Tag Archives: Star Wars

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Friday Fun Times

I like this article with interviews of the original creators and operators of Jabba the Hut. It’s unfortunate that, these days, he is made entirely in CGI. At least you can still find giant puppets in theatre,.

The Daily Telegraph had an article last year about a flat in Paris that remained untouched since before World War II. There are a few photographs there, and a few more over at How to be a Retronaut.

Speaking of How to be a Retronaut, I’m adding it to the sidebar as a permanent link because it continues to be so incredible. It’s constantly updated with photographs and video from throughout history, in particular color film from periods you didn’t know had color film. At the site, you can search their posts by decade too. It’s not the most comprehensive source for research imagery, but it has a lot of pictures you can’t find anywhere else.

Entrepreneur Magazine, of all places, has an article on Maker Faire and the Growth of Do-It-Yourself, told through a conversation with Mark Frauenfelder. I’ve gone to both NYC Maker Faires (2010 and 2011), and definitely recommend them and Make Magazine for those interested in the geekier side of prop building.

Playbill has an article on Charlie Rasmussen, the oldest active member of IATSE Local One. At 85, he is still running 8 shows a week of Sister Act as the head carpenter. He gives a great answer when asked why he chose show business: “An old-timer told me years ago that if I was going to work with my hands, I should go where I’m going to make the most money.”

 

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Friday Notes

Things continue chugging along here. King Lear began previews. I’m furiously preparing the first four chapters of The Prop Building Guidebook to submit to my publisher at the end of the month. Yet I still have time to find fun things on the internet.

Here’s an interesting story on how a film prop (technically, a mask) became a real-life prop used in protests around the world. This article on the V for Vendetta masks shows who is behind them and how this all came about.

Christopher Schwartz, former editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine and current founder of Lost Art Press, has published 14 principles of shop setup which he has developed over 20 years of woodworking.

In the same vein, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage of Mythbusters’ fame have 15 DIY Workshop Tips, including an ingenious nesting work table and indispensable tools to have.

In our current production of King Lear, we needed to provide them with a paper bag. Not just any paper bag. Only a specific size would do. I eventually found a place online we could order a close-enough size, provided we cut a few inches off the top. So I thought this history of the paper bag posted on the MoMA site was particularly apropos to the situation.

I don’t mean to nerd out, but did you know there’s a whole club of people who build R2-D2 replicas? I haven’t signed up to view the forums, but you can still browse the galleries, and read a few issues of the online magazine they publish.

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The First Links of the Rest of Your Life

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Happy July, everyone. And to my US readers, happy Fourth of July weekend. I’ll keep this brief as most of you are off work and school, or drifting away to vacation. Unless you’re in summer stock, in which case, you should be building props rather than reading my blog!

Here is an interesting story for those of you who make replica props: DC Comics Sues Gotham Garage Over Replica Batmobiles. Prop replicas live in a murky area of copyright and trademark law, and this lawsuit has a lot of specific factors (and it hasn’t been settled yet). It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

This past June, Dave Lowe celebrated the 30th anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark with thirty days of posts about the movie. In a post titled “The Temple of Dagobah“, we learn how the vines from Yoda’s planet in Star Wars ended up being reused for the temple Indiana Jones steals the golden idol from in the opening of Raiders.

Dream Now Reality: A filmmaker from Victoria wins a contest to make a movie from his script. His script is about a ten-year-old girl who builds a robot friend from old VCR parts. The filmmaker suddenly realizes he needs to build a robot. Luckily, he has Paxton Downard on his team, who built props for Stargate and Fringe. Man, I wish this article had photographs; still, it’s a cute story.

Finally, Make Magazine has an interesting editorial by Saul Griffith called “DIT: Raising Our Collective Barn“. He writes about the importance and benefits of collaboration when making things, and describes it as DIT—do it together—rather than DIY.

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Mid week Catchup

I’m still catching up with a lot of things; you may have noticed Monday’s post did not appear until Tuesday. First up, I want to mention that Puppet Kitchen will be giving a live chat interview today at Theatre Face, starting at 2pm (E.S.T.). We’ve worked with them together and individually on a number of projects here at the Public, like The Bacchae and Hamlet, and will be joining them again on our upcoming production of Compulsion. Check it out!

Here are a few links to help you make it through the week:

Resources

Movie Prop Replicas

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As I’ve mentioned a few websites dealing with film props, I thought I’d point out some communities based around replicating famous props from films. These are great resources for a lot of tutorials, such as vacuforming, casting, and working with fiberglas. They also focus on DIY and inexpensive solutions, so any prop shop can benefit from diving through the wealth of material they have.

The Replica Prop Forum – This is one of the cornerstones of the community, with members interested in props for a wide range of films. It also has discussions about costumes and scale modeling. Since it is a forum, it can take some time to navigate and search around, but it’s worth it.

TK560 – This site has tutorials and guides to building a number of props from Star Wars, Star Trek, and a number of other sci-fi films.

TK409 – Another site with tutorials for making do-it-yourself Star Wars props.

The previous two sites are part of the 501st legion, the “world’s definitive Imperial costuming organization.” It is an organization of over six thousand people who dress like members of the Empire in Star Wars. All of these sites have a plethora of links to other DIY prop and costuming resources throughout the internet.

The Magnoli Collection of Prop Replicas – Indy Magnoli’s collection of prop replicas. Most are based around the Indiana Jones’ movies, but some other films are represented as well. There are a good amount of paper props as well, with descriptions of how they were made.

That’s it for now. Let me know if there are any other sites you find interesting. You can also point out any other communities or groups which would have useful information for prop people.