Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Faking a Beer Can
Props: "For our upcoming production of The Book of Grace by Suzan-Lori Parks at the Public Theater, we need beer. Technically, we need about ten beers per night."
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This is the kind of stuff that really makes me want to do propmaking in the future. Not the making of beer cans necessarily but the fact that prop masters have to go through a problem solving process that is really original compared to designers because it involves the functionality of everyday items. For example, with the problem of having actors unable to actually drink beer on stage and wanting the reality of popping a beer can open, its cool to see the different solutions whether they are cutting off the actual label and using electrical tape to mask the unclean edges. Its also cool that the prop masters have a responsibility not necessarily to the audience alone but to create meticulous detail that sometimes can only be seen onstage from an actor because it helps them maintain their character even though it may be unseen otherwise.
All good solutions. I recently ran into my own beer issues while producing a film this past summer. Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" involves the two characters drinking 6 drinks per person over the course of the 15 minute film. Those beers however are in glasses, not in cans. So we had to come up with a way to make those beers look real, and allow the actors to drink a lot of them over the course of filming. We ended up using a solution of 1 part water, 1 part non-alcoholic beer, and 1 part root beer. They looked incredible, and kept the large head that comes with beers. It is this kind of inventiveness that is necessary for these types of problems, and i love reading about what other people have come up with
Props work has always been very interesting me because there's never a wrong answer. You can make any sort of prop in a hundred different ways, or buy it, or fabricate it, or weather it, or destroy it, and come out with fantastic results. Its also not just a singular skill, but rather to be a good props person you need to be clever and handy with so many different crafts and hardware that knowing where to start is an art in itself.
The beer cans are a less exciting version of what I'm trying to get at, but I would never have thought to cut up an old can and tape it to club soda to retain the look of a still-closed container.
These are both great solutions to a very practical problem. So many times similar situations come up, how do you recreate food on stage? While working on another Susan Lori-Parks play, In the Blood, the script calls for soup and an egg salad sandwich. Luckily these are fairly easy things to create and our cast doesn't have any dietary restrictions.
This is fun, I love all the different interesting things that props get to do. This article also reminds me of the article from last week where German actors were drinking on stage. Anyway, props always does get the perplexing task of trying to figure out different ways to problem solve. I know for one show I worked instead of a beer can we did a beer bottle with some nondescript label and it was actually root beer. there are so many ways to do the same thing it never gets boring
I agree with Sonia, if you want to save time, then it wouldn't be too hard to buy some soda that just has packaging that looks like beer in bulk. However if you want to save money, then this seems like an interesting effective way to solve your problem.
First cigarettes, and now beer. (ok, in reality the prohibition against beer is probably something that's been around much longer than the one against cigarettes, but it's only more recently showing up here) Lust like with many other things in theater, the real thing won't work so we need to find something that will seem like the item that we can't use. Covering can labels one way or another is one way to do it, as is choosing something other than beer that looks like beer. When you have to put it in a glass that's when it gets tricky, especially if the actors don't want to drink anything sweet yet it still needs to hold a head. At that point you start getting into interesting issues of food chemistry and stabilizers.
This faking of a beer can is an amazing technique to use in theater. I have always wondered how they get beer on stage, without it actually being beer. I like the technique of cutting the can and then applying it to the other can. This makes it look like a can with the right Finnish and look. This most real like option. The only problem that I see is if there is a part of the cut can that is not covered you could be lacerated. You might be able to reuse the beer can’s skin. The paper technique has a few problems with it. It looks like paper not like a can. The interesting thing with all of this is that you still get the sound of the can opening.
This article was so cool! I love learning this kind of thing! Props articles have become a recent favorite. It never would have occurred to me to use white electrical tape at the top of the beer can. It's so much easier than painting the can!
I do wish they'd gone through explaining how to repressurize a can as well though. It would have been another interesting thing to learn.
Regardless, this article was really interesting!
it's these simple things that create the magic of theatre. while it's nothing too exciting, it reminds me of a few situations where the crew actually used real beer... that was a long day of tech, lemme say.
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