"It's nice that you are asking about props, because they're not really acknowledged, says Jode Mann, a TV prop master in Los Angeles. When Mann worked on the children's comedy show Pee-wee's Playhouse in the 1980s, she got a call from its star, Paul Reubens, who said he was nominating her for an Emmy. It was only after Mann told her mother and promised to thank her if she won that Reubens called back to say he couldn't nominate her because there's no category for you."
"Maybe it's the sense that the job is overly logistical, or unspecialised. There is a lot of overlap with the set- and costume-design departments. But the work of a prop master is deeply creative: it is essential to the creation of a fictional universe. The real world is, after all, full of objects that we interact with (or ignore) constantly; props are what transform a staged set into a lived environment."
Props encompass every object used in a performance that is not part of the set or costumes, ranging from iconic symbols to forgotten items. Prop masters oversee sourcing and fabrication and coordinate teams to supply those objects. The role overlaps with set and costume departments but demands practical logistics and creative judgment. Prop work creates authenticity by populating staged spaces with objects people interact with or ignore, thereby transforming sets into lived environments. Despite the scope and imaginative contribution, prop mastery remains largely unrecognized within major awards and industry visibility.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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