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By Steve Fronczek
20 January 2008
Future-Past.com had the distinct pleasure to interview Booth Milton who is president of one of the main prop studios that supplies a large portion of the physical props for Battlestar Galactica. Booth's company, White Monkey Design Inc., has been involved with just about every science fiction movie or TV show you can think of that films in Vancouver BC. There's no wonder, with their mile long credits list, why they are the masters of sci-fi props in the Vancouver film industry or why they are one of the the top contractors working on Battlestar props. This exclusive interview was made possible by the great folks from Intersun Luxury Liners, Caprica City, Caprica.
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Booth, thank you for taking the time to do this interview today.
You bet, great!
For those in my audience who may not know, what is the role of a prop design studio?
In a prop design studio you have a production office that generates script driven visuals. Anything that has a specific function and that an actor would pick up, like a telephone, or a pen that lights up or automatically discharges all of it's ink -- as a gag of some sort -- that's what we'll make.
We primarily make things that the actors handle. Depending on the artwork, sometimes we're left to our own ideas about what that prop should be after we've read the script. Then we get it okayed by the Production Designer, the Art Director or we go through the Prop Master.
What inspired you to pursue a career in building props?
What inspired me? Ahhh, I had a baby (chuckles). Before that, I was a wood carver, I did restaurants. Building props was good steady work, instead of me trying to get design work doing interiors for restaurants or something like that.
Did you have any background training to get into this field?
Not in this field in particular. I worked for the Harmon Sculpture Foundry for years and years. We did public art, monuments, things like that. I have an art degree background.
What has been the highlight of your career doing props?
Battlestar is certainly one of my most favorite shows that I've ever worked on. I can say that.
You know, along with the high of making a really tricky prop comes the heart-break of psoriasis. It's not fun. You get involved and you're like a dog in the middle of a fight trying to get this prop out on time, on budget. When it comes off and it's finished, you look at it and say "Wow, that's really great" but then the next week it's gone and you don't even remember what you did the week before. It's really hard to pin down exactly what that is.
All of it's important, even for a small production. Sometimes a prop can be very rewarding. So, I don't really know. We've done really big movies like "The 6th Day" for instance. We did the sim-corder for them, that was a highlight. Baltar's chair was a highlight, definitely. It was a beautiful build. But there's been so many, literally thousands.
White Monkey Design Inc. has constructed props for many movie and TV productions, like Battlestar Galactica. I read that you did props for i,Robot as well.
Yes, we did the car that went through the tunnel and was crushed. You know that scene. We did that here.
Did you work in conjunction with 3D Custom Foam?
They have a gantry foam carver, it's a big CNC (computer numerical control) router. They just roughed out a whole bunch of foam blocks that were cut roughly in the shape of the car for us. The blocks were basically an armature for us to do our work on top. We had to "hard-shell" and detail it. After the fiberglass set we hollowed it out by getting rid of the foam and all that stuff. Then we assembled it and did all of the detailing. We did the actual fiberglass vehicle you see on film.
What is the process for taking concept drawings like the i,Robot car and turning them into three dimensional prop?
Well, a lot of meetings and a budget. Those are the brass tacks. When putting a budget together you really have to get a good handle on how exactly you are going to build whatever that prop is. That's really an item by item, point by point budget break down. "How long is it going to take to drill this many holes?" "How much is the hardware going to cost?"
Ultimately you've got this big long list where you add up your hours and your materials and then you put your budget forward. This is all before you even start! Now that the studio's got the budget, they have a hard time with it and they ask you to revise it and eventually you actually start building.
We just finished working for "Watchman." We had to put together pretty concise budgets so they could see the break down and see what we were doing and how it's going to take, with all kinds of time line guarantees and stuff like that. Once that's done then we go out to start sourcing our materials and we start doing drawings. Then we build.
Do you draft out the drawings or are they provided?
They give us a concept drawing and we do an engineered drawing and an actual 3D model. Sometimes we'll get a painting, sometimes blueprints, sometimes we just get napkins with a scribble on them (chuckle). We get those lots of times actually.
When you come up with the engineered drawings, do you use 3D computer programs?
Yes. From that point on we engineer it, animate it and make sure the pieces are going to fit together. And away we go.
How did your company become involved with the Battlestar production?
Well, we've got a good reputation! There's lots of different personalities involved in the industry. I'm sure you are aware of that, just like in your own.
[ed note: At this point Booth needed to answer questions from his employees about props for Terry Gilliam's movie "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus," along with some questions about "Night in the Museum 2" props. It was interesting to get a glimpse of the hustle and bustle that is involved with the daily decisions and directions needed to get props out on time. Fascinating stuff to listen to.]
I'm sorry where were we... we were talking about how I got involved with Battlestar, right? It is really the Prop Master's prerogative, who he's going to use. What happened was that I unionized my shop and so we were able to work closer with the production company under the auspices of being IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees). In doing so, of course everybody on the crew meets their WHMIS (Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System), Prohibited Arms License & Industrial First Aid.
That's the bonus of being an IATSE shop. You can give that service and that quality. With that comes the benefits, medical, dental and you are able to keep the best people.
If you're a construction coordinator or if you're in special effects or if you're in set decoration, everybody here is a professional and knows what they are doing and they are IATSE members. (laughter) Somebody in the background just said "Is that true?" (everyone laughs).
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