download it or print it out for easy reference to the different kinds of screws, different screw heads, and the best screws to use for common applications.

The Credits talks about building the sets for The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. Though the initial reviews of the film indicate it may be the weakest of all the Lord of the Rings films, the scale and detail of the sets—both miniature and full-scale—are breathtaking to behold.

Dug North came across these nifty kits for getting started with automata. Timberkits are solid wood pieces that you assemble to make your own working automata. Seems like a cool gift if you didn’t get what you wanted this Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas gifts, if you got my Prop Building Guidebook this year, head on over to the Amazon page and leave a review!

Friday Prop Nuggets

Here’s a short little audio story and regular story about Annett Mateo, who makes puppets for the Seattle Children’s Theatre.

I’ve never seen the 1982 film The Deadly Spawn, but John Dods, the special effects director, has a ton of behind-the-scenes photos showing the construction of the creature.

Super-fan builds is an online show where prop makers build one-of-a-kind items for obsessive fans of all things pop culture. In the latest episode, Tim Baker and his crew build a Hobbit house litter box and Eye of Sauron scratching post for a cat-loving fan of Lord of the Rings.

Tsabo Tsaboc has a set of photographs detailing the build of a dagger from the Elder Scrolls Online video game. Hat tip to Propnomicon for finding this one.

Crow Puppet Revisited

For the holiday show at Triad Stage in Greensboro, we remounted the production of Snow Queen we made last year. I had built a number of puppets for the show which only requited minor adjustments and maintenance, but I wanted to completely rebuilt the crow puppet. He went through so many iterations and modifications last year as we tried to discover what worked best, so the end result was a hodge-podge of cobbled-together parts and mechanisms. He was difficult to maintain and he broke frequently.  When I knew we were remounting this production, I budgeted in a complete rebuild of the crow.This time around, I was able to order more appropriate and precise materials, rather than assembling it with whatever I could find at the Home Depot.

I made a video showing the inner mechanisms of the puppet and how it is operated:

You can compare that to the puppet I made last year. The rod is now two pieces of aluminum which sleeve together, rather than two pieces of PVC pipe which bend and wobble. I abstained from using any string this year, which always stretched and lost tension, or broke completely. Most importantly, I planned the construction out so the parts were completely modular, and everything could be taken apart with bolts, screws or Velcro. The crow last year was a bit of a nightmare when it came to maintenance, because a lot of the pieces were permanently attached to each other, so it practically required laparoscopic surgery to fix anything that broke.

Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies