Tag Archives: tips

Useful Sites

Links at the End of the Tunnel

This was a tough week for many of us. For some inspiring news, check out how the Orlando theatre community is helping protect the Pulse funerals from anti-gay protesters.

Cinefex has a great story on the giant puppets used in Tremors 4. And if you’re thinking, “There were four Tremors films?” you’re actually wrong; there were five Tremors films and a TV series.

Make Magazine continues bringing the great shop tips with these 5 Head-Slappingly Good Shop Tips and Build Tricks. I really like the idea of using a caulking gun as a clamp.

Here’s something that has me really excited: T-shirt brushes for shellac and oil finishes. This is the last step in the life cycle of a T-shirt for a props person: Good Shirt->Work Shirt->Paint Shirt->Shellac Rag.

Great Big Story has a wonderful audio story on Stephen Kesler, a sculptor who makes life-size whales and other animals for museums.

The current issue of Stage Directions has a nice piece on creating distressed surfaces for Arizona Theatre Company’s Fences. Sure, it’s scenery, but who doesn’t like a good aged brick?

Finally, in more sad news, designer Desmond Heeley passed away last Friday. His set and costume designs have been appearing on Broadway since the 1950s.

Useful Sites

Another Fine Set of Links

Puppets are still very much a thing, according to this American Theatre article. Scott Cummings checks in on some of the companies, festivals, and books dealing with puppetry in a contemporary context.

The costume shop at PlayMakers Rep is working on the enviable task of recreating costumes for the Museum of Science Fiction. Rachel Pollock takes us through the steps of making Neo’s costume from The Matrix.

Popular Woodworking magazine brings us this awesome process for faking antique wood. It uses just paint, lacquer and a heat gun. No crazy chemicals or stains needed!

Propnomicon shows us some great primary research on “Things in a Jar”. If you’ve ever made preserved specimens, Britta Miller works at a museum specimen collection, and has kindly shared all kinds of visual and technical details about the actual jarring and labeling of things in jars.

Finally, Make Magazine shares top tips from 17 amazing makers. I wanted to point out one quote that many of us props people can relate to:

“He was giving the interviewer a tour of his shop, showing the towering shelves of carefully-sorted industrial junk. He said something like, ‘Properly sorted, this is a parts library and a useful tool. Unsorted, and it’s a pile of junk and a curse.'”