Having had my water heater fail and spew water 15 feet across the room at full city pressure, seeing that water heater next to all that paper storage pains me a little.
Please can we get a LOONNGGGG episode of you searching through that place. So freaking epic to see all that long forgotten artwork.(Yes it is artwork) I would seriously watch a 6 hour live episode of you in there, no joke!!
haha I would definitely watch a 6 hour live episode of Adam just wondering through the shop and talking about whatever he happens to find. Big "Kid in a Candy Store" energy lol
Props to History is already making this sort of content!! I think it’s great that Adam is giving a bigger platform to content creators and independent companies!
I absolutely love it when someone has their “kid in a candy store” moment. It always puts a smile on my face even if I know absolutely nothing about the stuff they’re interested in.
There is nothing more awesome, or spirit lifting in a time of despair than seeing a grown man completely nerding out over something most people give not even a first thought, let a lone a second. I really needed this joy today. Thanks Adam.
I was already geeking out when Adam started to dig through the archives, then he got to the NASA shelves. That X-RV page was from Marooned, a movie I saw with my family when I was 12 years old, right after Apollo 12 actually landed on the Moon. Wow.
As a graphic artist myself, I am right there, with you! I want to see, and geek out over every piece. All of those typefaces and artwork would make me dizzy with happiness!
This building reminds me of a store that used to exist in Dayton, it was called Mendelson's. You would take an ancient 1930s industrial elevator (with no front door and a real operator!) to the third floor, where there were were just all sorts of vintage old mechanical and electrical components as far as the eye could see. They had an entire room just for vacuum tubes the size of apartments I've stayed in. They had old hospital computers, airplane autopilots, huge machine tools, thousands of analog needle gauges, electromechanical widgets, tape drives, industrial motors, the list went on. Every direction you looked there was something amazing to see and it was actually overstimulating. Every time I went I was looking around that floor until closing time. I know exactly how Adam feels here.
Watching Adam go through this collection and geek out over ever box and around every corner is a true joy. I also love the he has enough care for the collection that he puts everything back where he found and leaves it the way he found it.
Meanwhile others lamenting him putting labeled box lids on backwards and putting it back on the shelf and not wearing gloves while handling the stuff. 😂
Man, I'd LOVE to see more paper props from specific movies. The Daily Bugle newspaper from Spider-Man comes to mind. This place seems like an absolute treasure trove, and seeing the incredible level of detail these things that most people wouldn't pay much attention to is just incredible. These things certainly don't get NEARLY the amount of love and respect as something like a prop weapon or costume piece.
I would guess they only keep general purpose props that can be reused across different movies. There is little point keeping a prop that is specific to a particular movie, since it's unlikely it would be needed for another movie, or that they would even have rights to resell it for another movie.
@@NohusBluxome But that's just not the case. We've seen in other videos of this place things like the ID cards from Bladerunner and the license plates from Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, and I'm sure many others we didn't see. Clearly they do keep props from specific movies, not just general things. I guess part of it may be for history and preservation, another part may be in case studios ever want to reboot a franchise and they need these specific props again.
@@ARDIZsq plus I know for a fact that some movies will use props from other movies as as sort of shootout to keen eyed viewers. like there was one movie that had a custom made news pepper (not the one whit the fire in some apartment that used over and over again). and it was used in another movie in the background.
I work at the Johnson Space Center on the modern equivalent of Flight Crew Experiment Guides! I never would've thought Adam would find replicas of the primogenesis of the projects I work on; that's too cool.
I've always wondered how they differentiate "movie money" from real money. What steps do they take to prevent someone on set from pocketing the fake stuff and passing it off as real? And what is the legal difference between making "movie money" vs counterfeiting? I wish Adam had talked about that.
There's a good video on that exact topic made by PropToHistory. th-cam.com/video/mhOQo_h5knQ/w-d-xo.html The short answer is, they put some obvious give-aways like "in props we trust", or something else that isn't genuine. The ink is a different color, the paper feels different, etc. The fake stuff likely isn't going to fool many people if someone were dumb enough to take some off set, and try to spend it.
These last few videos have been very cool. I helped run my father's commercial print shop for a few years and learned to run all of the equipment from old letter presses to an Indigo Digital Printing press when they were relatively new in the mid to late 90s.
I imagine a not-too-distant future when someone able to operate old letter presses, etc, will be like the current people who can create truly fine armor replicas.
Indigo's were really nice bits of kit when they came out. "Liquid Toner" based, screens in the 300's, later units handled hexachrome, along with clear coating. Big problem - you could erase their marking with a pink-pearl eraser. Not good when you're doing statement printing.
@@fredinit Yes it was pretty cool, my father had the first one in Rhode Island. I spent a lot of time running ours. We used it for lots of small one off jobs, postcards for artists, company logos that go under clear pen caps etc.
I've been absolutely thrilled watching this series of videos with both Adam and @propstohistory. I had no idea that this place existed before I saw it here on this channel, and I've been diving in since. It's fascinating to see so much cinema history consolidated in one place, and know the legacy of a shop working so hard for so long to create things that we've all seen countless times but probably didn't pay close attention to. Adam's joy in every episode has been palpable and contagious (especially watching him make a Bladerunner ID with the original equipment), and I'm so happy that he has had the opportunity to explore and handle so many timeless props. Keep exploring, and sharing the amazing discoveries!
I agree, these videos are a joy to watch, both for seeing Adam so excited, but it also taps into something that i like. To many people they're just pieces of paper, but i love how they've been part of the creative process and imagination of the movie that they were used in. I would also be over the Moon if i got some official prop from a movie that i love, for instance, Moon (2009), owning an item that was maybe not used in the movie itself, but the prop still is official, it would make me feel like i am still a bit part of that universe. I almost bought a couple of gross Jelly beans that were used as props in Moon, but the sensible part in my brain prevented me from spending way too much on a bag of turned/molded/liquid beans. I did almost buy the fake mp3 player they used during the "I'm walking on Sunshine" scene, where he's in the yellow jumpsuit before they start fighting. It was some cheap AM/FM world radio that you could fold shut, with a Mini-Disc disc case glued to one side of it, and flipped it so that the disc case would be at the bottom. It did not have the digital screen, as that was CGI'ed on afterwards. It was $250 at the time on eBay (around 2010), but once i convinced myself to buy it, it was gone. The Rover scale models went for $450 to $600 i think, i'm sure they'll be over a couple of grand by now. But i am thinking of making my own mp3 player prop, it would be the first prop i'd make. But i'm already thinking, should i just make the prop as it was, or do i make it the way it turns out in the movie (faking the CGI screen, as i'm too lazy to program the actual digital stuff).
I worked at WPAFB for an Intel wing and we were tasked with possibly getting rid of an overflow library collection (about 40k sq feet) floor to ceiling of books and magazines from all over the world from about the mid sixties to 80's. This was from a program where they got a copy of literally every book or magazine printed in the world. I was wandering down an aisle and ran across some of the original NASA Apollo manuals like Adam was looking at. I got chills. They were actually planning to just throw all of this stuff in the trash. The head librarian, whom I knew, was just about in tears. All the rest of us could do was shake our heads. I no longer wrk there so I don't know what became of this gold mine of information.
My local library cleared out the magazine stacks in the basement. At least they sold what they could to collectors. I just didn't know about it till after the event. They did say none went to recyclers.
Yeah, the military doesn't give a sh!t. MY grandfather worked as a civil service building maintenance supervisor at LAFB and every year, just to make sure they spent every penny of budget money so they would get the same or more, they completely cleared out, and threw away, an entire office building of everything from furniture to paperclips. Store rooms of unopened boxes of pens, reams of paper, etc. He took what he could home, my mother and her siblings plus my brother and I never had to buy pens, pencils or notebooks for the entire time we went to school, not to mention home office supplies. I still have a box with just a few pens left and an old stapler.
Thanks for the blast from MY past! I did the exact same thing with my high school's hall passes. For an afterschool job, I worked in a public library and had access to the same color light blue paper my school used for their hall passes and also had IBM Selectric II typewriters. Set that to 1.5 line spacing and I had a bunch of "blue slips" to hand out. I didn't go to the trouble of making a rubber stamp because most of the teachers' handwriting on blue slips was illegible anyway. Anyone seeing a student in the hall during class would see the blue slip in the student's hand and think nothing more of it.
I'm really confused. American school kids need a pass to use the hallway? Do you have to pay for those? Do they have to climb through the window without a pass? Do you also need other passes, like a toilet pass, cafeteria pass, yard pass?
@@Nickname-hier-einfuegen They show that a teacher knows why you are out of a classroom during class time, not just some kid screwing around in the hallway/bathroom.
@@Nickname-hier-einfuegen Freedom, you wouldn't get it. As an europoor I don't get it either, sounds like getting kids used to a dystopia. Us savages simply can't see the emperors clothes.
@@Nickname-hier-einfuegen At certain times and places in schools across the US, the "hall pass" was some form of token that allowed a student to be roaming the halls during the classroom learning periods. To obtain one normally, a student requests it of their teacher. Students outside of a classroom without a hall pass may be assumed to be truant and possibly up to mischief. A hall pass may be used for any number of reasons, but most common is visiting the toilets or administration. Hall monitors (sometimes students, more often faculty and staff) police the hallways during class periods. The use of hall passes is not universal (little about any given school policy or framework is universal across the nation), with different regions and teaching/administrative philosophies taking different approaches. Some schools implicitly trust their students to be present and to behave as they should. Other schools are locked down much more firmly, and the parallels to prisons are often alluded to by both the population and popular culture.
I find any nerd enthusiastically describing their interests, and the reason why it’s interesting, to be super engaging. By the end of this episode I was wondering if there are local classes that teach you how to operate a printing press and if I should change my career. :D Thanks for pumping out content like this.
I'm not a movie buff/nerd by any stretch of the imagination, but I've been thoroughly enjoying all of these videos, and also seeing the look of happiness you have while rummaging through all these props. One thing that's been striking me the most is the quality of all of this, and how well preserved they all seem to be. Many of these things are at least several decades old, yet most of them look almost as good as new (at least the ones Adam showed to the camera, tho I'm sure that even the other stuff not shown here must be pretty much in the same condition).
9:13 Love how Adam puts the instructions back with the other ones. Awesome video. A really fun exercise would've been to think of a few paper props from movies and try to find them in the warehouse!
What Steve Irwing was for animals is Adam Savage for geek-stuff, movie props and building things. Same energy and enthusiasm. And you can tell he realy knows and cares about the stuff he talks about.
The files would be a gold mine for prop collectors! Those little paper props would take any collection to another level. As a diorama maker it would be awesome to scale some of this stuff down to match. That would add so much detail. So many uses!
Love how an isle full of period correct paperwork has Adam like a kid in a candy shop. Second. It amazes me that a prop house or prop master can make sure something as mundane as stationary is correct to the year, but keeping track of how many shots a gun fires is nearly impossible.
The JOY expressed by you in this vid brought tears to my eyes. Memories of a child walking into Toys-R-Us for the first time. Thank you for sharing such a tug on the heartstrings moment with us!! So happy you got this opportunity, and yes a little jealous hehe.
Man, I used to love going to the toy stores when I was a kid. Every time Mom dragged us to the mall for boring shit like clothes and shoes, we always made a stop at the Toys-R-Us or KB Toys stores. Walking through the aisles, seeing all the cool toys, thinking OMG IS THIS HEAVEN?? Pointing out the things I wanted Santa to bring me in December. Makes me really sad to think about it, since most toy stores are closed and Amazon reigns supreme. Sure, Target has a few toy aisles, but its not the same as a whole dang store.
@@NitaKerns Here's a couple more "memories" to tug the heart with... You mention Santa. How about going through the big Sears Catalog as a kid, dog-earing and circling all the things you wanted from "Santa" lol Or your first time at a true Hobby Store... Ohh the smell of that model glue!! lol Building your first AFX Racing track. Ever build a Lionel or HO scale train setup on a sheet of plywood...
You put a few boxes back label facing IN! they will never find them now! When I was in High school I took Tech drawing, the class was in the printing and darkroom area, they litterly made the hall passes there, I could have anything I wanted, and did... we even learned to forge Mr. Forester's scribble... could go anywhere I wanted. what a fantastic collection of stuff here. A real treasure.
Oh, Adam, I was already a loyal fan, but your exploration of this print shop and the graphics history here - well, this old graphic artist (who knows exactly what rubylith is and what it smells like) is now in love. You could do 100s of episodes here and I would love every one of them! 💕
This was such a fun dive into some of the stuff they have. I could easily have watched another hour (at least) of Adam going through boxes and enthusing about everything there. I can easily imagine he had hundreds of new photos on his phone after his wander around!
until a few days ago I had no idea this wonderful collection existed. But now I just look at all that paper treasure and rejoice that they managed to keep from combusting in so many years. Please for the love of everything this collection must be preserved, protected, digitized, archived for posterity.
I've always been curious about fake money in movies. How do they deal with the legality of printing near replicas of actual currency? Specifically for US currency, there's a whole body of law protecting it, and the very act of printing something similar to actual fiat is illegal. Are there special permissions that the prop house has to get from the Secret Service? Is there guidelines for how to create fake money for use in the film? Is everyone just on the honor system or something?
I think you can actually hear moments when Adam's soul explodes from happiness. Its so much fun to watch someone be completely enveloped (eyyy 😋) in the things that bring them such immense joy. Its probably so dang thrilling to be picking through props and getting your hands on something from a favorite film. Would be cool if some of the stuff Michael uncovers at EHP was toured around the country!
There’s something to be felt as a long time Mythbusters fan, just watching Adam Savage explore this prop shop/warehouse. It almost brings me back to watching the very first episode of Mythbusters when it aired. I get this feeling of happiness and nostalgia, and hope that content like this continues. Adam radiates a sense of overall excitement in a way that his audience can even feel it and it all happens so naturally. It’s hard to believe I was just 11 when that first episode aired.
I'm a stagehand, a certain hotel we work in sometimes has a garage next door with a discount for employees of the hotel. They wouldn't give it to us so I made a fake hotel badge and now I get the discount. I used to make props when I was a kid, the first one I ever copied was the golden idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I still have it.
This series is incredible! I'm a Graphic Designer but unfortunately it feels like the glory days of print are mostly gone. Who knows what the future holds though.
Print is definitely not gone! I worked as a data analyst for a newer B2B printing company and there's still a huge amount of money going through the industry. Offset is definitely going to die out though as inkjet is becoming better and cheaper, although stained by its history. Public use might be lower than before, but business use is still going strong. Packaging has gained a boost and even company invoice paper is still being used a lot (some companies even choose special finishes for their invoices). I'm happy things are online more and more as the paper making process/offset printing is so wasteful, even though the results are nice. I feel like good next steps are non-wood papers (like mycelium paper) and inks (fungi dyes).
I do think that iconic physical props are getting rarer, but yeah, as Caspar also said, printing in itself is not gone, it just shifted focus on different parts.
@@CasparAbelmann I'd not be in favor of fungi paper, the idea of all these fungi particles floating around.. I mean, i'm not saying that wood dust is good for you, but i feel like fungi particles are more... alive, they might have more to feed from once they enter our lungs and stuff. I'm fearing fungal growths in places we don't want them to grow.
The thing I love is that for all the accuracy they put into replicating all kinds of other documents, the money they can not put full accuracy into or they'd literally be printing accurate indistinguishable money, not that that's beyond their capabilities
I’ve never been so interested in vintage drivers licenses etc as I am when watching Adam get excited here. It’s wonderful to see and his enthusiasm is absolutely infectious!
Adam, been a longtime fan watching and learning from you for 16 years now, you haven’t lost an ounce of passion and I could watch you explain anything in detail, that how exciting you make it!
I hope they let Adam walk away with a couple of choice items they have a lot of in addition to that cool Bladerunner ID. All that NASA stuff sitting around...I'm sure he could find a great place to display it. This must have been Heaven for him!
I love these videos of Adam completely nerding out over the sheer number and types of printed props - I too was nerding out over the NASA ones! The best part was Adam saying "I'll see you guys next time" as he dives back into the stacks!
Between this place, the Met armoury and the royal society content, I think this is some of the best content you’ve been putting out. Been absolutely loving it!!
Really good segment. I knew that there were a lot of what could be called minor prop used in movies, but I never knew that the level of detail that went into them. Some of these items are only seen for a few seconds in a scene and were so detailed, it is amazing!
The thing that gets me with Adam is that his excitement gets me excited about things that I never even knew about. "Application for loan contracts". I now need to know what those made for
There is a trick to get high detail prints from typical laser printer. most of the images we send to them are in a rasterized format which is limited by file size and any distortions from descaling during the printing process. Even with large file sizes you still tend to see those Anti-alias edges meant for a pixel display. may printer are actually capable of finer detail then you typically see from a 300 DPI image file. Instead of trying to send larger raster files, one way to bypass that limitation is to directly print a vector based file on a compatible printer and allow the printers software to interpret the vector image at it's best native DPI. It's kind of surreal seeing a desktop printer pop out super high quality prints that you don't normally see from that printing process.
That's pretty interesting. Is their a way to combine a raster file, and a vector file into one image format? I imagine a vector format isn't going to work well for something that isn't a series of lines, like say a photograph. Vector might work really well for things with printing on them.
@@stevesether that's an interesting question. you can convert simple images into vector images in something like adobe Illustrator, but your right that that's really bad for photos. you get results like the famous Obama campaign portrait. it might be possible to run something through the printer twice to combine photo elements with with vector graphics. like an ID badge for example, you might be able to print the badge in from a vector file and then print the photo portrait on a second pass. I've never tried it, it sounds like a fun experiment.
@@RichardGQue That's exactly what I was thinking would be worth trying, i.e. running it through twice if there wasn't some sort of hybrid language that supported both raster, and vector in one file.
Seeing these old printed ephemera like the coat check tags, custom match books, ID cards, tickets, misc forms, letterhead, envelopes etc. reminds me how many day to day items were printed to suit and we just don't do that anymore, even though you could do it on a home computer rather than having a print shop do them. At the time that Hayes Press started there were local printers doing small jobs like this everywhere, several per town probably. Hayes Press just just kept doing it over the years for the movies after all the other shops were gone.
Was anybody else nervous seeing that water tank in the background? You’ve got gas, open flame and pressurized water in close proximity to irreplaceable items. Maybe its not a big deal but ??? Maybe a halon flood fire retardant system is in order.
6:04 You have to love the water heater in the back of a paper goods storage and the possible massive failure damage that could cause as demonstrated by the guy going through those paper goods.
As someone who worked for six or so months in a museum archive, mad respect to them for letting him wander unsupervised. They know he knows how to handle these things, so there's no worry he'll damage anything. My boss would never.
I've done a few small props for a friend's independent films. I just cheerfully accepted the challenging of jumping into the deep end to make fake money, both a late 1800's bill and a more recent one. Learning about the process of how they're done has been great. This video couldn't be better timed for inspiration!
Something I'd love to see in a future vid would showing the minor "errors" props like money have in movies, the stuff that probably won't show up on screen but does tell "this is a movie prop" when handled personally.
That's because the place isn't open to the public and places like that are kept a secret so the buildings aren't burglarized and stuff is stolen or damaged.
Today's HD remasters of shows like Star Trek the Next Generation answer that question. When filming on the bridge of the hotel Enterprise, it was impossible to keep the reflection of the studio lighting reflecting off the lcars panels in the background. The solution to this at the time was to simply tape black card stock over the spots that were reflecting for that scene. You were never going to see it when it was televised anyway. Until they remastered it into the latest high-definition where you can see every bit of it and they had to go back and digitally fix it all to remove it. Not saying they had the foresight in the industry to be thinking of that future, but it absolutely matters.
99% of the time, they weren't really needed, especially considering the limitations of the resolutions of screens (film or TV) at the time. But since the Earl Hayes printers probably didn't know if a thing was going to be a "hero" piece (highlighted in close-up on screen) or just background clutter, they made it look as real as possible just in case.
It being pre his move over here to the UK, the first thing I thought of when you entered the money section, was the yapping dog/money-spilling scene at the end of Stanley’s The Killing. Stanley loved our British craftspeople, but back in 55/56, I’m sure he’d have been more than happy to get the artists at Earl Hayes to make and supply such a cool prop. Great video as always Mr Savage 👍🏻
I can completely relate to your history of counterfeiting in school. I remember one time I was meant to get something signed for a field trip but I lost the signed sheet, my teacher was kind of an ass so I didn't want to ask for a new one and the sheet was due at the end of the day. So I got my friends signed sheet, photocopied it, edited it in paint, removed all the artefacts from the photocopier, erased his moms signature and aligned it properly on the sheet. Then spent about an hour practicing my moms signature and signed it myself. We didn't have hall passes but we did have ID cards for a short period of time, sometimes I really wasn't bothered to come into school so I made a copy of my ID and had some website print like 10 of them, I borrowed a mag strip reader/writer and copied all the data over so it worked with the sign in machines. So If I didn't want to come in I'd have my friend sign in for me with the copied card. I did the same for a few other people. We were never caught but they quietly got rid of the ID cards after a year. It was really fun and I got pretty good at copying documents/signatures.
As someone who works in props it’s awesome seeing stuff like this. The genuine appreciation is very much appreciated! I would love to see you visit more prop warehouses, there’s also a propmaster out of Texas who has a youtube channel called Scott prop and roll, I’d love to see you guys chat sometime
Places like this and old sheds and backrooms and basements or garages are just magical with all the amazing things you can find and the feeling of all the history
What really blows my mind is the work that is put into all of those things, weeks, maybe months of work of several people.....that shows up in a movie for 10 seconds...
Or less. Or never gets seen. It's pretty amazing the work that goes into dressing a scene that may only be a few seconds. But if an actor throws a bunch of paperwork at someone, slams it down on the desk, drops a bundle of banknotes.. You don't really want it to show as blank. And on the subject of paperwork, I wonder how much is involved in being allowed to make photo-realistic copies of official documents, many of which are illegal to copy or reproduce? I know there are strict rules around prop money, but guess they're stricter now that the money needs to look real with 4K or 8K filming.
At a german railway museum I once saw a steam train they dressed up for use in a vodka commercial. Every plate with text on it was replaced with kyrillic letters, even in the drivers cab. Nothing of that was even remotely seen in the finished spot.
Having had my water heater fail and spew water 15 feet across the room at full city pressure, seeing that water heater next to all that paper storage pains me a little.
Yikes
Also having seen the Mythbusters episode where they make a bomb out of a water heater.
@@user-fk8zw5js2pyeah don't take active steps to turn your water heater into a pressure bomb rocket and you won't have that problem. 😂
Water leaks or fire would be disastrous here. Wish they would work to prevent that.
That was my first thought as well...
I love the amount of respect they have for Adam as a prop master and artist that they let him wonder unsupervised through the warehouse.
....and if he misplaced something....how would they ever know?
Misplaced something? We know who we're talking about right?
“Unsupervised”. You know besides the camera crew and the camera watching him.
@@GeeT-yt2eh You mean the camera person that works for Adam Savage? So yes, still unsupervised in the sense that nobody from the printers was there.
@@angelfigueroa6825 simple minds are amazed at simple things I guess.
Adam starting his prop career by faking Hall Passes is the most Adam backstory possible & i love it
Yeah, that’s some true Adam Savage tomfoolery that I totally would have liked to witness haha
Please can we get a LOONNGGGG episode of you searching through that place. So freaking epic to see all that long forgotten artwork.(Yes it is artwork) I would seriously watch a 6 hour live episode of you in there, no joke!!
8-4-23
Maybe an unedited release of this.
start a podcast with Props to history just weekly "today we're going through this shelf!"
haha I would definitely watch a 6 hour live episode of Adam just wondering through the shop and talking about whatever he happens to find. Big "Kid in a Candy Store" energy lol
Props to History is already making this sort of content!! I think it’s great that Adam is giving a bigger platform to content creators and independent companies!
That would be awesome
I have rewatched this video many, many times . Adam Savage talking about types of movie paper is one of the most relaxing things to me.
I absolutely love it when someone has their “kid in a candy store” moment. It always puts a smile on my face even if I know absolutely nothing about the stuff they’re interested in.
There is nothing more awesome, or spirit lifting in a time of despair than seeing a grown man completely nerding out over something most people give not even a first thought, let a lone a second. I really needed this joy today. Thanks Adam.
I was already geeking out when Adam started to dig through the archives, then he got to the NASA shelves. That X-RV page was from Marooned, a movie I saw with my family when I was 12 years old, right after Apollo 12 actually landed on the Moon. Wow.
Dude, I work as a graphician in a printshop, and I could literally watch this for 10 hours or more. Designing these pieces are the literal dream job!
As a graphic artist myself, I am right there, with you! I want to see, and geek out over every piece. All of those typefaces and artwork would make me dizzy with happiness!
This building reminds me of a store that used to exist in Dayton, it was called Mendelson's. You would take an ancient 1930s industrial elevator (with no front door and a real operator!) to the third floor, where there were were just all sorts of vintage old mechanical and electrical components as far as the eye could see. They had an entire room just for vacuum tubes the size of apartments I've stayed in. They had old hospital computers, airplane autopilots, huge machine tools, thousands of analog needle gauges, electromechanical widgets, tape drives, industrial motors, the list went on. Every direction you looked there was something amazing to see and it was actually overstimulating. Every time I went I was looking around that floor until closing time. I know exactly how Adam feels here.
Mendelsons was a go to place grwing up. No matter what you needed, if you looked long enough, you'd find it.
It was great ordering from over the years.
Was so sorry when it closed. Shopped there so often, and delighted in meeting Sandy Mendelson from time to time. His passing was the end of an era.
Sounds like Adam would have been in seventh heaven there!
Watching Adam go through this collection and geek out over ever box and around every corner is a true joy. I also love the he has enough care for the collection that he puts everything back where he found and leaves it the way he found it.
Meanwhile others lamenting him putting labeled box lids on backwards and putting it back on the shelf and not wearing gloves while handling the stuff. 😂
Except that, you know, he didn't leave all of it the way he found it. 😅
Man, I'd LOVE to see more paper props from specific movies. The Daily Bugle newspaper from Spider-Man comes to mind. This place seems like an absolute treasure trove, and seeing the incredible level of detail these things that most people wouldn't pay much attention to is just incredible. These things certainly don't get NEARLY the amount of love and respect as something like a prop weapon or costume piece.
I was wondering if we'd see any of the Joker Dollars that were supposedly in a deleted/unfilmed scene from the '89 Batman movie.
I would guess they only keep general purpose props that can be reused across different movies. There is little point keeping a prop that is specific to a particular movie, since it's unlikely it would be needed for another movie, or that they would even have rights to resell it for another movie.
@@NohusBluxome But that's just not the case. We've seen in other videos of this place things like the ID cards from Bladerunner and the license plates from Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, and I'm sure many others we didn't see. Clearly they do keep props from specific movies, not just general things. I guess part of it may be for history and preservation, another part may be in case studios ever want to reboot a franchise and they need these specific props again.
@@ARDIZsq plus I know for a fact that some movies will use props from other movies as as sort of shootout to keen eyed viewers.
like there was one movie that had a custom made news pepper (not the one whit the fire in some apartment that used over and over again).
and it was used in another movie in the background.
I hope Tested continues to come back to this place for years to come!
Adam has a side gig as a world renowned forger and this is how he admits to and advertises it for new clients. 😂
As a movie fan and printing engineer I can't tell you how much I love your series of videos from that marvelous place...
I work at the Johnson Space Center on the modern equivalent of Flight Crew Experiment Guides! I never would've thought Adam would find replicas of the primogenesis of the projects I work on; that's too cool.
I've always wondered how they differentiate "movie money" from real money. What steps do they take to prevent someone on set from pocketing the fake stuff and passing it off as real? And what is the legal difference between making "movie money" vs counterfeiting? I wish Adam had talked about that.
There's a good video on that exact topic made by PropToHistory. th-cam.com/video/mhOQo_h5knQ/w-d-xo.html
The short answer is, they put some obvious give-aways like "in props we trust", or something else that isn't genuine. The ink is a different color, the paper feels different, etc. The fake stuff likely isn't going to fool many people if someone were dumb enough to take some off set, and try to spend it.
@@stevesether Thanks!
Do an image search for examples of movie money.
These last few videos have been very cool. I helped run my father's commercial print shop for a few years and learned to run all of the equipment from old letter presses to an Indigo Digital Printing press when they were relatively new in the mid to late 90s.
I imagine a not-too-distant future when someone able to operate old letter presses, etc, will be like the current people who can create truly fine armor replicas.
Indigo's were really nice bits of kit when they came out. "Liquid Toner" based, screens in the 300's, later units handled hexachrome, along with clear coating. Big problem - you could erase their marking with a pink-pearl eraser. Not good when you're doing statement printing.
@@fredinit Yes it was pretty cool, my father had the first one in Rhode Island. I spent a lot of time running ours. We used it for lots of small one off jobs, postcards for artists, company logos that go under clear pen caps etc.
I've been absolutely thrilled watching this series of videos with both Adam and @propstohistory. I had no idea that this place existed before I saw it here on this channel, and I've been diving in since. It's fascinating to see so much cinema history consolidated in one place, and know the legacy of a shop working so hard for so long to create things that we've all seen countless times but probably didn't pay close attention to. Adam's joy in every episode has been palpable and contagious (especially watching him make a Bladerunner ID with the original equipment), and I'm so happy that he has had the opportunity to explore and handle so many timeless props. Keep exploring, and sharing the amazing discoveries!
I agree, these videos are a joy to watch, both for seeing Adam so excited, but it also taps into something that i like.
To many people they're just pieces of paper, but i love how they've been part of the creative process and imagination of the movie that they were used in.
I would also be over the Moon if i got some official prop from a movie that i love, for instance, Moon (2009), owning an item that was maybe not used in the movie itself, but the prop still is official, it would make me feel like i am still a bit part of that universe.
I almost bought a couple of gross Jelly beans that were used as props in Moon, but the sensible part in my brain prevented me from spending way too much on a bag of turned/molded/liquid beans.
I did almost buy the fake mp3 player they used during the "I'm walking on Sunshine" scene, where he's in the yellow jumpsuit before they start fighting.
It was some cheap AM/FM world radio that you could fold shut, with a Mini-Disc disc case glued to one side of it, and flipped it so that the disc case would be at the bottom.
It did not have the digital screen, as that was CGI'ed on afterwards.
It was $250 at the time on eBay (around 2010), but once i convinced myself to buy it, it was gone.
The Rover scale models went for $450 to $600 i think, i'm sure they'll be over a couple of grand by now.
But i am thinking of making my own mp3 player prop, it would be the first prop i'd make.
But i'm already thinking, should i just make the prop as it was, or do i make it the way it turns out in the movie (faking the CGI screen, as i'm too lazy to program the actual digital stuff).
I worked at WPAFB for an Intel wing and we were tasked with possibly getting rid of an overflow library collection (about 40k sq feet) floor to ceiling of books and magazines from all over the world from about the mid sixties to 80's. This was from a program where they got a copy of literally every book or magazine printed in the world. I was wandering down an aisle and ran across some of the original NASA Apollo manuals like Adam was looking at. I got chills. They were actually planning to just throw all of this stuff in the trash. The head librarian, whom I knew, was just about in tears. All the rest of us could do was shake our heads. I no longer wrk there so I don't know what became of this gold mine of information.
My local library cleared out the magazine stacks in the basement. At least they sold what they could to collectors. I just didn't know about it till after the event. They did say none went to recyclers.
@@michaelscheel9533 They had some convoluted reason why they couldn't donate it or sell it at auction. Tragic.
Yeah, the military doesn't give a sh!t. MY grandfather worked as a civil service building maintenance supervisor at LAFB and every year, just to make sure they spent every penny of budget money so they would get the same or more, they completely cleared out, and threw away, an entire office building of everything from furniture to paperclips. Store rooms of unopened boxes of pens, reams of paper, etc. He took what he could home, my mother and her siblings plus my brother and I never had to buy pens, pencils or notebooks for the entire time we went to school, not to mention home office supplies. I still have a box with just a few pens left and an old stapler.
I would have taken some of that stuff home. Or at least tried to.
@@9Tailsfan Not with a few Staff Sargents and a couple of Colonels standing there. But, yeah, i thought about it for a second lol.
You’re excitement is contagious.
Adam could do his own version of Objectivity in here. It would be great to learn about these pieces & how they made them.
Yes! He should invite Brady and Keith
Thanks for the blast from MY past! I did the exact same thing with my high school's hall passes. For an afterschool job, I worked in a public library and had access to the same color light blue paper my school used for their hall passes and also had IBM Selectric II typewriters. Set that to 1.5 line spacing and I had a bunch of "blue slips" to hand out. I didn't go to the trouble of making a rubber stamp because most of the teachers' handwriting on blue slips was illegible anyway. Anyone seeing a student in the hall during class would see the blue slip in the student's hand and think nothing more of it.
I'm really confused. American school kids need a pass to use the hallway? Do you have to pay for those? Do they have to climb through the window without a pass? Do you also need other passes, like a toilet pass, cafeteria pass, yard pass?
@@Nickname-hier-einfuegen They show that a teacher knows why you are out of a classroom during class time, not just some kid screwing around in the hallway/bathroom.
@@Nickname-hier-einfuegen Freedom, you wouldn't get it.
As an europoor I don't get it either, sounds like getting kids used to a dystopia. Us savages simply can't see the emperors clothes.
@@Nickname-hier-einfuegen At certain times and places in schools across the US, the "hall pass" was some form of token that allowed a student to be roaming the halls during the classroom learning periods. To obtain one normally, a student requests it of their teacher. Students outside of a classroom without a hall pass may be assumed to be truant and possibly up to mischief. A hall pass may be used for any number of reasons, but most common is visiting the toilets or administration. Hall monitors (sometimes students, more often faculty and staff) police the hallways during class periods.
The use of hall passes is not universal (little about any given school policy or framework is universal across the nation), with different regions and teaching/administrative philosophies taking different approaches. Some schools implicitly trust their students to be present and to behave as they should. Other schools are locked down much more firmly, and the parallels to prisons are often alluded to by both the population and popular culture.
This should be a Show.... on Discovery.... with that Props to History guy...
I find any nerd enthusiastically describing their interests, and the reason why it’s interesting, to be super engaging. By the end of this episode I was wondering if there are local classes that teach you how to operate a printing press and if I should change my career. :D Thanks for pumping out content like this.
RIGHT? I dont even own a home printer, but now Im like I COULD RUN A PRINTING PRESS, NO BIGGIE.
❤ Please keep coming back here every now and then on a permanent basis to show a little bit more. Truly remarkable what they all have!
You never stop making amazing content.
Adams excitement still brings me the same joy as when I was 16 years old watching Mythbusters
Gosh, I miss the old team...
I'm not a movie buff/nerd by any stretch of the imagination, but I've been thoroughly enjoying all of these videos, and also seeing the look of happiness you have while rummaging through all these props. One thing that's been striking me the most is the quality of all of this, and how well preserved they all seem to be. Many of these things are at least several decades old, yet most of them look almost as good as new (at least the ones Adam showed to the camera, tho I'm sure that even the other stuff not shown here must be pretty much in the same condition).
9:13 Love how Adam puts the instructions back with the other ones. Awesome video. A really fun exercise would've been to think of a few paper props from movies and try to find them in the warehouse!
What Steve Irwing was for animals is Adam Savage for geek-stuff, movie props and building things.
Same energy and enthusiasm. And you can tell he realy knows and cares about the stuff he talks about.
I would love to see this ALL digitized, saved and made available for purchase.
The files would be a gold mine for prop collectors! Those little paper props would take any collection to another level. As a diorama maker it would be awesome to scale some of this stuff down to match. That would add so much detail. So many uses!
Obviously not the fake money, lDs and documents . Or anything that looks like government stuff. That would look way too sus.
@9Tailsfan Very true but that still leaves thousands of awesome props.
Phenomenal DND props
Love how an isle full of period correct paperwork has Adam like a kid in a candy shop.
Second. It amazes me that a prop house or prop master can make sure something as mundane as stationary is correct to the year, but keeping track of how many shots a gun fires is nearly impossible.
They can't even manage "Duz dis gun have buhletz in it!"
Imagine the monumental task of the guy who has to go behind Adam cleaning up all the drool...
Ha!
Adam's like a kid in a candy store, I love it.
The JOY expressed by you in this vid brought tears to my eyes. Memories of a child walking into Toys-R-Us for the first time.
Thank you for sharing such a tug on the heartstrings moment with us!! So happy you got this opportunity, and yes a little jealous hehe.
Man, I used to love going to the toy stores when I was a kid. Every time Mom dragged us to the mall for boring shit like clothes and shoes, we always made a stop at the Toys-R-Us or KB Toys stores. Walking through the aisles, seeing all the cool toys, thinking OMG IS THIS HEAVEN?? Pointing out the things I wanted Santa to bring me in December. Makes me really sad to think about it, since most toy stores are closed and Amazon reigns supreme. Sure, Target has a few toy aisles, but its not the same as a whole dang store.
@@NitaKerns Here's a couple more "memories" to tug the heart with...
You mention Santa. How about going through the big Sears Catalog as a kid, dog-earing and circling all the things you wanted from "Santa" lol
Or your first time at a true Hobby Store... Ohh the smell of that model glue!! lol
Building your first AFX Racing track.
Ever build a Lionel or HO scale train setup on a sheet of plywood...
You put a few boxes back label facing IN! they will never find them now! When I was in High school I took Tech drawing, the class was in the printing and darkroom area, they litterly made the hall passes there, I could have anything I wanted, and did... we even learned to forge Mr. Forester's scribble... could go anywhere I wanted. what a fantastic collection of stuff here. A real treasure.
Oh, Adam, I was already a loyal fan, but your exploration of this print shop and the graphics history here - well, this old graphic artist (who knows exactly what rubylith is and what it smells like) is now in love. You could do 100s of episodes here and I would love every one of them! 💕
This was such a fun dive into some of the stuff they have. I could easily have watched another hour (at least) of Adam going through boxes and enthusing about everything there. I can easily imagine he had hundreds of new photos on his phone after his wander around!
That video is way too short. More of it please. Tons of extremely impressive stuff. Big applause to those that created all this.
until a few days ago I had no idea this wonderful collection existed.
But now I just look at all that paper treasure and rejoice that they managed to keep from combusting in so many years. Please for the love of everything this collection must be preserved, protected, digitized, archived for posterity.
I've always been curious about fake money in movies. How do they deal with the legality of printing near replicas of actual currency? Specifically for US currency, there's a whole body of law protecting it, and the very act of printing something similar to actual fiat is illegal. Are there special permissions that the prop house has to get from the Secret Service? Is there guidelines for how to create fake money for use in the film? Is everyone just on the honor system or something?
I think most of it says on it somewhere “prop money” or “for film use”, things like that.
I think you can actually hear moments when Adam's soul explodes from happiness. Its so much fun to watch someone be completely enveloped (eyyy 😋) in the things that bring them such immense joy. Its probably so dang thrilling to be picking through props and getting your hands on something from a favorite film. Would be cool if some of the stuff Michael uncovers at EHP was toured around the country!
There’s something to be felt as a long time Mythbusters fan, just watching Adam Savage explore this prop shop/warehouse. It almost brings me back to watching the very first episode of Mythbusters when it aired. I get this feeling of happiness and nostalgia, and hope that content like this continues. Adam radiates a sense of overall excitement in a way that his audience can even feel it and it all happens so naturally. It’s hard to believe I was just 11 when that first episode aired.
I love Adam's excitement. His love and admiration of where he is and what he's seeing makes this video so much better.
I'm a stagehand, a certain hotel we work in sometimes has a garage next door with a discount for employees of the hotel. They wouldn't give it to us so I made a fake hotel badge and now I get the discount. I used to make props when I was a kid, the first one I ever copied was the golden idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark. I still have it.
This series is incredible! I'm a Graphic Designer but unfortunately it feels like the glory days of print are mostly gone. Who knows what the future holds though.
Print is definitely not gone! I worked as a data analyst for a newer B2B printing company and there's still a huge amount of money going through the industry. Offset is definitely going to die out though as inkjet is becoming better and cheaper, although stained by its history. Public use might be lower than before, but business use is still going strong. Packaging has gained a boost and even company invoice paper is still being used a lot (some companies even choose special finishes for their invoices). I'm happy things are online more and more as the paper making process/offset printing is so wasteful, even though the results are nice. I feel like good next steps are non-wood papers (like mycelium paper) and inks (fungi dyes).
I do think that iconic physical props are getting rarer, but yeah, as Caspar also said, printing in itself is not gone, it just shifted focus on different parts.
@@CasparAbelmann I'd not be in favor of fungi paper, the idea of all these fungi particles floating around..
I mean, i'm not saying that wood dust is good for you, but i feel like fungi particles are more... alive, they might have more to feed from once they enter our lungs and stuff.
I'm fearing fungal growths in places we don't want them to grow.
Very cool that a facility like this exists, and Adam's enthusiasm is fun to witness.
I have not heard anyone say “simulacrum” in many years since 2004-2005 when I took a criminology course for my BA degree.
The thing I love is that for all the accuracy they put into replicating all kinds of other documents, the money they can not put full accuracy into or they'd literally be printing accurate indistinguishable money, not that that's beyond their capabilities
They could/should open a museum with all that history in there!
This series of video collaboration has been one of the best things on the Tested channel
These Earl Hayes Press videos are food for the soul!
In the office of Hayes there is a copy of the newspapers used in Citizen Kane....
If Adam starts randomly showing up in NASA photos we'll know how he managed to sneak in.
I’ve never been so interested in vintage drivers licenses etc as I am when watching Adam get excited here. It’s wonderful to see and his enthusiasm is absolutely infectious!
Adam, been a longtime fan watching and learning from you for 16 years now, you haven’t lost an ounce of passion and I could watch you explain anything in detail, that how exciting you make it!
That little Tim Allen 'grunt' when he found the LEM instructions. My whole body smiled.
As much joy as the episode brings me, it's painful to watch him not put the boxes back where he found them, or even fully back on the shelf
I hope they let Adam walk away with a couple of choice items they have a lot of in addition to that cool Bladerunner ID. All that NASA stuff sitting around...I'm sure he could find a great place to display it. This must have been Heaven for him!
I love these videos of Adam completely nerding out over the sheer number and types of printed props - I too was nerding out over the NASA ones! The best part was Adam saying "I'll see you guys next time" as he dives back into the stacks!
Give us hours and hours of these please
To nobody's surprise, Adam disappeared back into the NASA aisle at the end. And he hasn't emerged since.
I love how there's a water heater just randomly in the middle of the storage area...
cuz we all know those never fail catastrophically.
12:12 There is the fake $100 money used in 007 Licence to Kill! I have one of those screen used bills!
As a former print press operator, and general nerd, have to say this whole series is simply amazing.
Maybe they should operate this prop business as a museum as well?
Between this place, the Met armoury and the royal society content, I think this is some of the best content you’ve been putting out. Been absolutely loving it!!
Really good segment. I knew that there were a lot of what could be called minor prop used in movies, but I never knew that the level of detail that went into them. Some of these items are only seen for a few seconds in a scene and were so detailed, it is amazing!
"I literally feel like a kid in a candy store" - Adam before eating the money
The thing that gets me with Adam is that his excitement gets me excited about things that I never even knew about. "Application for loan contracts". I now need to know what those made for
The prop that I would like to see is the ‘hickory honey ham’ from the move ‘Christmas with the Kranks’
@AdamSavage'sTested
Adam, you are always a joy to watch!
There is a trick to get high detail prints from typical laser printer. most of the images we send to them are in a rasterized format which is limited by file size and any distortions from descaling during the printing process. Even with large file sizes you still tend to see those Anti-alias edges meant for a pixel display. may printer are actually capable of finer detail then you typically see from a 300 DPI image file. Instead of trying to send larger raster files, one way to bypass that limitation is to directly print a vector based file on a compatible printer and allow the printers software to interpret the vector image at it's best native DPI. It's kind of surreal seeing a desktop printer pop out super high quality prints that you don't normally see from that printing process.
That's pretty interesting. Is their a way to combine a raster file, and a vector file into one image format? I imagine a vector format isn't going to work well for something that isn't a series of lines, like say a photograph. Vector might work really well for things with printing on them.
@@stevesether that's an interesting question. you can convert simple images into vector images in something like adobe Illustrator, but your right that that's really bad for photos. you get results like the famous Obama campaign portrait. it might be possible to run something through the printer twice to combine photo elements with with vector graphics. like an ID badge for example, you might be able to print the badge in from a vector file and then print the photo portrait on a second pass. I've never tried it, it sounds like a fun experiment.
@@RichardGQue That's exactly what I was thinking would be worth trying, i.e. running it through twice if there wasn't some sort of hybrid language that supported both raster, and vector in one file.
This series of videos is something we didn’t know we needed. Please make more!
Seeing these old printed ephemera like the coat check tags, custom match books, ID cards, tickets, misc forms, letterhead, envelopes etc. reminds me how many day to day items were printed to suit and we just don't do that anymore, even though you could do it on a home computer rather than having a print shop do them. At the time that Hayes Press started there were local printers doing small jobs like this everywhere, several per town probably. Hayes Press just just kept doing it over the years for the movies after all the other shops were gone.
Was anybody else nervous seeing that water tank in the background? You’ve got gas, open flame and pressurized water in close proximity to irreplaceable items. Maybe its not a big deal but ??? Maybe a halon flood fire retardant system is in order.
What an amazing place! As a printmaker I'm loving seeing Adam going through those printed papers. Please keep digging in those boxes
6:04 You have to love the water heater in the back of a paper goods storage and the possible massive failure damage that could cause as demonstrated by the guy going through those paper goods.
more videos of this place please!
As someone who worked for six or so months in a museum archive, mad respect to them for letting him wander unsupervised. They know he knows how to handle these things, so there's no worry he'll damage anything. My boss would never.
We held the DragonCon focus group. We have come to the conclusion that Adam should come to his panel with a T-shirt cannon.
I've done a few small props for a friend's independent films. I just cheerfully accepted the challenging of jumping into the deep end to make fake money, both a late 1800's bill and a more recent one. Learning about the process of how they're done has been great. This video couldn't be better timed for inspiration!
Something I'd love to see in a future vid would showing the minor "errors" props like money have in movies, the stuff that probably won't show up on screen but does tell "this is a movie prop" when handled personally.
I fully agree with Adam here, I could spend a year in there and still be as intrigued and enthused as I was on day 1
This is near Burbank Airport. I drive by this place a lot. I never knew this is what they did.
That's because the place isn't open to the public and places like that are kept a secret so the buildings aren't burglarized and stuff is stolen or damaged.
Kodachrome - MUST come back - ideally on polyester basis films! BEST Film ever! Like Technicolor IB.
I could watch hours upon hours worth of just Adam nerding over this treasure trove of props
Amazing work but I wonder how often they actually need that level of detail considering how big these get shown on screen.
Today's HD remasters of shows like Star Trek the Next Generation answer that question. When filming on the bridge of the hotel Enterprise, it was impossible to keep the reflection of the studio lighting reflecting off the lcars panels in the background. The solution to this at the time was to simply tape black card stock over the spots that were reflecting for that scene. You were never going to see it when it was televised anyway. Until they remastered it into the latest high-definition where you can see every bit of it and they had to go back and digitally fix it all to remove it. Not saying they had the foresight in the industry to be thinking of that future, but it absolutely matters.
99% of the time, they weren't really needed, especially considering the limitations of the resolutions of screens (film or TV) at the time. But since the Earl Hayes printers probably didn't know if a thing was going to be a "hero" piece (highlighted in close-up on screen) or just background clutter, they made it look as real as possible just in case.
Just camp out there and we have content for the next 10 years, love it :)
It being pre his move over here to the UK, the first thing I thought of when you entered the money section, was the yapping dog/money-spilling scene at the end of Stanley’s The Killing. Stanley loved our British craftspeople, but back in 55/56, I’m sure he’d have been more than happy to get the artists at Earl Hayes to make and supply such a cool prop. Great video as always Mr Savage 👍🏻
I can completely relate to your history of counterfeiting in school.
I remember one time I was meant to get something signed for a field trip but I lost the signed sheet, my teacher was kind of an ass so I didn't want to ask for a new one and the sheet was due at the end of the day.
So I got my friends signed sheet, photocopied it, edited it in paint, removed all the artefacts from the photocopier, erased his moms signature and aligned it properly on the sheet. Then spent about an hour practicing my moms signature and signed it myself.
We didn't have hall passes but we did have ID cards for a short period of time, sometimes I really wasn't bothered to come into school so I made a copy of my ID and had some website print like 10 of them, I borrowed a mag strip reader/writer and copied all the data over so it worked with the sign in machines. So If I didn't want to come in I'd have my friend sign in for me with the copied card. I did the same for a few other people. We were never caught but they quietly got rid of the ID cards after a year.
It was really fun and I got pretty good at copying documents/signatures.
I hope he gets a goodie bag or something before he leaves, that man is a borderline national treasure.
As someone who works in props it’s awesome seeing stuff like this.
The genuine appreciation is very much appreciated!
I would love to see you visit more prop warehouses, there’s also a propmaster out of Texas who has a youtube channel called Scott prop and roll, I’d love to see you guys chat sometime
this is WHY i sub to tested
You could legit do a live stream here for hours and thousands of us would watch every second.
oh yeah this would be a great livestream thing could even have people in chat call out random things and see if they have it.
Not just an archive of _movie_ history, but an archive of _human_ history! Treasure!
Places like this and old sheds and backrooms and basements or garages are just magical with all the amazing things you can find and the feeling of all the history
Stunning and epic stuff! I had no idea this kind of thing existed!
I can’t believe how many movies popped in my head as you were going through that room that was amazing
What really blows my mind is the work that is put into all of those things, weeks, maybe months of work of several people.....that shows up in a movie for 10 seconds...
Or less. Or never gets seen. It's pretty amazing the work that goes into dressing a scene that may only be a few seconds. But if an actor throws a bunch of paperwork at someone, slams it down on the desk, drops a bundle of banknotes.. You don't really want it to show as blank.
And on the subject of paperwork, I wonder how much is involved in being allowed to make photo-realistic copies of official documents, many of which are illegal to copy or reproduce? I know there are strict rules around prop money, but guess they're stricter now that the money needs to look real with 4K or 8K filming.
At a german railway museum I once saw a steam train they dressed up for use in a vodka commercial. Every plate with text on it was replaced with kyrillic letters, even in the drivers cab. Nothing of that was even remotely seen in the finished spot.