Category Archives: Education

Historical and scholarly views of props

Education

Precision and Cut lists

Whenever I take on a carpentry project, or a similarly precise prop, I try to get my drawings and plan as precise as possible. For the first pieces I measure and cut, I try and be accurate down to the 32nd of an inch. By the time you get to the end of a project, you will find that the imprecisions of your tools and the imperfections of the materials will give you grief in the form of gaps, overhangs, or pieces not fitting where they should. These problems should be minor enough where a little sanding, wood filler, or sheer muscle power will set everything in order. If you start off with sloppy measuring in the beginning of your project, however, these gaffes will have swelled to horrible and glaring errors by the time you’re putting the last few pieces together.

The folks over at Popular Woodworking recently posted an article about making a cut list, and they put this argument much more eloquently than I just did:

If you miss the mark on one of these numbers early on, then you set off a chain reaction, and turn the remaining parts into a row of falling dominoes. It’s easy to think that a bunch of little errors will cancel each other out, but the opposite is true. All those little errors will congregate at the most visible place on the finished piece they can find. Once there, they will hold a party to mock you.

Check out Making a Cut List Part 1 and Part 2. It has a lot of great ideas on how and when to use and develop a  cut list when building furniture pieces, whether you’re just starting in carpentry, or you’ve been at it for a few years.

Education

Changes aHead

The Bacchae opens this Monday in Central Park. For those of you who follow this blog, you’ve seen some of the cool work we’ve been doing in the prop shop for this show. Let me say, it wasn’t easy.

I’ve arranged a small series of the various states and stages the head of Pentheus went through.

The first skull prototype
The first skull prototype
The head of King Pentheus
The head of King Pentheus
Head with cast of Anthony Mackie's face
Head with cast of Anthony Mackie's face
After the face was torn off
After the face was torn off
Final head
Final head

Changed are inevitable when making props. It always seems to be the nicest or most interesting prop you’ve been working on; after spending days or even weeks perfecting what will become the highlight of your portfolio, the prop gets cut, or worse, attacked with hot glue and gaff tape.

It’s natural, and preferable, to be proud of what you build. However, we must also remember that the production is the ultimate goal of our work. If a prop needs to be sacrificed for the show, let it happen. You can never be so attached to a prop that you place it ahead of the needs of the production.

Education

Feeling Creative and Design Patterns in props

I focus a lot on the “building” and “making” of props on this blog; it’s time for a bit of information about the organizational and motivational part of the job.

43 Folders is a website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work. It’s great if you’re a prop master trying to get more organized or motivated at work, or a props artisan trying to manage your time and energy better.

I found one post in particular to be interesting. The Problem with “Feeling Creative” talks about how “creative work” is still work. There are a lot of books and blogs out there which want to inspire you to feel artistic, but the only way to really get creative work done is by hard work and perserverance.

Merlin Mann, the author, writes:

The athlete got good not by reading reviews of headbands, but by waking up early, lacing shoes in the dark, and hitting the track to train hard. While the surgeon got good not by watching reruns of Trapper John, M.D., but by slogging through medical school, residencies, and hundreds of hours of face time with patients, colleagues, and mentors. “Feeling” had nothing to do with it.

He continues his post by introducing the idea of “design patterns”, commonly used in the fields of architecture, design, and software engineering. As he explains:

By documenting and categorizing the things that “tend to work” within a given context (and within a given set of constraints), individual patterns can provide the basis for a pattern language that encourages flexible problem-solving that discourages the costly and time-consuming tendency to reinvent the wheel.

It got me thinking about props, and whether there are any design patterns in our fields. The paperwork and prop plots used by propmasters have become fairly standardized throughout the industry. Prop artisans have tried-and-true techniques for building chairs, casting an actor’s head, or distressing leather. Props running crew layout their prop tables in much the same way throughout the country.

For your homework this weekend, think of any other design patterns which may exist in props. Think of some things which you wish had design patterns, or things you wished could be taught in schools to upcoming prop professionals. Write all about it in the comments below.

Education

I’ll take “Swords” for $100

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Three-quarter hilt rapier made by Eric Hart
Three-quarter hilt rapier made by Eric Hart

Let’s face it. Swords are cool. Luckily for props people, swords pop up all the time on prop lists.

I learned some basic swordmaking techniques from Tom Fiocchi while at Ohio University. Usually, when I’m asked to make a sword, it’s a decorative or trick sword with a very show-specific look. If it’s for stage combat, the swords are often rented or pulled from stock. For Twelfth Night at Shakespeare in the Park, we rented many of the swords from Weapon Specialists here in New York City (hopefully I’ll be doing a tour of them in the upcoming weeks).

Old Swords has a wealth of information on historic swords. There is a gallery of swords categorized by nationality and time period, as well as a comprehensive search function of their database. The site also includes a cornucopia of resources, articles, and links about antique swords, sword makers, and anything else you may need for research and reference. You need to sign up to access the information, but it’s free, quick and well worth it.

The Wikipedia article on Historical European martial arts is a great jumping-off point for information on historical sword-fighting techniques. The Mid-Atlantic Society for Historic Swordsmanship also has a great list of links for all things related to historic swordsmanship, as does William Wilson’s list of links on historical fencing.

The Association for Renaissance Martial Arts also has an introduction to Historical European Martial Arts at their site. They also have a large reading and research list, including online historical fencing manuals. If you scroll to the bottom, you will find two manuals by Alfred Hutton, who helped begin the revival of historical swordsmanship over 120 years ago. Old Swordplay (5.54mb PDF) and Cold Steel (11.1mb PDF) are both available for free on their site.

If there are any other sites or resources you use for swords or similar weapons, let me know in the comments!

Education

A Shocking History of Stage Horror

Tabula Rasa has a history of gore effects used in theatre. Some highlights include:

  • Loading a dummy with animal blood and animal intestines for realistic disembowelings
  • Hiding a lamb’s tongue in an actor’s mouth to simulate him biting it off

The history goes all the way back to Ancient Greece. It’s interesting to see how real blood and offal was used throughout all but our most recent history. Though the information presented is brief, it’s a great starting point for anyone interested in this kind of thing.