4 Stories About Making Movie Magic

[Music] was our first feature of Point Break did we do that before rumors not officially yet right so as a company tremors would be the first technically the future gasps I don't know someone should Google that are you going to ask us questions or do you want us to start talking did you introduce each other I would love to I would like to introduce you to Tom Woodruff jr. who's the co-founder of amalgamated dynamics I'd like to introduce you to Alec Gillis he's the co-founder of Adi home of the oscar-winning creature effects team when people think of practical effects creatures you think of non computer-generated characters we've been lucky to be involved with some of the biggest at best of those types of monsters we did the worms and tremors we did the fat makeups of Tim Allen in the Santa Clause all the practical animals in Jumanji we've done the alien we've done the predator with our ship troopers I wasn't done you can keep going buddy and of course there's always the gorilla cut right now that's perfect right now we cut putting the gorilla costume we started performing own creatures because we both had his sort of observation of stuntmen despite their talents and their skills them going into a creature suit and not really knowing how to make a creature suit work it would be very weird for us to just say we're gonna build something and then bring it to set and say now what are you hungry that's some food you hungry you're a digital animator you build the character and you follow through and you make it move and you bring to life so that's our philosophy is the final step is performance because that's where it lives you want to try a little tiny piece here go ahead what do you think you want some more hey listen listen I can get you fresh bread I can I can get you fresh bread tremors is an example of a film that was from the pre-digital era and if you look at it the practical effects they've stood the test of time and we're proud of that digital effects can do things that we can't possibly do practical effects have a presence to them that even the best CGI work gets close to but doesn't completely achieve in other words there's more emotion I believe to a practical creature than to a digital creature wave to the camera and say goodbye bye bye he's so temperamental this is a billion dollars we think and that billion dollars belongs to RJ Rappaport and he's considered the king of cash fake cash okay king of fake cash my name is rich r.j. Rappaport and I'm the president of RJR props just a few years ago actually it was nine years ago oh sorry nine years ago RJ R props was born it's a full-service prop house but its specialty is cash think cash and there's only a few people who can legally make it and RJ is one of them [Music] we work with 50 cent Kendrick Lamar Lil Wayne Fat Joe Young Dolph and that's just to name a few RJ's prop money has been used in over 175 feature films television shows and music videos and he devoted three full years to perfecting that crisp green paper we call money prop money and we went down a long path and working with the Secret Service and learning all the laws to make sure that everyone that uses it it will be legal for them and it'll look fantastic but for those who don't follow the rules they could wind up in big trouble there is a rash of arrests people were just literally jailed because they were using prop money that looked too real and I said to myself I'm not gonna touch this unless I know I'm doing it legally alongside the Secret Service RJ created two different styles of prop money one that is printed on both sides and is perfect for that classic bank robbery scene the other kind is so close to the real deal it can only be printed on one side otherwise it could end up in circulation it's designed for the classic money shot aka this the close-up it's a tough business we all work hard in it and prop money especially it's not easy yeah sounds like it thanks RJ for keeping fake money real [Music] we usually get up about 7:00 and I usually get up a little later I make coffee for both of us I like honey and cream and I copy and then I almost always drive to work our morning routine is quite Monday oh yeah one thing we're doing today is a fire-breathing dragon finishing off that yeah and I've got some stuff to blood and some skulls and pumpkins I'm Marsha this is my husband Edie and we run distortions unlimited we make monsters zombies aliens dragons and beasts of all kinds oh my most of what we make is scary I will say that we make monsters for everyone from home Haunter all the way up to amusement parks and big events all around the world we've been working together for 35 years it's been glorious yeah wonderful [Music] we started out painting together I fell in love very quickly we've been married almost 25 years we've found a way to work together I'm probably more on the business side and it is probably more in the production I can't tell you how many people have told me I could never work with my spouse and that's too bad because you miss half or more of that whole person's life if you don't [Music] I think people expect us to be a little bit weirder than yarn we're actually a little bit boring when we get in the car and go home it's over we love monsters we just we've had enough of it after a long day there's a separation there there has to be you'd go crazy if somebody walked into our house they wouldn't have a clue what we do in fact we keep it all kind of secret yeah people are surprised about that with us we like it that way it's really special to do something you love with somebody you love we make monsters but whatever our personalities kind of mesh with each other so it works out you know you really can establish a good relationship as you're dripping zombie blood that's the kind of woman I need in my life [Music] when you're watching a television show or a movie and you see an actor holding a magazine or book or a letter a lot of what you're seeing on the screen was custom-made by people like me let me see their paperwork if I've done my job right in creating that piece of paper the possibilities are literally endless I mean one single piece of paper can communicate a huge amount in telling the audience about the character or about the scene [Applause] it's figuring out how this thing can best do its job of being a part of the story [Music] my name is Ross McDonald and I create paper props for movies and television when I was a kid I was obsessed with comics was obsessed with paper and illustration and really loved that world that I was reading or seeing on paper I've done a little bit of everything for years I worked as a magazine a newspaper illustrator book illustrator that eventually led me into making props for the last 25 years I've made tens of thousands of paper props for close to 50 television shows and movies my first major motion picture was babies day out and I was hired basically as an illustrator to illustrate a Pho 1930s children's book I've done literally tens of thousands of props for all five seasons Boardwalk Empire I did the Pawnee charter for an episode of Parks and Recreation for joy I did all of the patents for the mops that we see played I did yoga secrets for The Wizard of lies I've designed everything from passports and maps and travel documents wanted posters government forms FBI reports psychiatric files agent identification folders anything gets made of paper I made at one time or another part of what you need to figure out when you're making a paper prop is the backstory of the piece of paper you don't just take a new book and slosh brown ink on to make it look old you got to figure out how it got worn how it got dirty the scene might involve an actor reading three lines out of a letter but you have to figure out how old is it what kind of paper isn't made out of how was the paper made should it be made with carbon paper should it be on onion skin some guy gonna pull out a ruffled piece of paper from his pocket or is he gonna pull it out of a file folder what color paper should it be sure to be yellow should it be white should it be ivory colored who's signing it what does their handwriting look like what kind of ink are they using when they write it what kind of pen are they using and then because no letter is ever three lines you have to write the rest of the copy in the letter depending on what I'm making a project can take you know a day an hour weeks months every page is filled out every book has text on it and pictures every paper in the file folder is is a real document that's all filled out and created for example for the book of secrets they said just come up with secrets so I said okay well let's do Roswell let's do the Kennedy assassination let's do all these crazy conspiracy theory things then there was the research into those specific things you have to find all that figure out how to recreate it convincingly it was a huge undertaking it took about four months to really build that prop and it's just communicated in a split second in the scene have you seen the evening paper I have here pieces of paper there's so many amazing things that start off with a piece of paper and the props that I'm making they're all part of that sometimes when they go to the theater I'm so excited I'm almost shaking and it's not because I want to see the driver's license I made from one of the actors it's because I I did a tiny bit of work on that movie and it's that's very exciting to me in the end you've produced this thing which you know you've done your best job of nailing getting absolutely right and you know sometimes I'm just like wow you see something like that in the final product and realize that this thing you've worked on is this huge moment in the story that can be just really really a great family [Music]

Channel: Great Big Story

Views: 88,363

Keywords: great big story, gbs, lag, documentary, docs, New Releases, Great Big Reels, Weird & Fun Knowledge, Weird, Fun Knowledge, props, movies, production, hollywood, fake money, creatures, action movies, monsters, tv show

Id: 57vURZhzS9E

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 31 2019