By Antony Teofilo
A red crystal doorknob in THE SIXTH SENSE. Vito Corleone's cat in THE GODFATHER. The little gold ring at the center of Peter Jackson's latest series of films...
Props Have Power
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An Interview with JERSEY GIRL Assistant Props Master Tom West
By Antony Teofilo
Next to the actors on screen, or better yet in their hands, props are an extremely important tool for storytelling. They can take on a character of their own, or such significance that later, a simple everyday item (say, a pair of square heeled women's shoes with red sequins sewn on them) can become worth millions of dollars simply because it appeared in the right place, at the right time, on the silver screen.
I'll admit it. I'm sort of a props junkie. Some of my earliest formative experiences in the movie industry came as a direct result of my interest in the items that make up a movie's little universe. It's taken me some pretty interesting places...the Alfred R. Broccoli soundstage at Pinewood Studios in England (where they used to shoot a lot of the big James Bond explosion sequences)...La Reggia Di Caserta, a castle in Italy in which the throne room sequences of the new Star Wars movies were filmed...Francis Ford Coppola's winery in the Napa Valley (which, by the way, if you're in the neighborhood, you should see, if only for the little museum of memorabilia Francis has set up on the second floor of the winery's main building).
I've bounced on the beds from BRAVEHEART, lounged on purple finery from the set of THE FIFTH ELEMENT, and even sat at Vito Corleone's office desk from THE GODFATHER...but that's another story altogether.
Then there's the fact that, yes, I own the "Batarang" Silent Bob shoots out of his batgun in MALLRATS. I'm a geek. Sue me.
So it was with more than a little interest I sat down with one of the guys responsible for managing JERSEY GIRL's props situation, Tom West.
Read on for valuable info on getting started in the industry a little later in life, how one gets into a union, and how knowing a little of everything at just the right time can build you a lifelong career in the movies.
Antony Teofilo: What's in the job description of an Assistant Propsmaster?
Tom West: Basically, I pay attention to which props we need for the days coming up, helping with setting up each day, keeping things in the truck that we need to have for the ongoing production, and staying on top of things in general.
AT: Have there been any really tough items in JERSEY GIRL's script that you had trouble securing?
TW: The street sweepers were odd. We finally managed to get them from the city of Wilmington. They're a rather unusual picture car. We also had some giant, cartoon-size [props...omitted here for spoilers]. We found two of them, but had to have one made out of paper mache' by a local artist.
Inside The Trinke Living Room: Giving George Carlin's [Bart Trinke] home that elderly bachelor look requires an unreal amount of brick-a-brack. To give you an idea of what a properties departments responsibilities entail: there are almost one hundred and fifty props in this picture. Keep in mind, this is one wall, on one set, on one location of a movie that shot for over three months. Each of these items must be selected, shipped, upacked, dressed, repacked, catalogued, accounted for, and returned from whence they came before a production can be fully wrapped.
AT: How long have you been in the business?
TW: 1986 was the transition. I was an electrical engineer before this.
AT: What caused to you to make the jump from the world of the dayjob to film work?
TW: The economy did. We all got laid off from the engineering firm. I had a love of theater and motion pictures from the time I was in high school. I said, "Mom, Dad, I did your thing, now I'm going to do what I want to do."
AT: That's got to be a difficult transition to make. What was your first job, and how did you make your break into this kind of work?
TW: Actually, I got really lucky. In 1986, I was looking for work, and I got a job working as an occasional stagehand at the DuPont Playhouse in Wilmington, just doing stagehand stuff. The way the industry works, is that when a motion picture comes into an area that isn't covered by a studio mechanics local [union] which we are now, but weren't then, the local stagehands are the ones closest to studio mechanics so they get hired to do the job.
Props Storage, aka Future Auctions Askew Fodder: What may look like a disorganized garage is actually the props storage area on the set at the Navy docks in Philadelphia. Visible are some of Gertie Trinke's diapers (center, unused). On the far right, some of Bart Trinke's beer bottles, and a box for a baby carrier that, incidentally, Ben Affleck hit me in the head with at the Hard Rock Cafˇ'.
Although I didn't work on it, when DEAD POETS SOCIETY, all the guys in the Stagehands Local there worked on that, and then later on when a union developed, all of the stagehands become automatic members. My first job in the industry was on FORREST GUMP. I worked on the Washington crew doing electrics. The next big movie to come into town was TWELVE MONKEYS. I got a job on that as a laborer, just pushing boxes around, and we were working setting up the airport set, which was in the new convention center here in Philadelphia, and I happened to see the lead carpenter's drawings laying out. It had the coding for all of the boxes we were pushing around, so I started telling my friends that we could save each other some work if we put the boxes in the right places. The carpenter came over and asked how I knew what to do with them, and I told him I knew how to read the drawings because I was an engineer. He said, "Okay, you're not pushing boxes anymore." Suddenly I was assisting the carpentry crew.
On TWELVE MONKEYS, the big break there as far as props were concerned was that there was a very high tech payphone that we were assembling for the set, and I recognized the phone that they had there for product placement. At the time I knew quite a bit about telephone systems, and I told the decorator. that to get it set up you needed to talk to the phone company because they were a new computerized system. He told me that it was a long shot that they'd need to be set up, so he wasn't too worried about it. The next day, the lead designer called and asked if I knew about the payphones because the shot had been changed, and now the phones were seen in close-up, and we'd like to get them working because they say 'No Service'. Suddenly, I was back on the payroll, and because of the work that I did there, I was on the crew permanently. That's when I officially became a set dresser.
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Wet Dressing: Tom West taps a hydrant in the Philly suburbs as he dresses the street in front of Bart Trinke's house for that "just after the rainstorm" look.
AT: What do you do in the lulls between movie jobs?
TW: I put my engineering skills to use. I'm forming a company called High Tech Props in which I'll build electronic gadgets and such for other props guys...telephone ringers, or working telephone system parts. And there's a couple of set building companies who call when they need some help to work out design that's unusual.
AT: Do you have any special pieces at home, props or pieces of sets or equipment, that you've been allowed to keep as mementos of your work?
TW: Usually at the end of a big show, props and set dressing departments will have a sale of pieces that they don't need to keep for reshoots, or unused pieces. When I'm on a movie, I always look over that stuff. To answer your question, our house is full of that kind of thing. From THE SIXTH SENSE we have one of the cabinets that was in the basement set in our dining room. We've got plates from BELOVED. I've got a photo album of the photos that tend to get thrown out at the end of a shoot...they're actors in costume, mostly. So I've got a photo album of fake people. [Laughs] It's fun.
