Samurai’s: DIY Science Fiction Props

Posted on July 6, 2009 in Production Design | No Comments

By IQ Member: 8thSamurai

Greetings, Grasshoppers! The Samurai was meditating on one of the most overlooked aspects of the low/no budget short film world – props! Perusing the already available information revealed a plethora of discussions and how to videos about horror and blood effects – which is great, but where does that leave the new film maker who wants to do something a bit different?

Mostly swimming around alone. One should always be willing to experiment and try new things, and having inspiration or a starting point can help so much when brainstorming.

In this edition, I’m going to talk about a super low budget science fiction short “The Perfect Time” that I worked on with a friend of mine, aspiring director Jason Klein. One of the things I love about Jason, is that he’s willing to tackle subjects that most low budget film makers will run screaming from – as they’re just too daunting on the surface.

For this particular project, he needed a time machine. One that looked like more than something made out of cardboard and poster paint. (There are projects that cardboard is perfect for, but the tone of this was something a bit more serious.)

Enter the amazing Stuart Levy, prop-maker extraordinaire. While you may not have a Stuart of your own, let his examples spark your own creative juices.

Stuart had, effectively, one week and no money to create all of the props for this extravaganza. What he DID have, was a huge garage full of junk – broken monitors, chairs, odds and ends – you name it. It was like walking into the graveyard of forgotten gadgets!

Here’s a shot of the time machine in progress:

Can you see the camp chair and dolly in there? After scouring said garage for more spare parts, add ons, and whatever else we thought looked ‘cool’:

We have a pretty convincing home built bit of machinery. Even if you don’t have a warehouse of stuff to pull from, everything that was used here could be found at yard sales, thrift stores, and your local dump.

There were more dead computer monitors lying around, than at MIT’s yearly ‘break stuff’ party! Our main character’s work site was a lot more ‘neat’ looking pieces that didn’t actually work:

But with the assistance of editor Garrett Ilardi:

The impressiveness of those animations don’t really translate in a still, but you get the idea.

Have you noticed those wild electrodes on our actor’s head yet?

I bet if you look carefully, you can figure out a lot of what was used.

LED lighting technology is the boon of the low budget science fiction film maker. These little gadgets are light, small, cheap, and can add TONS of production value with relatively little elbow grease:

Those are LED book lights from your friendly, neighborhood discount store.

I didn’t want to get deeply into the creation of each piece – not because it’s not interesting or cool – but because I don’t want you to feel limited to using the same parts and pieces that you’ve seen here. The joy and challenge is in creating cool toys all of your own, with the bits and bobs that you can get your sticky film hands on.

And never forget the importance of powerful lighting tricks to add drama and a ‘wow’ factor to everything you do! DP Adrian Correia and yours truly pulled a whole bunch of rabbits out of our respective hats for the look of this piece.