Tag Archives: video

Useful Sites

Proptober Fest Links

Berkeley Rep has posted a video of the set changes in Chinglish. It’s fun and very well made; I saw Chinglish back on Broadway and the scene changes were slick, fast and fluid. I wish more theatres featured their technical and backstage elements like Berkeley Rep has done here; so much of what we do is underrepresented in the media, and it all just disappears once the show closes.

If you like James Bond, a new website called “The Credits” has a short article on some of the famous gadgets in those 22 films. The website also has a cool story and video on Western Costume, one of the large costume rental houses in Los Angeles.

A blog called “She Creates Stuff” has an interesting technique for aging glass bottles with hardening oil rather than paint; this keeps them food safe so they can still be drunk from (found via the Propnomicon blog).

Of the 68,890,282 chemicals used in business and industry today, only about 900 have been tested for cancer-causing abilities. As props people, we are exposed to many chemicals on a daily basis in our paints, adhesives, cleaning products, molding and casting compounds, coatings and even when cutting solid materials. Many of these chemicals are introduced to products without testing whether they are toxic or cause long-term harm. The Safe Chemicals Act means to amend the current laws so that manufacturers have to test chemicals before they sell them to you, rather than the other way around. Currently, it is languishing in the Senate; you can help push it along by contacting Senator Harry Reid, signing this online petition, or by contacting your own Senator to urge action.

Useful Sites

Everybody’s Propping for the Weekend

I love Katz’s Deli in New York City, and I love tiny models of buildings. So it’s no surprise that I love this tiny model of Katz’s Deli. The intricacy of detail in this is simply amazing. Would a tiny Katz be called a Kittenz?

Mike Iverson of Blind Squirrel Props has posted these prop building tips for beginners. I agree with every tip here.

This video interview of Ray Harryhausen is fun to watch. Harryhausen is responsible for some of the most memorable stop-motion creatures from the 1960s through the 1980s, such as One Million Years B.C., Clash of the Titans, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and Jason and the Argonauts.

The prop master for the upcoming sci-fi film Looper told his prop makers to stop being so “precious” when building the futuristic weapons.

How-to, Tools

Vacuum Forming on Zero Dollars

2 Comments

I am currently working as props master on Crazy for You at Elon University. In one of the musical numbers, twelve showgirls dance around the main character while talking on the phone. The show is set in the early 1930s, so that is twelve candlestick phones needed (all of them painted pink). If you’ve ever had to get candlestick phones, you know that the real ones are prohibitively expensive, and even the replicas are too expensive when twelve are needed. I decided I would make them all (which is what most theatres do).

Most hand-built candlestick phones I’ve seen have a pretty simple base, and I wanted to try for something a bit more interesting and realistic. Since these were just being used during a dance number, the dial didn’t need to work. It looked like I could sculpt the base as a solid object and than just vacuum form twelve copies. The only problem? I don’t have a vacuum forming machine.

Vacuum forming one of the telephone bases
Vacuum forming one of the telephone bases

I ended up assembling a very small and fairly weak vacuum forming system out of tools I already had and scrap materials which were laying around. Other than my time, the cost was free. I was able to make all the phone bases I needed though the process was a bit inelegant at times. I like what vacuum forming can accomplish, and I think I may spend some more time (and maybe even some money) making a more usable vacuum former after this show opens, but it was nice to be up and running without too much investment on my part.

I have posted an Instructable on how I built my free vacuum forming machine if anyone else is interested in how this all works. I also have a video of how it works and what it looks like when it’s being used: