NPR: A wooden sled. A weapon to vanquish a villain. Indiana Jones' whip, the Maltese Falcon — even Babe the pig. In the movies, if an actor touches it, it's a prop. And if it's a prop, a property master arranged for it to be there.
On the set of Disney's upcoming reboot The Muppets — a Muppet, by the way, is not a prop — it's prop master Trish Gallaher Glenn who provided the telephone for Kermit the Frog. But not the very old typewriter on Kermit's desk.
4 comments:
This article was brilliant! Prop mastery for movies is like prop work for theatre on steroids. The budgets are crazy enough that they need to, and do, spend dozens of thousands of dollars on the historically accurate license plates that flash across the screen for only a hot second, or on replicating Mark Zuckerberg dorm room, or the exact crabs for Jaws. One of the reasons this article was so interesting because, as an audience member, the best props work is never noticed. They need to blend in perfectly with the environment and not get in the way of the story or historical accuracy. A difference between Hollywood props and our work, for example, which explicates some merits of theatre is that we do a lot of craft work. In our world, without access to big California warehouses or generations of family connections, we can't buy everything we need. I hope theatre prop artists can be acknowledged as well for committing to the same level of detail without the flashy budgets.
I think this article clarified so many things to me about Properties as an art form in both theatre and movies or television. I constantly forget how wide and broad the area of props can be in a production, as it can contain hundreds of items I never think about, with detail I never may consider. For example, the article speaks about barcodes of prop pieces. Little details like this may blow right past someone, but they help to make spaces appear more real and in most cases, lived in. Going off the idea of a space being lived in, this article clarified for me the difference between a set dresser and a prop master. The article states, "The set decorator does all of the furnishings, all of the draperies, the hardware, the paintings," While the article also points out that, "The prop master does the things the actor picks up and touches." This not only divides in my eye what is on stage as far as who the piece is the responsibility of, but also opens up the greater role of the importance of communication between a props department and other departments in a show or movie.
Love reading about the hard work that goes into props, whether theater or film, that yields extremely impressive results. Granted, there are some big differences in the props worlds between theater and film. Because you experience a movie very differently from how you experience a piece of theater, this changes how much leeway you have. Typically, movie props are required to have a greater attention to detail than theater props because the camera is in the same space as the characters and you get a great level of detail than you would sitting rows and rows away from the actors in a theater. In theater, we have our little flexible rule about certain mistakes when we claim that no audience member will be able to see it from 25 feet way. However, the importance of a props master in a theater shouldn't be undermined. There's a different type of challenge that comes with the fact that you only have one chance to pull off how a prop is angled or how information is perceived by the audience. If anyone is a nerd and is as interested in this stuff as me I recommend checking out Tested on youtube run by Adam Savage. He's a former Hollywood prop maker himself and even has an episode where he goes to the puppet shop responsible for the muppets and for avenue Q.
This is a super cool article! I don't think anyone really thinks about the level of detail and complexity that is involved with the creation and use of every single prop. Ideally, people really don't notice the props as out of the ordinary unless they are supposed to, so a lot of work goes into making most of the props blend into the environment. There are also so many different considerations that need to be taken into account when designing props. For example, I had never thought about how props handled by Muppets would need to be much lighter than they are in reality, and how some must have rods attached in order to be held in tiny puppet hands. It's really incredible to think about how many props are in a single movie, or even a single episode of television. In Edward II, there were about ten to fifteen props, but the only one that really was noticed by the audience was the throne. I remember when I was talking to my family after pre-strike and telling them about how I had to make sure the props were struck, they said "Oh so you just had to move the throne out?" In highly detailed movies, especially ones that take place in homes or offices, there are a ridiculous amount of props, but they all need to be there to make the image complete.
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