The job of a Hollywood prop master is creative, ever-changing, and challenging. It's also show business! But the world of props is like housework- people only notice when you don't do it right. Prop masters spend countless hours finding or crafting just the right things for films, which can be challenging for period films. People will notice if The Social Network had Mark Zuckerberg using a laptop that wasn't developed until after the events of the film. And some directors are very picky about their props. Robin L. Miller gives us an example.
I did Grand Budapest Hotel, which is one of the most creative things you can ever do. To work with Wes Anderson is just insane — the level of his interest in everything visual. Every single prop in that was a design or fabrication.
The box that has the pastry in it, the beautiful pink box — it took so much work to create that. Oh my God. Because everything you do with Wes, he starts out with an image, or maybe four images. And he’ll tell you what he’s getting closer to. And then you take it from there and you refine it a little more. Then he’ll say, “Yeah, I like this, but maybe here for a shape.” And then you just keep going until you’ve got the shape. Color-wise, palette-wise, he knows color like crazy.
[For] the graphics, he has a wonderful woman who works with him [Annie Atkins]. She’s been with him on a number of shows. What he had her do [is] come up with concepts for that box. The ribbon. I had samples from, I don’t know, four or five European cities. I was getting every sample imaginable of this blue ribbon. Just to see what was perfect for the lighting and the texture and the shade. The box was this kind of blush pink. Not to mention, it had to be rigged. Then a version of it had to be made that all came open at once into different pieces and reassemble itself. I had a brilliant crew in Berlin who could figure that one out.
It’s unbelievable what went into that. And we ended up with that wonderful, perfect box.
Read stories from other prop masters about their greatest struggles at Vulture, such as The Addams Family dinner, the fish bones on Airplane! and Castaway's Wilson. -via Boing Boing