The Prop Master: Ross Macdonald, Forger for Screens Big and Small – Steven Heller – Life – The Atlantic

Because this is mostly a serial list, there’s not a lot of journalistic depth to this piece, but I did enjoy reading it. It’s a rather stark comment on how fatherhood has affected my movie-going when I realize I haven’t seen a single one of these movies, other than “Baby’s Day Out.”

Macdonald is an editorial and book illustrator and typographer who makes props for motion pictures. And he gets “a real rush” from the props he gets for making them.

“You never know what you’re going to get thrown at you,” he says, adding, “I love doing the research for period props. I also love making things or figuring out ways to make things. I love working with my hands and learning new techniques — leatherwork, making rubdowns and decals, metalwork, whatever.” The part he hates, however, is the crushing workload. “I often get phone calls and emails all day and all night with changes and additions. On some shows the amount of work is massive — sometimes literally thousands or even tens of thousands of pages of stuff, often produced at breakneck speed.”

via The Prop Master: Ross Macdonald, Forger for Screens Big and Small – Steven Heller – Life – The Atlantic.