THE LEGEND OF ZORRO This huge book was printed on vellum and hand-bound in 15th century style. It underwent days of aging, including being dunked in a pond and allowed to fox and mold in order to give it a much-used feel. Before drying, the edges of the pages were shredded and stained. All interior pages were composed with Latin text and woodcuts from the period.
“This is how these projects usually start,” says Ross MacDonald. “They say, ‘There’s this one little thing. …’” MacDonald, a well-known editorial illustrator, recently showed his work for films at New York City’s Type Directors Club and spoke about his unusual foray into the arcane world of prop-making.
MacDonald already had a heady, award-heavy career as an illustrator for top publications like The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Harper’s and Esquire (where he met his wife) when a chance encounter at a party changed his life. An assistant production designer for the 1994 film Baby’s Day Out was looking for someone to create a faux 1930s children’s book.
“I was hired to illustrate the book, but I ended up writing a lot of it, too,” says MacDonald. Because the action had to match scenes in the book, he was required to work on set, collaborating closely with the director. As a result, he got a unique education in what works on film. (One example: If an actor’s hands are sweaty while handling a document printed on inkjet paper, the ink will come off.) MacDonald had to redraw much of his work as the action evolved. He shared a trailer with one of the producers, while the film’s entire art department of 20 people was crammed into a single trailer. “They didn’t know what to do with me,” says MacDonald.
His props for 2007’s hit film National Treasure: Book of Secrets figured prominently in the film’s plot and garnered a considerable amount of screen time. It started out with a single book and ultimately involved the creation of hundreds of documents, including maps, six books, leather-bound portfolios, illustrations and facsimiles of John Wilkes Booth’s diaries. Some were copies of actual evidence photos and documents. Others were created from scratch—Marilyn Monroe’s autopsy report, for example—requiring historical research for period accuracy.
MR. BROOKS To create handwriting reflecting the personality of a murderer, MacDonald studied the penmanship of John Wayne Gacy and other criminals.
A DEMANDING CRAFT
Props consist of anything the actor touches; everything else is set design. “A lot of people think they just tell you what to make, but that’s not the job at all,” says MacDonald. He explains that scripts are typically very sketchy when it comes to the props. A script is written primarily for dialogue, scenes and action, but there is not a lot of research done on props … and that’s where MacDonald comes in. “I’ve always had a fascination for old stuff, especially documents—how they were made, how they were produced, old writing implements and inks. I collect all kinds of things.” That, along with an early stint doing letterpress printing in a business he ran with an older brother when MacDonald was still in his teens, helped to prepare him for his specialized role as a book and document prop-maker and consultant on historical documents.
“I get called in for the preproduction stages, while there’s time to prepare and do research,” says MacDonald. This often involves lengthy investigations in places as far-flung as FBI files. “Then suddenly you’re filming, and you don’t know what time of the day or night it is. On National Treasure: Book of Secrets they were rewriting the script every day. The shooting schedule kept moving, and whatever they needed, they needed it that day. I flew to Washington with a bag of tools and materials for what was to have been a simple change. I didn’t know I would be there for five days straight, so all I had was an extra T-shirt. I worked on set and in the prop trailer, which kept moving as ‘base camp’ moved. I also worked in my hotel room, where I used strong coffee to age documents—and to keep myself awake.”
SEABISCUIT A boy’s belongings include a book which MacDonald sayswas “built from the ground up” with cover art based on an original 1930s volume.
“When I work on a movie, “ says MacDonald, “it’s pretty much all-consuming ... on the set, it’s like a black hole.”
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
MacDonald’s prop credits also include Seabiscuit, The Alamo, Infamous and The Legend of Zorro, among others. “Movie people typically don’t know about anything besides movies,” avers MacDonald. The prop master on Zorro, for example, thought a 500-page leather-bound book created during the Crusades would be printed on papyrus, when in fact vellum would have been used for a printed book of that era. “Zorro was an example of what typically happens … I started off with one or two ‘little things,’ and I ended up working on that film for six months,” says MacDonald, who estimates that film prop work now consumes more than half his time.
MacDonald’s prop books include metal hardware and leather bindings and often involve other bookbinding skills such as gold stamping and tooling. For printed work, he uses every method from traditional letterpress printing to high-resolution laser copies of his handwritten letters. “If it’s going to be read onscreen and crumpled up, I might make as many as 60 copies of a document,” says Ross. “I’ve learned to make safety copies of everything.”
For Infamous, which tells the story of how Truman Capote came to recount a rural Kansas family’s murder in the novel In Cold Blood, MacDonald had to be “the consummate forger,” copying Capote’s handwriting and that of the imprisoned killers with whom he corresponded. He also invented the handwriting of various other characters in the film. MacDonald didn’t just emulate the appearance of the writing, he actually composed hundreds of letters … after reading the script, of course. “That’s the place you have to get into to do the job,” he says. Many letters were read in Infamous, and the actors needed the letters to be “real” to stay in character. MacDonald also had to research and create historically correct envelopes and stamps, appropriate to what a prisoner would be given in Kansas City in the 1960s and what Capote would have used as a New York writer active in high society during that time.
THE ALAMO These documents and drawings were created for the character of William Travis, who commanded the Republic of Texas forces at the battle of the Alamo.
One of the killers was an amateur artist whose artistic ambitions and longings figure significantly in the story. MacDonald created hundreds of “prison” drawings based on a surviving drawing of Jesus and what little could be seen of the killer’s self-drawn tattoos.
LIGHTER FARE
In a 180-degree turnabout from Infamous, MacDonald’s current prop work is for the comedy Bride Wars, to be released in 2009. Starring Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, it’s the story of two best friends who inadvertently schedule their weddings on the same day and become “super-competitive.” MacDonald is creating a prop book for the high-end wedding planner they are both vying for. Heavy and oversized, it’s bound in Tiffany-blue suede with gold stamping, and it’s kept on a customized stand.
Odds are MacDonald will be doing much more by the time the film is done. “Part of the strategy of doing a great job,” he says, “is to get yourself more airtime … you don’t do the minimum requested. You deliver more than what is called for in the script. Then they will often essentially write a bigger scene for the prop.”
www.ross-macdonald.com
[TOP LEFT] BABY’S DAY OUT Illustrated and partly written by MacDonald, this book plays a major role in the 1994 movie. The baby’s favorite book, it tells the story of a boy’s visit to the big city. When the baby is kidnapped and taken to the city, he thinks he’s living out the adventure in the book. Says MacDonald, “Hijinx ensue.”
[TOP RIGHT] NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS Props created for the hit film include replicas of John Wilkes Booth’s diary and the pistol he used to kill President Lincoln.
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