Tag Archives: period

How-to

Making a Fake Newspaper

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I found myself making a few fake newspapers this past year. One was for this summer’s All’s Well That Ends Well at Shakespeare in the Park. The director, Dan Sullivan, wanted Lafew to read a newspaper with the headline “King Lives” emblazoned on the front. The production was set in and around World War I.

Newspaper cover from All's Well That Ends Well
Newspaper cover from All's Well That Ends Well

Since they wanted tabloid-size papers (11″ by 17″), printing was no problem; I used 18″ by 24″ newsprint from those giant pads you can get and fed them through the manual feed tray of our large-format printer. It’s a pretty crappy printer for most things, but it’ll print newsprint with no problem. Anyway, once folded over, you just need to trim a little bit off each side to get it to the proper size.

The other tricky part of fake newspapers is getting all the content inside. Now, I’m not going to touch on the complexities of copyright here—if this were television or film, you would need to get clearances on all the material you put into your newspaper. In this case, the period of the newspaper I was creating meant I could use a lot of public domain text and imagery.

Interior of the newspaper
Interior of the newspaper

The first thing to do is research (obviously). You want to find out how big the text was, what kinds of fonts they used, what the covers looked like, how many columns were on a page, and all those sorts of things. You probably won’t find a single image of a newspaper that will solve all your demands that you can just print out, but you can probably find one that will serve as a guide for proportion and layout.

I’ve discovered a few sources that I like to use for locating old-timey newspaper articles. The first is the New York Times Archive. You can set an advanced search to just look through their papers from 1851-1980. The great part is that for the earliest papers (I think it’s anything before 1920-something) you can access a scanned image of the actual newspaper page. This means you can search for specific subjects or keywords and certain dates to populate your newspaper; if you look at the larger version of the picture above, you’ll see all the articles are about World War I. The difficult part is that you cannot browse the newspapers, so it can be a pretty rigorous process to click through each article to see whether it is the right size or “look” for your needs.

Another great source I’ve just recently come across is The Library of Congress’ “Chronicling America” archive of historic American newspapers. This site lets you browse and search a large number of newspapers from all across the country. The papers from 1836-1922 are fully digitized as well. Unlike the Times’ archive, you can view full pages, complete with the ads and artwork.

Fake Variety for "Compulsion"
Fake Variety for "Compulsion"

I like to do all my layout in Photoshop and keep the file until the show opens. That way, if the director or designer have a note, like enlarging a headline, I can just go back to the file, make the change, nudge everything else around to make it all fit, and print a fresh copy. In the above picture of “Variety” which I made for Compulsion, I had actor notes as well. Mandy Patinkin had to read and reference a real news article on the inside of the paper, so I had to make several variations on its size and placement before a final version was agreed to.

Inside of "Variety"
Inside of "Variety"

It can get pretty laborious to fill several pages with actual newspaper text, so I also searched for vintage ads to fill space. I also like to copy blocks of text and paste them onto other parts of the page; there’s no need for every word to be unique! In some cases where I couldn’t clean up smudges or distorted words, I actually retyped portions of the text with a closely-matching font.

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Do the soldiers have swords or guns?

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A design concept which pops up here and there is the “timeless” time period. Especially popular with Shakespeare and Greek classics, the designer and director wish to stage the play so that the scenery, costumes and props do not convey any specific time period. The goal is usually to allow the production to focus on the language, rather than worrying about all the historical minutia which comes from picking a specific time period and the inevitable anachronisms which will be introduced.

The problem which tends to creep up is that while “timeless” means everything comes from a vague time period, the props one uses have to be specific. All objects used by humans are inevitably colored by history and geography. While a designer may have an ever-morphing Platonic ideal of a piece of furniture swimming around in her or his head, the prop master must ultimately choose this furniture from a finite number of pieces.

My boss, Jay Duckworth, and I were talking about the questions which arise between a prop master and a set designer when such a situation occurs. Presented below is an imaginary conversation to further illustrate what might happen:

Prop Master: So I want to pick out some chairs. What period is this show set in?

Set Designer: It’s timeless. It is unrecognizable as any specific time period.

Prop Master: Great. But what period should the chairs be from?

Set Designer: They should not convey any period. They should be timeless.

PM: Okay. Wood timeless, or metal timeless?

SD: What?

PM: Should they be made out of wood or metal? Which is more “timeless”?

SD: Show me some options.

PM: Are they upholstered? Do they have arms?

SD: Whatever looks the least like any specific time period. They should be completely generic.

PM: Like, curvy generic? Or straight generic?

SD: No, they should look like the most representative example of a generic chair you can think of.

PM: So you want a contemporary chair.

SD: No, a timeless one.

PM: Great, we’ll come back to this. Now, there are soldiers in this play. Which country are they from, and which war did they fight in?

SD: They should not look like they come from any specific place or time. They are archetypes of a soldier throughout history.

PM: That’s cool. So… should they be carrying guns or swords? Are they from gun times? Or sword times?

SD: Whatever looks the most archetypal.

PM: It’s a pretty big investment to outfit fourteen soldiers with swords, sheaths, and sword belts only to decide later you want to switch to guns. Maybe they could have clubs?

SD: I want something that could kind of be “all weapons”. Something the audience might think is a sword at one point, but makes them think of a gun at another point. Nothing specific.

PM: Clubs it is. Now onto this letter. I just wanted your thoughts because it features so heavily in the action. Do you have any feelings about what the letter should look like?

SD: Like everything else. It should be timeless. An archetype of a letter.

PM: A paper archetype or a parchment archetype?

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How to be a Great, Not Just Good, Set Decorator

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I don’t have the author of the following piece, nor could I locate the original source. In fact, it doesn’t seem to appear anywhere on the internet. So if anyone knows the originator of the following essay, I would love to hear about it. And for the rest of you, it’s too entertaining not to share.

How to be a Great, Not Just Good, Set Decorator

Set decorator is a euphemism for set dresser. Often effeminate stagehands, dressers are really outside prop men, and all they do for a living is shop. Occasionally, a few great set decorators will go down in the anals of this business, but most set decorators just shop and steal.

Stealing is required in set decorating, and if you aspire to this vocation you must learn several forms of stealing. The most common forms of stealing are lying, kickbacks and false billing. Lying is simple; put in for cabs and, in reality, walk everywhere you go. Bill six hours for looking for just-the-right wicker basket, when you really took five minutes to order it blind by telephone. Kickbacks are almost automatic; do your shopping at the most over-priced prop house in your area, and make sure you get yours regularly. For false billing, either get your own forms and bills, or walk into a store and say, “See that $25 item? I’ll give you 50 bucks for it if you’ll give me a receipt for $100.”

Let us say you follow my advice so far, and you land yourself a job as an outside prop man. So big deal, you are shopping, stealing and swishing—that does not make you a great; no one is looking up to you. You have got to be better.

To be a great, not just good, set decorator you must develop your sources. See if you can go an entire year without buying or renting a single item from anyone you did not set up in business. Develop companies of your relatives and friends. Buy an item on Monday, use it on a one-time-only basis on a show on Tuesday, and return it for full credit early Wednesday. (If anyone asks where it went, say the star’s lover asked for it.)

Now start using terms like rococo, art deco and chiaroscuro. Use the word “period” constantly. “It just isn’t the right period. I won’t do it, period. I have my period.” As soon as anybody threatens your territory shout at him, saying he wouldn’t know the difference between Corinthian and Doric. Get close to the star of the show and use your best baloney. Tell her she would look great against an Etruscan escutcheon, and you will be the envy of the entire studio.

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Egyptian Weapons

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I came across a book with some fun little illustrations showing the history of arms and armor through history. The pictures are not terribly detailed, but they give a good overall look at the shapes and styles of common weapons in various historical periods. The first one I’ll be showing is on Egyptian weapons.

The types and styles of Ancient Egyptian weapons

1. A mural painting of Thebes showing Egyptians fighting.

2. Egyptian soldiers from Theban bas-reliefs.

3. Egyptian coat of mail. Some coats which have survived to the present have bronze scales, each scale measuring an inch and a half tall by three-fourths of an inch wide.

4. Egyptian coat in crocodile’s skin. From the Egyptian Museum of the Belvedere, Vienna.

5. Egyptian buckler with sight-hole.

6. Sword-breaker

7. Egyptian quiver

8. Egyptian hatchet

9. Sword

10. Scimitar

11. Dart

12. Sling

13. Unknown weapon

14. Unknown weapon

15. Hatchet, from bas-reliefs of

Thebes.

16. Scorpion or whip-goad. These were most likely 25 to 27 inches long. They were probably in bronze and iron.

17. Egyptian wedge or hatchet, bronze (4 inches). From the Museum of Berlin.

18. Egyptian knife or lance-head, iron (6 inches). Also from the Museum of Berlin.

19. Shop or khop, an Egyptian iron weapon (6 inches). Museum of Berlin.

20. Egyptian lance-head, bronze (10 and a half inches). Louvre.

21. Egyptian poignard, bronze. The handle is fixed upon a wooden core.

22. Egyptian hatchet, bronze, bound with thongs to a wooden handle of 15 and a half inches. British Museum.

23. Egyptian hatchet, bronze (4 and a half inches), fixed into wooden handle of 16 and a half inches. Louvre.

24. Bronze dagger (14 inches). Louvre.

25. Egyptian poignard, bronze (11 and a half inches), found at Thebes. The handle is in horn.

26. Egyptian poignard and sheath, bronze, 1 foot long. Ivory handle, ornamented with studs in gilded bronze.

The illustrations and descriptions have been taken from An Illustrated History of Arms and Armour: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, by Auguste Demmin, and translated by Charles Christopher Black. Published in 1894 by George Bell.

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Period Props

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When you are researching a time period or dressing a set, remember that people do not buy all new things every single year. A real house or apartment is filled with the clutter of the entire life of the people who live there. My parents, for instance, do not have a house decorated completely from items taken out of this year’s catalogs. Their furniture ranges in period from contemporary all the way back to Victorian. So a play about a similar English couple living in the Victorian period could have furniture ranging from Victorian back to Regency, or even Georgian.

When you study different period styles, you often run across lists and descriptions of what was “popular” or “in style” during certain time periods. Another idea to keep in mind is that most people are very varied in their stylishness. Some people always seem to be up with the latest trends; others have excruciatingly bad taste. During the Art Deco period, Ancient Egyptian motifs and styles came into vogue. That does not mean that someone would have thrown out all their furniture and decorated their place entirely in Egyptian-inspired furniture. Depending on how important style is to your character, there may be a few such pieces scattered throughout; there may also be none. Many of the characters in plays cannot afford to buy new furniture whenever tastes change.

An old box label. Photo by Eric Hart.
An old box label. Photo by Eric Hart.

Finally, I wanted to point out something which is obvious to many prop masters but not often to beginners. If your play is set in the 1920s, and you find a number of antiques from the 1920s, they will have a natural aura of age. Metal will have rust and patina, paper will be yellow and brittle, paint will be faded and peeled. This is not what the items will look like in the world of the play though. If a play is set a hundred years ago, that does not mean the items will look a hundred years old. Quite the contrary, the items will look new and well taken care of. A book will have bright white pages, metal will gleam and paint will be fresh. Obviously, the play itself can have antiques or old items; my point is that the contemporary props in a period play need to appear contemporary. For many props, you cannot use any but the most well-preserved antiques; you will have to find modern substitutes or construct your own.