Category Archives: Useful Sites

Useful Sites

Another Friday, another set of links

Creative Choices has published a fantastic article about Antony Barnett, the Head of Props at the Royal Opera House. He has been working at the ROH since the mid-1980s. Incidentally, the ROH remounted a production of Cendrillon in 2011 that I worked on back in 2006; I built some pretty cool props for it, including Prince Charman’s throne, and it’s nice to see how well they have stood up.

The New York Times has an in-depth look at how the Metropolitan Opera stores and maintains all the sets for their repertory productions. I find this stuff fascinating, particularly since I’ve been reading a lot about how the Met’s technical department worked 100 years ago. The locations of their storage units may have changed, but the amount of work and organization they have to do to put up a different opera every night remains the same.

Bill Hunt has a “virtual tour” of Bob Burns’ massive movie prop collection. Scroll to the bottom of the article to see a slideshow of all the historical film props he has in his collection. Burns has been collecting for decades, and has quite a few unique pieces, including the only surviving King Kong armature from the original 1933 production.

Here’s a shorter interview of a working prop-maker; Rosie Tonkin is a UK-based freelancer and artist. It’s an interesting comparison between a young prop maker at the start of her career like Tonkin and a seasoned veteren like Barnett up above.

Finally, at last week’s Burlington Mini Maker Faire, I was making a miniature Dr. Who TARDIS out of paper, and handing away sheets to people to make their own. If you didn’t get one, or you couldn’t make it to the fair, you can download and print your own TARDIS, complete with instructions.

Make your own TARDIS
Make your own TARDIS
Useful Sites

Friday Night Links

Tomorrow, August 17th, I will be exhibiting some props at the Burlington Mini Maker Faire in North Carolina. I wrote up some more details about it a few days ago. There’s going to be Stormtroopers, robots and even a space launch. That’s right, they are going to launch a balloon into (near) space from the mall parking lot. I never thought I would live to see the day I could type the previous sentence.

The Library of Congress has a massive collection of digital images and photographs from throughout US history. It is an incredible resource for finding or creating specific paper props or for general research. I use their newspaper collection quite a bit.

I’ve linked to a few of blacksmith Tony Swatton’s videos in the past; he has a new one up where he creates Link’s Master Sword from the Legend of Zelda series. The result is an amazingly accurate replica of a sword which exists only in a video game, built out of the materials which a real life sword would be made from. It is far more intense than the Master Sword I created a few months ago, but then again, I don’t have a whole team of specialized metal artisans working in my shop.

Here is an article on Patrick Drone, the props master at the University of Michigan. In recent years, he has begun working at Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village, where he maintains a fleet of early Model T and Model A vehicles. He says the work is not unlike that of a props shop.

The guys at Tested recently visited The Hand Prop Room in Los Angeles to tour through their 1,000,000+ props. I often wish I lived close by to a props rental house that contained everything; then again, I probably don’t have the budget for that. I guess I’ll have to make my own.

Useful Sites

Friday Link Notes

It was a fairly big week here at the Hart household. I finally returned to North Carolina from Santa Fe, and I began my brand-new job as the Properties Master at Triad Stage. It’s a great theatre to be working at, and the first time for me to run a department full-time. But enough about me, let’s see what everyone else on the Internet is doing:

Hey, who wants to be Adam Savage’s intern? Right now there’s a contest where you can win just that. Actually, you get to hang out with Adam for a week in his studio, so it’s not that in-depth of an internship, and the process to get there sounds a bit like a reality show in-the-making, but it still seems like a fun idea.

The Closet Geek Podcast has an interview with Bill Doran of Punished Props. Doran builds replica props from video games, comic books and films, and works largely out of his own home, building items for people and companies around the world. The interview delves into how he got started, some of his current projects, and his views on cosplay and fan conventions.

As a gentle reminder to theatre people everywhere: don’t throw away your fake bomb props in a garbage can in a major city. When I was in NYC, I was paranoid just to carry “weapon-like” props around, especially on the subway, where my backpack was routinely searched. I would usually keep stuff like this in a disassembled state, or packaged up so it just looked like I was shopping.

The team behind the film Pacific Rim has a lot of behind-the-scenes videos showing their work. They are all pretty cool, but the one I’m showing below of the cockpit for the giant robots is particularly interesting for props people. The film actually used a lot of practical effects in addition to CGI. It’s really cool to see how they first built a mock-up of the whole thing from foam core, than went through with more sophisticated techniques to build the real thing from the patterns.

Useful Sites

Friday Links

I totally forgot to remind everyone this Wednesday (July 24th) was Propmaster’s Day. At the moment, most of the US prop masters are at their annual conference in Kansas City; I couldn’t make it this year, but hopefully I can share some of it next week. In other news, today is my last day at the Santa Fe Opera. I’ll be able to share some more things I built here in a month once the operas close. For now, enjoy these links from around the Internet:

At this year’s San Diego Comic Con, Adam Savage dressed as Admiral Akbar, with a mask built from the original movie molds. Check out the epic voyage of molding and casting it took for him and a team of skilled artisans to get there.

In the same vein, here is another intensive tutorial on sculpting, molding and casting brought to you by the creators of the indie film, He Took His Skin Off For Me. This one shows you how they made an actor’s arm appear to have no skin on it.

Disney Research is developing software to help design mechanical creatures and automata. They have videos and animations to help explain it better, but basically, you tell the program how you want something to move, and it shows you wear to stick hinges, pivots and motors to make it happen.

Rich Dionne has a great post up describing how to keep your painters happy. The simple rules he lays out are essential for getting the show up in time and not making everyone miserable in the process. Even if you don’t have a separate team of painters for your prop shop, these are good rules to make a mental note of while planning out the build and finish of each prop.

Finally, I have a post up on The Hill where I talk about my book. A lot. But I also talk about how prolifically it is being pirated and why that matters to those of us in the creative fields.

Useful Sites

Friday Rehearsal Notes

Tony Swatton, who we’ve seen on this blog before, has a new video where he builds a set of Wolverine’s claws from scratch. They are 18-gauge steel, and they are SHARP!

Vermont Public Radio has a story on 50 years of the Bread and Puppet Theatre. I first saw these guys around 1998 or so, and again just last year. Their performances are fun but compelling, and the design and construction of their puppets have almost certainly influenced many contemporary puppeteers.

Speaking of puppets, a few months ago, puppeteer Emily DeCola, of Puppet Kitchen, was struck by a cyclist while crossing the street. Her injuries left her with crazy medical bills and the loss of her sense of smell. Her fellow puppeteers have organized a puppet cabaret fundraising event for her TONIGHT, so if you’re in New York City, why not check it out? If not, you can always donate to the cause. Emily worked on a number of shows while I was at the Public Theater and Shakespeare in the Park, and her work is always amazing.

Propnomicon pointed me to this great two-part tutorial on making a shrunken head. It steps through the molding, casting and finishing of a clay model.

Finally, enjoy this small collection of 19th-century collector cards featuring various trades, such as woodworking and blacksmithing.