Fon Davis runs a company called FONCO Creative, which makes miniatures and models for film and television. He’s worked on some lesser-known films such as Matrix, Star Wars Episodes I-III, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Make: Believe visits his studio and posts some photographs and this video below. It is great to see a fairly young and high-tech company still embracing the use of models and miniatures.
You should see this “Death Row” router table; so-named because it was found in a prison woodworking shop where tools often need to be, um, improvised.
Here is an interesting Instructable for making your own machinable wax. Machinable wax is a wax which will not melt or deform from the friction of a high-speed rotary cutter; it is useful for trying out a part on a CNC machine before you waste your real material (and it can be machined faster and without wearing down your tools).
Last fall, I did the props on Crazy for You. For those unfamiliar with the show, there is a scene were a cowboy shoots his gun off in the saloon. The bullets hit various objects in the room for comedic effect, including a cuckoo clock that explodes.
Cuckoo Clock, exploded
I have not shared any photographs or information on the clock yet because I was actually writing an article on it. The full details and pictures are now up in the latest issue of Stage Directions magazine in an article called “Don’t Go Cuckoo.”
I also shot a short video showing the action of how the clock cuckoos, explodes, and how long it takes to reset it for the next performance.
This has already been making the rounds, but it’s too good not to share. The Prelinger Archives has a short film from the 1960s about theatre stagehands at work. Part of the “Americans at Work” series presented by the AFL-CIO, this ten minute video shows how much things have changed in the past fifty years (and, more interestingly, how much has stayed the same).
Stagebitz is an online project management software which first began beta-testing back in 2010. It’s designed to streamline all the tasks you handle when propping a show (or when working on scenery, costumes, etc.). They have recently secured a hefty investment that will allow the development of the software to really take off over the next few years; they will be at USITT this year where you can play around with the software and ask them any questions you wish.
But that’s not what this post is about. They have also brought on Mat Lawrence, who, up until now, was the head of props manufacturing at Opera Australia (whose home is the Sydney Opera House). The video below shows them working on the props and puppets for Julie Taymor’s 2012 Magic Flute. It looks like some pretty intense work there, and it is the kind of props shop many of us dream of working in.
The following video shows some interesting puppet mechanisms, both mechanical and pneumatic. The people in the shop are constructing bird puppets for a 1999 Coca-Cola television commercial. Perhaps more interesting is that Jamie Hyneman is working in the shop as well, years before Mythbusters appeared on TV.
Making and finding props for theatre, film, and hobbies
