Friday, November 30, 2018
No Retractable Blades
Prop Agenda: What is a retractable knife? We have all seen them at novelty shops or with Halloween costumes. When you push the blade against a surface, it slides up into the handle. When you pull it back, a spring inside forces the blade back out of the handle. With enough speed, it appears that the knife blade is plunging into your body as someone stabs you.
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Wow, I had no idea this was as wide as a problem. I was actually a part of a production at a well known regional theater that used these exact knives this summer. We were lucky that no one was seriously hurt, but there were a couple of instances in which the knives broke or failed to retract. I am surprised that this is not a more widely known problem. I am sure that if the professionals I was working with this summer would have known that this is common, we would have stopped using the product immediately. This makes me wonder however, what the next best alternative to retractable knives would be. Perhaps for now we would just have to go back to good old fashion fight choreography to hide the actually stabbing, but I am sure there has to be other ways to accomplish the same type of effect.
I was very surprised, reading this article, to hear about the countless injuries caused by these retractable knives. In my props class, we talked about what the main job of a props master is and we decided that the main priority is always the safety of the actors. If you are in charge of props for a show, it is necessary to make sure that they are all completely safe so that the actors do not injure themselves or each other. I think that, if there is absolutely no way to make these safe, the retractable knives should be gotten rid of completely. As far as I can tell from the article, there does not seem to be a good way to fix this inherent problem in the prop, and it has caused so many injuries that it does not seem worth to keep them in circulation. There are always alternatives to how certain things can be staged and I think theaters, and props masters, should try and find a new way to create fight scenes that do not include these dangerous props.
Woah, this is terrifying. I was under the impression that theatrical use was exactly the purpose of retractable knives, and that they were engineered to be completely safe for that purpose. In fact, the few times I've come across retractible knives, they have been billed as being for theatre, so that you can "stab someone really hard and it looks real." If these knives are not safe for realistic looking stabbings, I'm shocked and concerned that they even allowed for any commercial use whatsoever. I am most concerned by the fact that they don't carry any warning labels and everyone from small time directors to eight year olds are told that they are safe and ideal for use on stage. I have worked on productions where these have been used, and I'm exceedingly grateful that no one was every injured, that would have been a horror story. I guess if someone had been killed by a prop knife it likely would have prompted better regulations, and more widely known risks, but it seems that it's only a matter of time.
This is something I had never thought of as a problem before. I had always seen retractable blades as a safe and realistic option for stage fighting, even having used them in high school productions in the past, but this article really opened my eyes so I’m glad I read it.
It is important for us to think about the potential risks that our productions come with, down to the minute details. The extent of injuries that I just read about is astonishing, which is why I am surprised that I had not heard about this until today.
It is also comforting to know that the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama is aware of this issue and spreading that awareness to its design and production students through this blog and through their practice. I also appreciate that the article pointed out a situation in which a precaution like a vest was taken, but still resulted in the most serious injury that the article included. It just goes to show that sometimes you can’t get around an accident any other way but eliminating the source.
While a lot of people may be surprised after reading this article, I am not surprised by this at all. While working both for my high school and for small theaters around Los Angeles, I have run into this issue many times. We used to have dozens of cheap retracing knives stocked at my high school, but they were never used as we knew they were not the best to use. The issue of them binding arose many times while working with them in the past and for this reason, they aren't something I ever like to use. On top of the binding issue, I have found that, if improperly used, theses cheap props have a tendency to fall apart. While this wouldn't be an issue if it happened when dropped, if it happens while in use the cracking of the plastic handle of the person using the prop. Overall, these are very unsafe and are not something that should ever be used on stage.
Ok, so I had no idea that retractable blades A were still even used, and B could be potentially dangerous. I mean, to be fair, I have never really thought about retractable blades a huge amount during my time on Earth, but now that I am thinking about it, it makes complete sense that these blades could bind and not retract. And honestly, you can have as many fight calls and double and triple checks of the blade as you like. But during the actual show, anything could happen to this blade during the course of the scene before the fight, or even during the fight. People can always get hurt during fight scenes, but knives that do not retract when they are supposed to seem like a way more likely way to almost guarantee to hurt an actor. I totally agree that all of these retractable blades should be banned from stage use in serious fight scenes. Especially now that OSHA has gotten involved.
This article was really eye opening to unseen danger around props. It makes me wonder what other seemingly safe props are commonly used that causes problems. This type of knife was a common occurrence around my high school and was commonly used in fight choreo. I would never have though it to be unsafe. I am curious to know what the occurrence of these knives are out on the world, because of the OSHA incident as well as the insurance regulations. If the use of these items are widely known to be dangerous why aren’t they band from more schools? This also makes me think of a news article that was the talk of the department only two years ago when two students had their throats slashed by a improperly prepared prop knife, during a New Zealand production of Sweeney Todd. Improper stage weapons seems to be a common thread causing we to wonder if we should completely reevaluate the decision process involved with putting weapons on stage, even “fake harmless ones”.
Prop blades and knives should always be treated as weapons and in my mind then be removed from the props department and given to the fight directors or weapons master purview. Any time you are having a fight sequence one should be looking to hire these positions id you do not already have them as part of the full-time staff. The amount of training and experience go along way in helping prevent any accidental misuses or bad choices. That being said I my self-have noticed, playing with these types of retractable blades that there can be some catch or such when using them at times. So on that note, I do have to agree with the article that we should ban these types for retractable blades. However, I do not agree with the fact that there could never be a perfectly designed blade that would never catch or snag on itself. We have the ability someone just needs to do it.
I also had no idea how inherently dangerous these prop knives were. The description alone of how they could malfunction is enough to make me cringe. The article describes the malfunction, stating that "If the blade were to press ever so slightly against the opening in the handle, it will bind with enough pressure that the blade will not retract. When that happens, your actor is suddenly plunging a real knife into another actor with enough force to puncture their skin and even their organs. Even the knives with plastic blades will cause fatal damage." This sounds like a nightmare situation, and the possibility of it and the fact that "you cannot fabricate a retractable dagger that does not bind, nor can you adapt an existing knife to avoid this problem," is enough for me to never want to work with them in any context. I agree with the article that these knives should be banned and thrown out, the examples of them failing are terrible, and I can't imagine the horror the other actors must have felt when the realized that they actually stabbed someone else. That is trauma of course for the individual stabbed, but those involved--other performers, crew, management probably also were effected as well.
Wow, this article is highlighting a real danger within our industry, and it's really interesting that it's only getting noticed nowadays, especially with all the incidents that this article is talking about. One would think that people would get the danger behind retractable blades, if only because of their meta-status in a actual fiction. One can't count the number of times in a procedural crime show or a murder tory where an actor ends up getting stabbed onstage, only to find out that the prop knife they were using had been switched out with a real one! These are different circumstances, for sure, but the main idea is the same. The danger of the push-in knife is not only about the risk of binding and actual hurting, it is the susceptibility for sabotage inherent within them. Knives of any kind should be treated in the same way as guns are for the same reasons. They should be given to a specific props-person, the exact moment it is brought on stage.
It’s so sad to find out that retractable blades are actually dangerous, and so many theaters are still trying to ignore it. I myself have dealt with blades that didn’t retract everytime in high school, but kids laughed it off and it (luckily) always worked on stage. This compromises actor safety, and seems like another case of people who feel that because they’ve done something for years before, that it should be continued. Something for the sake of theater, is no longer in the best interest of the safety of the actors. If something as simple as choosing a rubber retractable over a plastic one can possibly save a life, is it so out of budget that one cannot take that precautionary measure? Having this happen to well choreographed scenes, in both professional and unprofessional, should show that this tool cannot be perfectly trained with. I hope to see safer retractable weapons in the future, and may give the heads up to my old colleagues.
I had no idea this was such a danger. I have worked countless times with the retractable blades on small daggers and knives. Never having used them in very dramatic and swift movement onstage, there was never the threat of injuring someone like the way described in the article examples. I had noticed that the mechanism for the spring wasn't always spot on and sometimes would get messed up while plunging but I had never experienced it when it did not plunge. I can definitely see why OSHA advised University of Michigan to ban them, I think this is something that high schools should be made aware of because that is where I have seen them used the most. I hope Carnegie Mellon can do the same and ban these on the premises of potential injury to actors. I wonder what alternatives are available and wish the article mentioned some, so that a replacement could be changed out.
So this article can be summarized mostly with in the line, “If the blade were to press ever so slightly against the opening in the handle, it will bind with enough pressure that the blade will not retract.” While I am aware that most theatre’s world not use retracting knives, but I honestly assumed it was due to the fact that it would relies too readily on the idea that you would know which is the trick knife and that these trick knives break pretty damn easily in my experience. That being said I did not expect their to be as many examples of retractable knives managing to actually hurt multiple people in the theater industry. I wonder if the is any way to improve upon the normal design of the basic retracting knife to make it such that it may actually be safer for use in the entertainment industry.
I was glad to see this article on here- we used these exact knives in a high school show and I only learned afterwards how dangerous they could be. It’s scary that such a widely-used stage prop can be so dangerous and that there isn’t really a way to counteract it. So much of our jobs revolve around ensuring safety in every aspect of a production, from the rehearsal room to making sure the audience can exit safely in event of an emergency, and yet it would be very easy for a performer to be very seriously injured by a prop designed to do the exact opposite. I’m amazed that even with these known defects these kinds of knives can still be sold and used, but it seems that until someone comes up with an alternative that the danger will still be present. I hope that this information becomes more widely known- our show used about 15 of these knives and when I learned how dangerous they could be I realized how lucky we were that nothing went wrong.
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