Category Archives: Safety

Resources, Safety

Thoughts on Green Props

I hate the word “green”. I believe the “green” movement has largely been co-opted by marketers and advertisers in an attempt to sell the same stuff in a new feel-good form. “Green” bottled water and “greener” disposable packaging still has a negative effect on the environment and community.

That being said, I whole-heartily subscribe to what “green” should mean. We can’t pretend that things disappear when you put them in the garbage, and you have to understand that everything comes from somewhere else; how it is made (or mined, or harvested, etc.) has a real impact on people’s lives.

Every bit of lumber we use means less trees somewhere else. In some cases, they come from a place where trees are replanted to replace the ones taken, and a whole group of people are able to make a living for their families. In other cases, entire ecosystems are destroyed as forests are removed, and the native people who live there are pushed aside and left with nothing to sustain them. This is true of all materials. Being green is not some feel-good philosophy to make animals smile. Choosing greener products is a declaration that the materials you buy for making props are less important than razing a village and giving cancer to children.

As props people, we are already predisposed to being green. We collect and reuse things from the past that were destined for the dumpster. We keep our budgets down by trolling thrift stores, eBay, and Craigslist. We let others borrow, rent and buy the items we’ve accumulated. We are largely pack-rats; the only reason we get rid of things is because we physically run out of room to store it in our already overstuffed storage areas.

Being green is also safer. If a product releases toxic chemicals when being used, chances are it also damages the environment in its creation. A shop which chooses less-toxic alternatives in its materials and supplies, which provides proper safety equipment and ventilation, and which is aware of the affects of what it uses (by studying and maintaining its MSDS collection) is already greener than a shop which doesn’t.

For more practical tips and additional information about green theater, you can explore the following links. None of them have to do with props specifically, but combining the information on scenery, costumes, and offices will give you a good start.

Safety

Ouch

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You may have missed a blog post the other day. In addition to spending the whole weekend at tech for Slave Shack at the Algonquin Theatre, I went ahead and stuck a screw gun into my hand.

Punctured, originally uploaded by Eric Hart
Punctured, originally uploaded by Eric Hart

Natalie cleaned and bandaged my wound, but at the end of the day, about 8 hours later, it was still bleeding and fairly swollen. They convinced me to go to the hospital; as the lighting designer pointed out, “It’s your hand, and you make a living with your hands.”

Luckily, Natalie and I had our last Tetanus shots in July, right before our wedding (to make it easier to remember when our last Tetanus shots were). The doctor gave me some antibiotics and this big ol’ bandage you see in the picture above. He told me to not use my hand for two days, and the bleeding should stop sometime this week. Nice.

I could throw in a safety lesson here, to make this more blog-appropriate. Don’t jam things into your hand. But really, most accidents I’ve had or witnessed were during the most mundane tasks, and it’s because your comfort level makes you pay less attention and keep less focus than you should.

But don’t worry, I’ll keep on blogging. Coming up soon is a run-down of the more interesting props in Slave Shack and the challenges they posed. Until then, don’t get screwed like I did!

Safety

The Ten Most Dangerous Tools in Carpentry

I found a great post at ToolCrib about the ten most dangerous woodworking tools. What makes it great is that it attempts to survey what woodworkers think are the most dangerous tools in the shop, and also lists the statistics about the most common injuries from woodworking shops. Often, what we think are the most dangerous tools does not always coincide with where the greatest hazards lie. This is especially true when you look at your own individual experience; if you witness someone chew their fingers up on a router, you will be more biased to believe a router is the most dangerous tool ever. This can also be the case if you work in a shop with poorly maintained tools. A table saw which shakes and wobbles is much more dangerous than a well-maintained table saw with multiple safety features.

by Eric Hart
by Eric Hart

Continue reading The Ten Most Dangerous Tools in Carpentry →

Safety

Prop guns

There’s an interesting post over at Controlbooth.com about the correct handling of prop guns.

What makes this a success is that we SEVERELY LIMIT who touches the guns, how, where, and when. Guns are NEVER ‘dry fired’. That is, fired without a live round in ’em. In our world, if you pull the trigger, you are doing it for real every time. If you’re not doing it for real, your finger does NOT even go inside the trigger guard, and there will still be no live round in it. If the weapon fails to discharge, you DO NOT get to try again. You re-holster it, and move on.

This is, of course, important stuff for every props person to know, especially with a number of incidents that have happened in the past year, which are also linked to from this site.

Knives are another prop where safety is important. About a month ago, I ran across this article: Actor slices neck on stage in prop mixup.

Hoevels, whose character was to commit suicide, had been given a real blade instead of a harmless prop, London’s Telegraph newspaper reports.

As he collapsed with blood spurting from his neck, the audience started to applaud not realising Hoevels was not acting.

The Santa Fe Opera has at least one knife or sword in every show. Drew Drake, the former head props carpenter, taught me that whenever the props supervisor, run crew, or a stage manager placed a blade on your work table, you should drop everything you’re doing and immediately dull the sharp edge. By doing that, you ensure that you don’t forget about it, or worse, you leave it for later only to find someone has taken it off your table and brought it up to stage without checking the blade’s sharpness.

If you don’t have proper safety procedures for dealing with weapons on stage, then you have no business using them. There are already enough things in theatre that can cause injury.