Images

L1

One of my sets here for 'Davidoff' seen on the first shoot day. All the carefully arranged dressing is moved to allow room for the camera track. This often leads to props being damaged if they are moved quickly.

L2

A set here for DFS. Here we redress three different sets continuously to allow for the huge numbers of different sofas. One is being dressed while the others being lit and shot accordingly. I believe we shot twenty-five different sofas in three days each in it's own environment.

M1

A basketball court for one of the BBC idents. A huge laminate floor had to be laid and marked out in just three days. It's often difficult to source such large quantities of materials in such a short time, plus dispose of once the shoot is finished. In fact I'm now the proud owner of a basketball hoop and stand.

R1

Woolworths in Prague. We had four articulated truckloads of props arrive for this production, all needing sorting, marking and dressing in.

R2

Backstage with some of the Woolworth's products. We had one hundred and twenty Christmas trees in all requiring dressing three times over with different colour baubles.

R3

A good propman is indespensable on the average commercial. Here Jim Marlow shows his well used selection of goodies on a recent Woolworths ad. You often don't know what you need until you're asked so 'a little bit of everything'is something only experience can achieve.

R4

Use your own initiative to prevent the props getting damaged. Quite often things are just 'left' whilst the crew go on to shoot something else. Here Kate Woodman fixes a rain cover. Other art directors (like Kate) make really reliable assistants on the larger jobs.

R5

Large location jobs require a very organised art department to look after and prepare props, especially when shooting in a high street. Things can go missing or get damaged if you are short staffed costing the production more in the long run.

R6

A damaged studio floor can also be expensive so always replace the bucket for the water dripping effect between takes when the crew are looking at playback.