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They wanted to add futuristic science fiction props to
their all ready massive storeroom of just about everything historical.
Unfortunately, they were unwilling to let me create stuff for them, rather they
tried to get the production company to design and pay for prop fabrication and
then rent these props from The Hand Prop Room. The plan didn’t
work out that way.
It was funny and sad. At one point I found myself in
competition with myself, I was asked into Mr. John Ramsey's office and was shown
a pair of pictures of some rayguns a propmaster was looking at renting from
another Prop shop, and I saw a bunch of my own models that were over at Modern
Props...I lost the job to myself, as it were.
The blue Xs are the ones he liked; three of the four were
mine.
Sadly this still did not convince them to let me pre-make
a
bunch of props, I even brought my own boxes of parts, all kinds of things
that I would build props with so that I might have a chance to get work, which
I
would pitch to the prop masters that came in. All
failed.
The prop masters were not designing props, they wanted to
rent them and thus wanted to see some to pick out, to rent what they liked and wanted.
So most of the time I stuck building spy cases out of Halliburton
cases. Man, did I get sick of Halliburton cases.
Oh yes I almost forgot one other project I was rather
proud of building; I made a great bunch of phone ringers.
These are A/C powered phone control boxes. Mine was able to
handle up to three phones, three 5 line phones, to ring them, to flash the
lights in the buttons and to allow the flashing rate to be changed, and these
let the phones be "live" in that the actors could actually talk to each another,
and the third line could be used for the director to direct or be hooked into the
sound recording to record the dialog. And each box would run a 5 line phone, a
4 prong plug, a micro plug or a hard wired phone to cover all types of phone.
In fact I only did a few noteworthy projects while
at "The Hand Prop Room", first was lights for the heart in the Richard
Gere movie, "Breathless"
Then there was a Japanese TV commercial with a food transporter. A
footnote; in a shop like "The Hand Prop Room," a lot of the work was
by team; many of
us would be working on the same project, one would be doing the vacuum formed tool and another
did the vacuum forming and another would trim and paint it and I would be asked to
do the electronics, the winky blinkies.
Next was a film called "Get Crazy" which I will
send you to an article on the props and work in that at "Get Crazy" (Coming
soon)
And of course "The Greatest American Hero" which
I cover in "How I helped "The Greatest American Hero" here.
A little side note, remember "Mr. MOM." "Hand Prop
Room" did a few props for that like the Killer Vacuum Cleaner called "The
Beast". I had nothing to do with it but here is a guy
called Harvey working on the "Beast," putting a cover over the drive motor that
was added to make it self-powered and to run around on its own by remote
control:
I did at last get them to let me build one little gun out
of my junk boxes, and this is what came of it:
In Hollywood they say "We had creative differences"
Once again, I moved on after 9 months.
I went independent as Prop Maker, and wisely I
called myself:
"Richard A. Coyle and Associates SPX Prop Makers'
By using my own name I accidentally helped insure my own
fame. Common practice was to use a fictional name like Apogee and Proper Effects,
all very nice but ANYONE could own them and anyone could work there. By using my
own name said I did it.
By the way have you noted the engine that drove my career?
It was the electronics, the winky blinkies. They would come to me for the lights,
and I would sell them so that I could also build the cases to hold them...
I did a
freelance job on "Ice Pirates" (coming soon) and subcontracted to Ellis Mercantile, still
another prop rental shop. I worked with Chris Gilman.
Meanwhile, to supplement things, I was beginning to
make media prop reproductions. I found many reasons to do these; much as artists
are taught to copy the old masters to learn their style, I needed to solve the
same problems that the prop makers had to solve when they made these props.
Doing this learning allowed me to work full time at my craft, to expand my
abilities, and pay the bills between film work. I would not be the prop maker I am
today if I had not taken that path. Building for retail customers was much more
demanding than film work. In film work, speed was more important than doing a
pretty job.
After "Ice Pirates" I got one last call
from the old "Hand Prop Room" to build a Police car computer for
them one that would allow controlled reactions but be much cheaper than a
real computer. So I rigged up a mock computer with a few real controls. An actor
could pound all day on the key board, and nothing would happen but flip the right
switch, and it would spring into action.
Scene: Policeman flips the computer on, it would light up
and run a couple of lighted panels on the TV screen, like: "System go:
Enter Subject" and the curser would sit there and blink, (like a real
computer did back then...) he would then make like he is typing a bunch of information
in...and when done flip the second switch.... a new panel would light and blink,
like :"Searching" then after a minute it would light the remaining
panels like it was printing out the answers. Here it is:
I remained freelance and found that Lincoln Enterprises was
still in business. Lincoln Enterprises was the sovereign company Gene
Roddenberry and his wife Majel Barrett formed during the run of the original
"Star Trek" to sell fan-related items of ST, way back in 1968.
I pitched to Mrs. Majel Roddenberry to
sell fans Phasers and Communicators. Eventually we agreed on terms and for the
next few years I made props for Lincoln Enterprises. I had again rejoined Star
Trek.
But Mrs. Roddenberry found carrying the props problematic.
She liked low maintenance products, photos, copies of scripts,
non-working Tribbles (The furry creatures from the famous Star Trek episode
"The Trouble with Tribbles), belt buckles, other paper goods. But Props were
hardly low maintenance. She found herself responding to the flurry of questions
about how the Phaser reproduction worked, what kind of battery it used, and then
there was the greater likelihood for damage in shipment, damage from
customer handling and the handling of her own people. We parted company.
These are two of the infamous red trigger Phasers.
I made a call to Paramount licensing and asked about
getting a license and received the following reply, for which I wish I had a
tape and a dozen witnesses: "We don’t sell a license for such things, you
don’t need a license to make them. Just go ahead and do them." Which, of
course, I did as I was told! (For 2 decades I never retold this story,
figuring I had been BS'ed by some guy at the studio, but last year I ran into
another person who claimed he was told the same thing! REALLY wish I had that tape and a dozen witnesses)
Meanwhile, I had enough contact doing business with the
conventions and the fans to know that making these props for the fans was a
seemingly dead end. There was just not enough money in the hands of the average
convention going fan. (At least that was what they said when they could
not/would
not buy my models, and sales at cons seemed to prove it.)
So I sold prop reproductions to the fans while hunting
steady work in the film industry. I used to joke about convention sales as being
my personal prop making show biz version of actors parking cars and waiting on
tables while looking for that big break.
One project was to build another phone box, so I did
this:
I then got a call from Mr. William Malone whom I had
contacted earlier about his "Forbidden Planet" collection and he had helped me
with a model of the C57D, the space ship from the film, and with the DR raygun
pistol
from it as well.
He was doing a small film then called "Titan
Find," later to be renamed "Creature" He was looking for
someone to recreate the computer panel used in the 1955 MGM film, "The Invisible
Boy." We took on the job by renting a friend's garage. (And made all
882 2 inch square lighted panels too!)
Funny as this was a fairly low budget film I was offered a credit
as part of the payment, which I had to take, and so my ONLY film credit was for
the building of this computer panel, and it was NOT for props, after all, it
was a part of the set so I got a film credit for set building...darn!
We also did a few props for a film called "Radioactive
Dreams" (link) and spent one night working as extras to see our props in
the film and to have fun being in a film.
And of all things I am wearing the gold lamé costume that
Gil Gerard wore in Buck Rogers in the desert planet show, and it was tight!
Jackie is the one in the red wig.
Looking for a good product led me to a friend, Mr. Scott
Brodeen who wanted to
make a run of models of the
Disney-designed version of the Nautilus submarine from the film "20,000
Leagues under the Sea".
I pitched this idea to the Disney Company and we were soon
making these models, for the Disneyana store on Main Street
in Disneyland Park. Although glamorous work, which helped make Scott and I
famous among
Nautilus fans, the work from Disney was not steady enough to live on, but with
one to two film jobs a year, one to three orders from the Disney Company, and
all the wholesale and retail sales I could do, I was able to make a living as a
prop and model maker and had the fringe benefit of walking the sets and seeing lots of
movieland.
