Tag Archives: video

Resources

Two Tickets to ISS

The following two videos come courtesy of The Replica Prop Forum. The host, uh, Star Wars Chick, visits the armory at Independent Studio Services. ISS is one of the major prop rental and fabrication in the Los Angeles area, and they have an especially large collection of weapons, as you can see in the videos below. Larry Zanoff, one of the armorers in the weapons department at ISS, does a great job explaining the difference between real guns and movie guns, the kind of training an armorer needs, and what kind of safety procedures they implement on set.

In part two of the video, Star fires a number of the weapons in their warehouse. I think it is important to note that while movies use real guns altered to fire blank rounds, theatres typically use block-barreled guns which were never meant to fire real ammunition.

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Friday Link-topia

Here are seven short (under 10 minutes) films about obsolete occupations. I think as prop makers and prop masters, we are called on to do the work of each of these occupations at least once in our careers.

The TK560 discussion board is geared towards making stormtrooper armor from Star Wars, but they have a large section devoted to general tips and tricks for vacuum forming (including instructions for building vacuum forming machines of all different sizes and budgets), molding and casting, and working with plastics in general. There is a treasure trove of useful information here.

I’ve seen discussions of dying plastic in the past as an alternative to painting it, especially with plastics that refuse to take paint (such as polyethylene). Here is a good step-by-step description (with pictures) of dying the case to a MacBook computer.

CNN recently did a profile on Dale Dougherty, founder of Make Magazine and the Maker Faire. You can watch a short companion video and read a brief column by Dale titled “How to make more ‘makers’ – and why it matters.”

Finally, here is an extremely cool infographic on how the War Horse puppets work.

War Horse puppet
infographic on how the War Horse puppets work.
Useful Sites

Friday Link Roundup

I came across this website called Gremlins in the Garage. It’s an older site; most of the articles are from the late 1990s. It deals with “kits”, which are sculpted busts or figures from mainly horror and sci-fi films that collectors buy and paint. It has some interesting interviews with movie monster makers though, and some how-to articles, like this one on getting started with sculpting.

Speaking of interviews with movie monster makers, here is an interview with makeup effects designer Mike Elizalde when he was working on Hellboy 2.

In “Bringing Xiphactinus Back to Life” we see a prehistoric fish being sculpted, cast and painted by museum exhibit designers (or, as I call them, “science prop makers”). The video is a bit over 6 minutes, but well worth a watch.

As if e-cigarettes aren’t already getting a bad rap, news came out yesterday that one exploded in a smoker’s mouth. Details remain scant at this point, though the article suggests this particular e-cigarette was specially modified by the smoker. I’ve never heard of any exploding before, and industry statistics say 2.5 million Americans use them on a regular basis. Cell phones explode more often.

If you saw the film, The Help, you know how important the food was to the characters, setting and plot: everything from fried chicken to an, ahem, chocolate pie. Variety has a brief article about Chris Ubick, the film’s “food stylist”.

Useful Sites

Friday Props Links Roundup

The Guardian has a nice little article on How to Make a Haunted House. It details how the set dresser, prop master and other members of the art department use locations, architecture and props to create the mood of the upcoming ghost film, The Woman in Black. They purchased and borrowed tons (or “tonnes”, as this is a British film) of Victorian-era objects and paraphernalia to dress the sets.

Have you heard of the new show Prop Freaks? Because it’s a TV show about people who make and collect props. Well, it’s a show in development; you can watch short clips on the website until it finds an audience. But it looks pretty cool, and I can’t wait to see more.

Here is an interview with Russell Bobbitt on how he uses 3D printing technology to create many of his props. Russell Bobbitt is the film prop master who has made some fairly recognizable props, such as the glowing chest piece from Iron Man 2, or the wristband laser gun from Cowboys and Aliens.

Here is an interesting video on using a vacuum former to make masks. There’s a few things that make this especially intriguing: his rig is portable so he is able to take it to an event where other people can vacuum form their own masks, and he uses a bicycle pump to draw out the air rather than a vacuum cleaner. Also, the music playing in the background is a Nintendo beat version of MOP’s “Ante Up” with computers rapping (done by an artist named “Danny Drive Thru”), so that alone makes this worth watching.

While not prop-related, this last link is pretty fun. Watch this time-lapse video of stagehands from IATSE local 33 set up the orchestra pit at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It’s a pretty ambitious sounding project too; over 1,000 musicians will perform.