Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The Prop Master: Ross Macdonald, Forger for Screens Big and Small
The Atlantic: Ross Macdonald is a forger. And many of his most exquite forgeries -- or, more prescisely, replicas -- are currently seen, if you look closely enough, on the new season of HBO"s Boardwalk Empire. Macdonald is an editorial and book illustrator and typographer who makes props for motion pictures. And he gets "a real rush" from the props he gets for making them.
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4 comments:
This article was interesting because while I've seen a lot of the movies mentioned, I did not think about where all of the hundreds and hundreds of props came from. To be honest, I thought that most of the books and papers and notebooks you seen in the movies are just modern books and papers and notebooks recovered with an aged binding. While this may also happen, it's amazing the detail that Ross Macdonald has put in to the props he's created. The sad part seems to be that a lot of them seem to get cut or their role is severely cut down in the finished product so many people never see all the hard work he put into it. While things like this happen in the theatre all the time, the person who has designed and/or created the item for the stage usually knows that it's no going to be used before the show opens. Mr. MacDonald, however, has to wait until the movie comes out before he sees if his work even gets to be seen. Because of this, I think it's amazing the amount of work and detail that he still manages to put into every little thing.
This really does seem to be an enormous and rather thankless task to undertake, making so many props at such short notice, not knowing whether or not they will even receive any screen time and recognition. You would have to really just love your craft and enjoy doing it. I guess that the amount of new research and history that comes with each new job would help to keep it fresh. It is also, though, a very particular niche that he occupies, so to be the top mainly paper goods forger in the industry does come with some comforting job security. Also, I found the paragraph where his specificity was highlighted very interesting. How a book with worn, rounded edges would have had an entirely different life than a book with crumpled pages
It is interesting that movies have a person that just makes documents that are in the proper time period and look right. It is startling that some of things that are made for movies cost in the 10's of thousands and all they are is a hand prop or a book. I wonder how much he charges for the books that he makes for a movie that has to be aged and everything. I would like to learn how to make books from paper to a hard covered book. This made me think of how many different books are probably made for movies and someone has to make them and that is all they do for a living. I would like to see an article that shows a step by step of what he does to make a book.
I appreciate this article for making me see the things that I don't necessarily analyze or pay close attention
when watching a movie. Especially when it comes to paperwork in movies because they seem so second handed in terms of design. It's one of those elements that when it's wrong you notice, and it drives you crazy, but when it's right you don't notice. As a costume designer, I feel that I have to think the same way in terms of accuracy and audience's concern. It's a task to find a perfect balance and this article helped me to understand Macdonald's thought process in terms of how I approach similar situations with clothing.
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