April 3, 2024 • 61 mins
Behind the scenes access to how movie sets work is cool on its own, but behind the scenes access with dad jokes is another level of awesome. On this week’s episode of If I’m Honest, Julia Landauer chats with long-time prop master Scott Reeder, who found internet fame with the moniker @scottpropandroll with 1.8M TikTok followers, 958K Youtube subscribers, 250K Instagram followers, and 206K Facebook followers, after posting videos incorporating set work with dad jokes. Scott shares how he started working on sets in college in Texas, what exactly a prop master is, and how movie sets differ from TV sets. Scott discusses the car and racing projects he’s worked on, how he plays “mad scientist” to create specific props, and the moment he went viral online. Julia and Scott also discuss the fatal tragedy with Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust, how sets should approach safety standards, and the one prop he’s still trying to figure out how to master.
You can check out Scott’s videos on:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTyvyVpWyspz8-anuyXUreA
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottpropandroll
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottpropandroll/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077706766127&mibextid=LQQJ4d
Learn more about Julia Landauer at https://julialandauer.com/.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of If
I'm Honest with Julia Landauer. Today we have a TikTok
and YouTube star on the podcast, and we are talking
with a man who combines behind the scenes movie set
prop information with dad jokes. I mean, this is a
dream come true for me and I love a dad joke,
(00:25):
I love a pun and so I am thrilled that
Scott Reader, who is a prop master, is joining us
on the podcast today. So Scott was born and raised
in Southeast Texas and is based in Austin, and he's
been in the film and TV industry for thirty five years,
working as a prop master on hundreds of TV and
film projects. Among his notable credits are Friday Night Lights,
Pitch Perfect, Parenthood, Machete, Necessary Roughness, and The Leftovers. In
(00:49):
two thousand and four, he opened a prop shop in Austin,
Texas and has rented out props to thousands of productions
across the US. And In twenty twenty, Scott started posting
film and TV related videos on so social media and
quickly built a large following with his comedic spin on
edutainment by combining his film industry knowledge with dad jokes
and puns. Scott currently has over one point eight million
(01:10):
followers on TikTok, over nine hundred and fifty thousand subscribers
on his Scott Prop and Roll YouTube channel, and he
was so great in joining us and sharing all of
the tidbits of the industry. I really really loved this
conversation because not only did we learn how he got
into prop work and what it's like to play mad
Scientists as he's trying to develop a prop, but we
(01:32):
also got to talk about his experience on racing and
car related sets. We got to talk about the very
specific props that I had questions about that were featured
in a lot of his videos. And we also talk
about some serious stuff like his take on the fatal
tragedy and accident that was on the Rust set when
a firearm was discharged and killed a member of this
(01:54):
production set. And he also talks about what he's still
working on from a prop perspective, and he's very very chill,
he's very thoughtful. I, as many of you know, really
the Doore puns and dad jokes, and that was how
I originally found him when I was back on TikTok,
and so I'm really excited that he's joined us, and
(02:15):
I hope you enjoy the super interesting discussion. Scott, thank
you for joining me on if I'm honest with Julia Landauer.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Thanks for having me so for our.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Listeners, and maybe for you too. I came across your
content back when I was on TikTok. I'm no longer
on TikTok, but I loved that you were incorporating such
clever dad jokes into all of your content. And at
the time, the reason it resonated with me so much
was because I was having to do physical therapy for
my shoulder. So I found myself like laying on the
(02:47):
ground doing these stretches for several minutes every day, and
I got bored and I don't know how I started,
but I started delivering random dad jokes that I came
across while I was doing it was stretching, and it
was on my Instagram stories and so and then after
kind of relating to you on that, I just thought
the content that you were posting was so cool about
everything all behind the scenes related to props. And you know,
(03:08):
I think so many of us appreciate what goes into
making movies, but to see the science of it. The
nitty gritty of it was just it's always been really cool,
continues to be really cool. And so could you let
us know what exactly is a prop master and how
did you get into this industry?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, I'm a prop master is someone who handles anything
touched or held in a film or television show or
a theatrical production. I don't handle couches or paintings on
the wall. That's all set decoration. But when it comes
to if it's a shootout, I provide the prop weapons.
(03:50):
If it's a bar fight, I provide the breakaway beer bottles,
if it's you know, like I said, anything touched or held.
I got started when I was going to the University
of North Texas just north of Dallas at in Denton, Texas,
and there happened to be a movie shooting in town
when I was, I guess a sophomore, and I found
(04:13):
out a location where they were going to be, and
I just showed up and offered to pick up trash
or whatever. I started out just basically as an intern,
but I made connections on that. I was very proactive,
and I interned at the North Texas Film Commission where
(04:34):
I got to go scout locations and I always knew
what was coming long before it was coming to the
state of Texas, so I could get my name in
the hat. Early on, I wasn't sure what I wanted
to do for the first few years, but it did
help pay my way through college. I was doing karaoke
(04:54):
music videos. I was doing anything I could jump in on.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Wait, I need to pause you right there. When you
say you were doing karaoke music videos, what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Like, oh, pardon me, Okay, back back, this dates me here,
I go way back. So the first movie I interned
on was in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I was nineteen years old.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Then I worked there were some small production companies that
would do what are called karaoke videos, and back in
the day, they were like low budget music videos. So
as the words are coming up, if you're in a
bar and you're singing a song, the words would be
coming up. They would have a music video that would
(05:37):
play right behind it. And I helped make those. So
that's kind of where I learned, you know, doing sound,
running camera, what a grip was? What I mean, you're
doing something that's that low budget, you do a little
bit of everything. So I always recommend to people that
are wanting to get into the business to work on commercials,
(05:58):
work on the small indie because that's where the cruiser
smaller and you're giving a lot more responsibility early on,
and you learn how to problem solve and deal with
the high pressure of you know, of having responsibility thrown
(06:19):
on you at an early age. That's where, you know,
kind of how I got started. And then I ended
up working on doing props on a show called Necessary Roughness,
which was it was a film for Paramount that came
to town in the Dallas area, and I just went
and basically begged the prop master for a job and
(06:42):
got on as like a prop production assistant basically, and
it was you know, it was a lot of fun
and I learned a lot and I just started out
that way doing like prop assistant work. Then I found
the best training ground was being a prop buyer where
on television. So I did a really cheesy late night
(07:06):
CBS show. Yeah, it was for CBS. It was called
Dangerous Curves and that was like ninety two and that's
where you know, we had like seven days to prep,
you know, and then seven days to shoot per episode.
And then following that, I got on the original Walker
(07:27):
Texas Ranger, and I did that for years and that's
kind of how I cut my teeth in the business.
But yeah, so a pridmaster has to break down the
script and look and see what all is needed, figure
out how much labor it's going to take if you've
got to have anything fabricated like a rubber act. It's
(07:48):
the little details that you don't think about. Like if
we're shooting in a parking lot and we're filming in
Texas and it's set in New York, I've got to
put New York plates on all of the cars and
put registration stickers. If it's New York and you know,
nineteen sixty, then you've got to think about Okay, you
got to do the research and okay, what what did there?
(08:11):
You know, what did the registration stickers look like? What
do the plates look like? Down to you know, then
the set decorators are worried about the street signs. When
did those change over? You know, you really, you know,
when you period shows, you really have to do your research.
Because they have this thing on IMDb called the the
(08:32):
goofs in Blooper section or what.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
And call you out on your on your ship.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Basically, Oh, I've been everyone that does what I do
is called out on, you know, and sometimes sometimes they're right,
sometimes they're not. You know, you know, I'll admit it
if I you know, I'm I'm not perfect. I make
mistakes like everybody. So uh but yeah, you've got to
have some thick skin. Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
But you know what I loved about doing TikTok.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I'll hear people like I'll show how to do something
right now, whatever the trick is, be it making a
rubber glass or whatever whatever it is, and someone will
come in and have a way they do it that's interesting.
It's not necessarily better or or sometimes it is. But
(09:24):
I've learned from other people on this app as well.
So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
That is really cool. So I have a follow up
question to something that you said earlier. How you know,
obviously you have to think about license plate all these
little details, and like on a racing team, like crews
also have like they have just so many little details
that they have to check that they have to make
sure are on point, and they create these massive checklists
and they're pretty uniform because gotta do the same stuff.
(09:50):
A track, no matter what track it is. But for you,
is there the same kind of meticulous like list making
and like do you have a set thing that you
have to, you know, to pay attention to, for like
a street scene versus a home scene versus.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, I do a breakdown of every episode and then
I send it out to the director, the producer, the
art coordinator, the production designer, and we go through my
list and like that's what we did today is I
went through scene by scene and just to make sure
I'm on the same page as the director and that
(10:24):
we and that I don't you know, miss anything, And
sometimes there'll be something that's not scripted that they'd like
to add. This is the opportunity to do that. And
then then I continue to gather stuff. In a few
days after that, we'll have a prop show and tell,
where I will lay everything out on tables and show
(10:47):
everything that we have and then they can make their
final notes there. But by then we typically like start
shooting the next day, and you know, so I better
really get it in gear. And but ly by the
show and Tell, I know I don't have any buyers
to put out really right. It's funny you talk about
(11:10):
I've done. On the original Walker, we had two episodes
where we shot at the Texas Motor Speedway and we
hired NASCAR two hour episode.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
It was back when.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Chuck Norris's son, Eric, who was a stunt coordinator, started
in NASCAR, or he was a NASCAR driver for a
very I would say maybe for two years, and so
I think he talked to Chuck and doing and they
wrote a story around that and we shot at the
Have you ever have you ever been to the Texas
(11:47):
Motor speed I've.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Actually never been, but like I'm very filar with seeing
on TV and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Well, I guess it was like nineteen ninety nine or
something like that. And I don't know how I got
to do it. I drove of my I had a
beat up old Volvo station Wagon and I drove it
on the track. So I got to say, I drove.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
On How was it? How was it?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
It was? I was in a beat up old car.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
But fast? Did you go fast?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I don't remember exactly. I know, I just yea, I
took it as fast as it would go.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
It was cool.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
You didn't really even have to turn the steering where
you just kind of just kind of took you around.
It was crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Banking is really yeah, the banking is really impressive like that.
And our cars are actually like the Oval specific race
players are staggered to go left, so it's even like
less input in a way because the chassis and suspension
are you know, angled for that. But that's really cool
that you got to drive.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But I'm I'm a horrible driver though, but I've got
I've done a lot of projects about that. So we
I did a IBM commercial at the F one track.
What did it called? Codis Circuit of the Americans. They
had this, Oh, I did an accurate commercial. And on
a lot of commercials, I'll end up doing both props
(13:06):
and special effects. Or on this one, they wanted me
to do smoke and it was they had these like
two accurate concept cars that they would really really pass.
And they have this camera car that's typically a Porsche
high end. Am I pronouncing that right? And they've got
(13:28):
this big crane built on top of it. It's got
a wide wheelbase that particular Porsche is perfect for to
be a camera vehicle. And I had a Dodge pickup
truck that they had rented for me and I had
these two smoke machines that are gas powered with mineral
(13:49):
oil or whatever, and they make these huge plumes of
smoke and they have this practice this f one practice
track outside of Austin called Driveway Austin, and that's where
we were filming a lot of these scenes. And I
was scared to death because we smoked it up so much.
(14:10):
I have my assistant strapped in the back with a
harness and mind you remember I said I'm a horrible driver. Yeah,
I'm not lying, and I've got the assistant director riding
shotgun and I've got it smoked up to where I
can't see where anyone's coming from. And there was one
part of the track where it crosses. I had a
(14:31):
weird feeling. I was like, where are they? And the
smoke started to clear and they just went. I mean,
they were within twelve inches of the front bumper. And
that's what I called time out and said, guys, I said,
let's have a big meeting. We need to We really
need to utilize these radios and coordinate so we don't
(14:54):
hurt anybody.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
We don't want to be actual race car drivers that
crash right now.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, and by the way, I reminded him, I'm a
horrible driver. How I got picked to smoke it up
in the truck. But anyway, but it was fun. I
love I love working on car commercials. They're fine.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Obviously there's a smoke that you can produce. Are there
other like tricks of car commercials that are prop dependent
that share? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
If we're doing like on a dirt road, a lot
of times, you know they won't it won't kick up
the dirt that they wanted to. So we'll have this
stuff called walnut dust, and it's not really walnuts. It's
the walnut shells ground up into a powder, and we'll
go in with like in a in a four wheeler
(15:45):
and dump bags of it, you know, on the road,
so when the car hits it, it makes a huge
plume of dust. It looks pretty good. I've done that
on a lot of commercials and a lot of show
a lot of TV shows where you just dust up
the road and because just the lightest little bit of
rain will you know, the existing road, typically you can't
(16:06):
won't kick up any dust. And then we'll use like
a rose duster. They will put dust in movie dirt
they call it. And then we'll age a vehicle like
that if they want to be kind of covered in dust.
I own like police light bars, so I will help
(16:27):
gear up, you know, like we have like a Dodge
charger or something, I'll turn it into a police car
and we'll do.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
That sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
You know. I prefer working television just because I've just
done it so much. That's my comfort zone. But it
does get fast paced sometimes, and this like this one,
we're shooting forty five minute episode in six days, which
is quite a which is pretty fast for a narrative show.
(17:01):
Every once in a while I like to fill in
with features like in between seasons or whatever. Those are
fun too. A script is one minute per page, so
that's how they gauge it, right, And so if you
think one minute per page, so if I look at
a script it's like forty five pages, the forty five
(17:24):
to forty eight pages, that's going.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
To be a forty eight minute deal.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And uh, and it kind of it always works out
pretty much to be within within five minutes of what
you know, a minute per page will shoot on in
television anywhere between six to eight pages a day, but
in feature films you're shooting two pages a day. You know,
you'll be at one location, you know. But back when
(17:51):
I did Friday Night Lights, that was insane. We would
do like five days to shoot one episode, and we
would hit like five locations a day. We didn't do
any stage work like on this, we're on stage, like
we have sets built and we shoot those like at
least over half of the episode is on stage. Friday
(18:12):
Night Lights was we would go into businesses. They wouldn't
really do much decorating. We would just shoot it like
it was there, and we would hit four and five
locations a day. It was kind of insane how fast
that went. They didn't rehearse. The actors loved it because
there wasn't any putting marks down. It was. They'd have
(18:32):
four cameras. Actors would walk in, like I said, no rehearsals,
and they would maybe do two takes and then packed
the trucks up and leave all handheld. They weren't ever
putting dollies down, And yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Is so cool. Well, we're is here a quick break,
but we'll be right back with Scott. We are back
on if I'm honest, Julia Landauer with Scott Reader. So
we were just talking about movie sets versus TV sets. Now,
I kind of want to jump into the specifics with
(19:11):
the props. So I have gone through your Instagram a bunch,
and there were a few props that I was really
intrigued by or found very interesting. So one was how
you made a prop out of a charcoal grill because
you're not going to be using an actual grill.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I guess on set, well, if it's interior, there are
some times where you're on an interior set, but it's
they make it to look like you're outside.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Sometimes you'll be on a sound stage and yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Okay, okay, so it's only okay, that's yeah, that makes sense.
One that I was cond.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
There's a burn band. Sometimes there's a burn band and
you'll be outside and you have to fake it too.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Oh, got it? Okay, that makes sense. One that I
was confused by was you had to post about edible deodorant,
and I guess, why make it edible? Oh?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I just saw this TikTok where a guy was eating deodorant,
and I thought I wanted to figure out how to
do it, and that that was just being goofed. That
was just me being good. But you never know. I mean,
I literally had to do a show and tell today
with I can't go into the specifics of it, but
we have one of our main characters that I had
(20:20):
to have edible dirt, which I've done those videos too,
and everyone's like, why on earth do you need to
make edible dirt? Well, you know, you can get in
situations where someone's got dirt on their face or thrown
in their face. You know, we make edible versions so
they don't you get some funky bacteria from dirt.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, yeah, which is which I'm sure on behalf of
the actors, thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Right exactly, And so you know it sounds crazy, but
we do.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
We are in that situation.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And I found out today that we're gonna have to
make like bucket loads and bucket loads of edible dirt.
And you know there have been movies where people are
eating butter.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yep, it's gonna bring that up next to the animal
on the Mayo the butter.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And then but I love a challenge, it's like.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And also then I found out from the special effects
because I said, send me pictures that part of my
my Texas accident pictures, uh, pictures of what the the
dirt looks like that we're going to be using and uh,
and it's kind of mulchy. So I'm like, oh great,
so now we got a Yeah, I've got this good
looking fake dirt, but now we gotta make it look mulchy,
(21:37):
you know, like with like little pieces of bark or whatever.
My assistant Matt, who's in a lot of the videos
as well and YouTube, he was like, let's try shredded
beef jerky. And once that was mixed in in like
the dust from the fate from the edible dirt which
is made out of oreos and cheerios, and and then
(21:59):
check cereal and whatnot, Uh, it looked it freaking looked
like mulch. So that was fun. We just we just
figured that out today. Yeah, it's fun. I enjoy that
part of it. And but typically, uh, when I'm brought
mastering for television, I'm not I'm not able to do
all the fabrication because the things are moving so fast.
(22:21):
I have assistance that do all that or I or
I have to sub out to other people. There are
a couple of really good mold makers in town. So
like I had to have like a a shovel, a
rubber shovel like a fireplace shovel, you know those fireplace statula.
I'd have a fireplace shovel molded out of rubber. And
(22:41):
I have a guy that if I get if I
have two days notice, he can mold it and get
it to me cool. And so I've kind of I'm
always coordinating and doing logistics on all that stuff, making
sure I get things in ahead of time.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I also have to rent from prop houses in Los
Angeles sometimes, so I have to make sure I give
myself time to good things. Ship you get real, real spoiled,
you know, to fed having FedEx. And I did a
series in Rhode Island back in twenty nineteen where I
(23:21):
had never I'd never done a show east that far east,
and I was so spoiled to being able to get
stuff overnighted from Los Angeles. There's no overnight, or there
wasn't twenty nineteen. Is like they would say they would
call it overnight, but I never could get next day
(23:42):
from coming from Los Angeles for whatever reason. It's just
it's a long wait.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Whole new level of project management there, huh.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, So I just had to adapt the way or
be less of a procrastinator.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Hey, Hey, sometimes they gotta do that. So with the food,
was there any type of like otherwise kind of gross
food that you wanted to make a substitute prop for
that was particularly challenging to get it to match either
like consistency or color or.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
The most difficult prop food situation I was in was
on a TV pilot called GCB and for ABC, and
we had a character that was a binge eater. So
the character every scene was eating handy bars, banana splits,
(24:37):
chocolate cake. I mean, it was non stop, the whole
every time we saw this person. And she was gluten free,
she couldn't have sugar, she couldn't have milk, lactose intolerant.
So I had to basically I had everything we had
(24:58):
to hand to make basically wow and figure out how
do you do chocolate cake? You know. We were my
assistant and I were like hand dipping candy bars or
something that would look like a candy bar, hand dipping
it in unsweetened chocolate, you know, and rewrapping. And it
was just that was the nightmarey, just because it was
(25:21):
so much and so many different things, right, So, yeah,
dealing with with actors dietary limitations can be quite a thing.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
But I'm very fortunate.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
To be on a show right now where everyone's just like, yeah,
I eat whatever.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Perfect. We love a little maintenance cast, right yep, yep.
You know in some of your videos you show things like,
you know, having a tea kettle and that it has
to be rubber, but then it's still sound like real
typod and so you do the overlap with overlay with sound.
But in general, what are the guidelines for when you
use the actual object versus when you need to prop?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Oh well, well, I'll just talk to the director and
we'll find out, you know, and where in the stunt,
in the stunt coordinator, and we'll we'll we'll swap it out.
I'll just have an identical prop for when it's going
to be, if it's going to hit someone or you know, uh,
if the real item could be a danger to anyone,
I'll swap it out with a fake.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Okay, And we do that a lot.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It's always something different though, you never know.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
For sure, and I'm sure it's really set dependent, so
when you do when you are creating props, are there
a lot of types of props where there's kind of
an industry standard way of making them, or do you
find yourself still experimenting a lot, Like obviously with the
food kind of situation, like you have make edible dirt,
that's experimenting. But would you say, like typically at this
point there's like set ways to do things or are
(26:50):
you playing mad scientists with your prop devoiment?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Well, we do some some mad scientists stuff, and I'm
very fortunate to have an assistant, Matt, who loves being
a mad scientist. He'll he'll say no, no, there's a
different ways, a better way, and we'll And because of Matt,
we do a lot more in house than we used to,
like such as he's mastered the cricket vinyl cutter. So
(27:14):
if we need to make a silk screen to make
our own custom grocery bags, you know, with the logo
whatever our you know, we have to do fake logos
on everything, and we'll do some of it in house,
and and that's fun. I love that if there's time,
but I unfortunately, you know, don't, don't have a whole
(27:35):
lot of time for prop making.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
So at the prop master level, do you find that,
like now, majority of it is kind of more the
organizational stuff and like.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, for television, for sure, it's a little more administrative
and on that's what's fun about doing features. I still
like to do features when I can, because on a
feature film, you do all the prep ahead of time,
and then I can be on set and really interact
with the actors more so than I do on like
on a television series. It's all different. That's that's the
(28:07):
big difference between film and television and props is I
can be on set and really get my get my
hands in it, and uh, it's fun.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah. What was the last feature films that you were on?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
It was breaking news in Yuba County and we filmed
it in Natchez, Mississippi, and it had Matthew Modine, Mila
Kunis Aquafina, who else.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It was one of those.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Ensemble casts, Yeah, Wanda Sykes, Ellen Barkin. It was directed
by the guy wrote and directed by the guy that
did The Help.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Okay, And actually I haven't heard of the movie, but
now I need to go check it out.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
That's breaking news in Yuba County, you know. I I
haven't seen it.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Oh, Okay, So that's a whole nother question. How many
like do you? What's your do you want your films
after or TV shows after you work on them?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
No, not not all of them. I but think about
I've read the script so many times. I mean I
will go back and kind of check quality of my work.
I do go watch you know, uh, you know, a
selection of them, but not but I don't religiously watch
every episode.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I figured it up one time.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I've worked as a as a prop buyer and a
prop master. I've worked on over six hundred episodes of television.
Oh wow, oh wow, Well one hundred and ninety six
of those were the original Walker and then the television
show that I did before that, and then I did
what seventy six episodes or Friday Night Lights. I've done
(29:46):
leftovers for HBO Panic, you know, all those shows that
they add up.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
H Are you primarily? I feel like you've referenced being
in Texas a lot. Do you typically go to a
different location for this film?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Well? When I when I have to, I mean, my
family's here, my wife and my two kids. So i'd
love to, you know, work at home. You know, I'll
be you know, and when I can. But I'll travel
when I have to, and I do on occasion.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
It sounds like a lot of it is done in Texas, right, a.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Lot of stone in Texas. But I did like the
Parenthood pilot.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I did that in San Francisco, done a couple of
movies in Pittsburgh, and I'll, you know, like I said,
I'll travel when I when I have to. During the pandemic,
I started doing just dad jokes, just straight up dad jokes,
and that was that was fun and I built a
(30:41):
decent following just doing the dad jokes. And when I
got back on once the film industry started going again,
one of my assistants was like, you know, Scott, why
don't you do something proper related? What we do is
kind of interesting, and I, you know, I guess you
get to where you do one job so long you
(31:02):
don't think anyone else would think it's that interesting. Right.
That's when I started incorporating, well, I'll, you know, I
broke a bottle over my head and describe what it's
made out of and how, and then that and I
didn't put a dad joke on the end of that one,
but that one did pretty good. And the adding a
joke thing that came about when I did the Silent
(31:24):
Grocery Bag video right, and that I just made it
up as like as I was filming it, and I
almost didn't almost cut it out. I almost didn't put
it in there because it was a little you know whatever.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
It was some innu window there, and.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
As someone with a deeply immature sense of humor, I
appreciate it so.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
So I but I went ahead and put it in
there and said what the heck? And I it was
like at nine to twenty at night. I remember this
very well, and it was like nine to twenty pm.
I just left the office because that's kind of what
I would do, is once I was done for the day,
I would go up to the prop lock up and
(32:10):
shoot a video. And I shot uh, I did the
silent pullballs in silent grocery bags and posted it at.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Like nine to twenty went home. By the time I
pulled in my driveway.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Which is about twenty twenty five minute drive, I had
like one hundred thousand views. It was insane, and that
that video ended up getting twelve or thirteen million views
or something like that. I was I couldn't believe it
and that and then it just shot up and then
then I was like, okay, well that's my formula. I
(32:45):
gotta you know, how am I going to do this?
How I people are going.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
To expect a joke?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
And but it was fun because I'll go back and
look at at some of those and I was like, well, wow,
that was kind of funny.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
That was clever because.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I've forgotten so good.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Not all of them, Not all.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Of them are great. Some of them are bad. Well,
a lot of them are bad.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
But there's also some of them that I look back
and think, well, you know, I may have been the
only one that got that joke, but I still think
it's funny.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Some some some of them are kind of obscure.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
But I enjoy doing it. But that's kind of what
sets me apart from your standard just making do channel
or you know, this is how it's made kind of
thing is I, you know, sprinkle that in and it's fun.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
It's very funny some.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
People, some people don't really care about the film business
at all. They just want to see how I'm gonna
fit a joke in there.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Well, it's true because it's like it seems like it
could be like a challenge because you're dealing with very
specific content that you're talking about, and it's like how
are you going to put this spin on it? I
think it's super clever. I haven't come across one where
I was like, oh, this is a dud, So I think.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I think there are some duds in there, but they
are our.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Own harshest critic. Yeah, yeah, all right, guys, we're gonna
take one more quick break and I'll be right back
with Scott. All right, we are back on it. I'm
on Julie Landauer with our guest Scott Reader. So we
were just talking about very fun dad jokes and punniness
(34:27):
and all that. I do want to take a kind
of shift to a slightly more serious topic. In twenty
twenty one, cinematographer Helena Hutchins was fatally shot on the
set of Rust, and that's obviously still going on. I'm
wondering if you can share from your perspective and whatever
you're comfortable with kind of what might have gone wrong
(34:50):
or what, or just your thoughts on the incident. As
someone who spent so much time on sets.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I believe that it's strictly because they didn't followed the protocols. Well.
Number one, you should never have live round, should never
be anywhere. That's what I'm near a film set. So
that's the whole thing. It's like, it's a weird anomaly.
That's you know, what I try to explain to people
is film sets are dangerous places. And it's not just
(35:18):
with weapons. It's with equipment, cars, planes, motorcycles. A lot
of times, there's stunt related. A lot of times, it's
camera people that get killed. Sarah Jones got hit by
the train. It's just we we get put in dangerous situations.
Of the forty three deaths since nineteen ninety two have
(35:41):
been firearms related, that's Brandon Lee on the Crow and
Lena Hutchins. So yeah, I'm not saying that's a good thing.
I'm saying but that's two out of forty three. The
rest were equipment related. Worked vehicles were helicopters, airplanes, or
a piece of equipment fallowing and hitting someone and killing them.
(36:02):
Boat there were several boat ones every once in a while,
and like I said, they're like the Crow was a
really freakish thing. Again, that led to us in the
mid early nineties really upping our game as far as
adding protocols to where okay, not everyone was checking the barrel,
(36:24):
something got lodged up in the barrel. So now we
run a rod through the barrel, we shine a flashlight.
We you know, we have ten different ways to clear
a weapon.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
So that one it wasn't a bullet, it was something
else got lodged on the.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
On the crow well. It was a it was a
bullet head that got jammed in where a dummy had
come apart and it got jammed up in the barrel.
So when they put a blank in it, it was
just like having a real bullet. Yeah, but with with
(37:00):
RUSS that was pure negligence of real rounds got brought in.
I mean, there were two live rounds in Alec Baldwin's
gun belt, like the bandolier that he would wear with
his bolster. Two live rounds were found there. Two were
found on her cart or in her fanny pack. I
don't know. There were like six rounds total that they found.
(37:22):
I believe five or six, I can't remember exactly, but
it was every protocol was broken. The assistant director they're
kind of okay, the end all be all is the armorer. Yeah,
I'm not blaming Alec Baldwin at all, because typically you
don't want the actor to start messing with the gun.
(37:45):
Once you have cleared it as safe. You don't want
them pulling the rounds out. You show them that those
are dummy rounds. So when you shoot, when you fire
a cartridge, the firing pin, the firing pin made that
little mark, and that shows that this has been shot.
(38:08):
It's done. They someone took it and put a bullet
head in it, you know, as far as there was
no powder and they put a BBI and then most
revolvers nowadays, Uh, you can dry fire and we'll just
shoot well, like we'll go and I don't know a
lot of people do it differently, Like if you're outside,
(38:30):
you don't ever want to point a gun up in
the air. But if you know, if I am one
hundred percent sure that these are dummy that I have
dummy bullets, you'll, uh, for the assistant director, you'll go
around the chamber. You'll just start pulling the trigger and
it'll go around the cylinder. If it's a revolver like
it was with Alec Baldwin, and and it'll fire hit
(38:52):
that firing pin will hit the back of your dummy
bullets and prove you prove one hundred percent to the
actor and the assistant director look, I've already checked these.
These are good nothing, These aren't going to hurt anybody. Well,
they didn't do any of that, you know, It's like they.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Just decided to. Do you think that they I mean
obviously were speculating here, but like, do you think a
decision was made like no, let's use real bullets or
do you think.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Oh no, no, no, they didn't know. The armorer she
just mixed in some live she she apparently would go
target shooting on the weekends and stuff, and mixed in
some live AMMO with her dummy rounds.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
And I saw that.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
You can find it online some of the evidence photos
from the case where they showed the box of dummy
rounds and you can tell which ones are the Yeah,
the real ones that they had silver.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
They feel different, like when you wouldn't they weigh a
different amount.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
And they wouldn't and they wouldn't make the noise.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
They wouldn't they But they didn't check.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Them, so they didn't follow any of the protocols. Plus
they shouldn't have had live rounds on the set, and
that led to what happened. Happened personally the way I
have been taught for years and it's always worked, is
for the armor to be the end all, be all
(40:22):
you trust that. You know, their job is to keep
people safe, you know what? And I did heard one
reporter make a good analogy or way of describing it
was if you hand the keys to an actor and
they've got to drive two blocks down the road in
a scene. Right, So they get in the car and
(40:45):
the brakes don't work and they hit a crew member
and kill them. Are they going to get You're going
to try them for manslaughter? When we're given a defective
piece of equipment. You know, it's like it's you know,
that's the whole thing, as the actor isn't paid to
be a weapons expert.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
And there there there's footage of Alec Baldwin. There's two
different ways to look at it. If you see some
of it. There's one where he's rushing things where he
can tell he's getting frustrated, and there are other scenes
where he like tells Helena, hey, get out of the way.
You know, you know, I don't want to point the
gun at you. But what they don't people don't understand
(41:26):
the shot they were lining up was him pointing the
gun at the camera, right, So he was doing what
he was told. He was told to point it this way,
from what I understand, and that happens a lot where
you need to you know, the camera needs to look
right down the barrel, and you know there's no other
(41:47):
way to do it but pointing it directly at the camera.
And she happened to be, you know, looking through the
viewfinder with the director standing right behind her, and you know, so, yeah,
it's a horrible thing. Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
We can hope that it encouraged a little more thoroughness
and compulsion on sets for any people who might not.
But I mean, obviously, the industry has done so many
films with dangerous scenes that with no problem.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Obviously, Well, I mean, I personally think it begins with
the hiring process. I mean they should have hired an
experienced arm or someone that I mean for the for
the amount of gunfire that they were doing, or the
blank gunfire. You needed an experienced person. She had only
done one other show, and she wasn't a member of
the union.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
You kind of now, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
What I'm saying is being a union member does at
least help vet that person. You know that they've got
a certain number of films under their belt, and you know,
the prop master on that show had only worked one,
had only prom mastered once. You know, it's like they
didn't have they scrimped on their prop and weapons department,
(43:04):
and you know, you get you know, you get what
you pay for.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, no, totally. And so to get to the point
of being like a really experienced armorer, is it the
kind of thing where you are like an assistant armorer
on a lot of things, like how do you that's
how you get that distinguished Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, yeah, you work underneath someone and you see what
the protocols are do you learn under that person, and
then you understand the etiquette of how to deal with
an actor, and you want to make an actor feel comfortable.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
And not nervous.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Most armors were an assistant armor for several years, right
and done, you know, did ten shows before they took
took on the role of you know, head armor.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
So it's it's important that whoever you hire has has
several films as a as an armor of their belt
as the lead armor, you know. And it also depends
on how many how many weapons are being used in
the project you're working on. Is it going to be
a big gun battle. You know, I did a show
called The Long Road Home for National Geographic that I promptmastered.
(44:16):
But I hired all the armorers. I hired the lead armor,
and then we sought out, you know, experience. We wanted
to have experienced assistant armorers as well because it was
going to be an intense amount of loading. We were
shooting at Fort Hood and we had built fourteen city
(44:36):
blocks of like supposed to be the slums of Iraq,
and I did fill in with some airsofts for the
far background, but we went through three hundred and fifty
thousand rounds of ammunition, of blank ammunition, and I was,
you know, I was a nervous wreck that whole time
(44:56):
because I had just about the whole It was eight
up a pisodes of an ambush that happened in two
thousand and four. So every day it was just gunfire, gunfire, gunfire, gunfire. Luckily,
a lot of our background extras were military, so that helped.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
So yeah, yeah, No, it also relates back to racing
in this sense that like you do things in and
out every day, and you're used to being around like
heavy machines and stuff, and you can kind of take
for granted that it's still dangerous industry. To your point,
a set has a lot of dangerous elements, and really
taking those seriously and not getting comfortable, I think is
(45:38):
just critical.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Now that's one thing I missed from the old The Walker.
The first one I worked on, the one with Chuck
Chuck Norris, was we had a whole what we call
a second unit. So you'll have your main unit that
shoots your main actors, and then we'd have a stunt unit. Basically,
it was second unit that was the car crashes, the
(46:03):
you know, the the big time, the big fight scenes
and all that and uh but yeah, we did a
lot of car crashes in and blew up a lot
of houses.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Yeah, oh we did.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Uh DFW Airport was getting rid of they bought some
property to put a new runway in.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Right, so there were all these like.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Like twelve homes that they were going to demo, and
they reached out to our production to the Walker production company,
and said, uh, do you want to destroy these homes
for us? And uh so the writers wrote a mad
bomber episode and we, uh, the special effects guys went
(46:51):
in and and rigged all these houses to blow up.
So you had Chuck Norris running down. You had all
the stunt performers in yards, like tending to mow the
grass and whatnot. And they were all hired snunt people,
you know, people in their cars pulling in, pulling out.
And then Chuck finds out that there's that all the
(47:11):
houses are going to blow up, and he's running down
the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Screaming get out of your house.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
And as he's screaming, like the houses just start blowing
up behind him. It's a great it's a great shot.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
But I'm gonna have to watch.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
That was the kind of stuff we did. Yeah, you
could just google, or you get on YouTube, google Walker
Mad Bomber. You'll find it.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
I will. Well, it's funny you mentioned all the stunt
people because my last guess on if I'm honest, was
a stunt performer for driving someone I race go carts
with initially Brett Smurs, who he said that one of
his first crashing scenes was having to crash this big
like Chevy Avalanche into a truck or something and just
you know, all the prep work that goes in the
stunt bag that he had ready to go. And he's
(47:54):
worked on films like Ferrari and Ford versus Ferrari and
just it's really cool to have this as like the
next episode, another very niche industry that just you know,
we as the average consumer sees only the final product,
but hearing all of the fun stuff that goes into
it is So.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I love watching the precision driving. It's amazing. It's just
it's a work of art.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Oh yeah, oh the I mean I can't imagine that
or like some of the like chase seams through streets,
or like being near the edge of cliffs like that.
That is terrifying to me. So I applaud all the
stunt people who do that.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
I was on set the other day and I saw this.
There's this older stunt man. He'll get mad at me
saying that we won't tell, but he was. His name's
Russell Towery, and the way he got started was he
was really good on the motorcycle and he he was
(48:51):
working on RoboCop I think as an electrician. But they
ended up hiring him to be Peter Weller stunt double.
And he it was only like he was skinny enough
to fit into the costume. Uh, and Peter Weller couldn't
drive a motorcycle. So Russell had to do it in
the RoboCop outfit, and you know, and drive a car
(49:16):
and do all that. He was an incredible He is
an incredible precision driver as well. But sometimes you'll have
to do it and hide. I've seen I've seen them
have to What was it? There was some show where
a car was supposed to be driving by itself and
they like built a new seat to where the person
where the stunt driver is inside the seat and there's
(49:39):
like a little mesh at the head rest to where
they can see what's going on.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Yeah, there's there's so much fun stuff. I did did
a show called Machete for Robert Rodriguez. There's a film
company in town called Troublemaker Studios, and they do all
the Spike Kids movies, and you know Rob Robert Rodriguez
is he shoots a lot of his shows here. I
did Sin City and whatnot, and I did one called
(50:08):
Machete and we had a big like a lot of
motorcycle stunts where we had to mount I had to
mount this machine gun to a motorcycle and then you
don't think of what goes into that, but you gotta
have it balanced out right. You gotta make sure that
they can still maneuver. Yeah, you throw off the balance
(50:30):
with yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah, Well we're gonna hear a quick break. But we'll
be right back with Scott on if I'm honest to
Julia Land Well, I have one more specific prop related
question which you kind of mentioned earlier way back in
the beginning, But silicon versus breakaway glass and I or
(50:56):
is that like silicon glass versus breakaway glass is what
would be? Can you explain the difference and why you
would use one over the other for a certain situation.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Yeah, For so, breakaway is rigid. It actually even sounds
like glass when it breaks up. I should have I
should have brought one.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Well, direct people to I'll put a link in the
description specifically showing this one.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
So it's it's just a brittle resin and uh so
that's good for when you need to see it breaking.
The same with a pane of glass in a door
or in a window, you'll use breakaway resin and it
won't cut you. It's real. It like I said, it
looks and sounds like glass breaking, but it's so brittle
(51:44):
it won't It would never like stab you or anything
it would break before it would stab you. Silicone glass,
rubber glass.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
We call it.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
It's uh you you use that as already broken. You
see what I'm saying. So, so like if we're doing
a car crash scene, you would use a lot of times.
If it's tempered safety glass, they'll just break that. They
won't even use breakaway for that. But then we're doing
an aftermath where someone's laying on glass or has to
(52:16):
walk or crawl on broken glass, We'll use rubber glass
for that. So because I guess, you know, breakaway glass
could still it could still scratch, I guess, but it's
just not comfortable, Yeah, not comfortable at all. You would
break it up into little squares to where it looked
like safety glass and then just sprinkle that all around
(52:37):
and it'll keep the actors safe. There are I know,
like in the movie die Hard, people were saying when
I said they use rubber glass for that, which they did.
People said, well, no, he wore rubber feet. Well he
did for some of it. He wore rubber feet when
it was breakaway glass dropping all around him, and they didn't.
They weren't able to get dressed rubber glass in it.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
You know.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
But for the close ups, I can tell when you're
looking at it that they definitely had some rubber glass
for him, so you know, for when they they were
too close to for him to wear the rubber feet.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
But in uh, in.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Home alone, you can see Daniel Stern wearing the rubber
feet as well.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Keep an eye on that.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Yeah. For the wide shots, you see it, like when
he's walking around outside and stuff and uh, but inside
he's barefoot. When he start he steps on breakaway Christmas
ornaments there.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Okay, So I actually have one more questions.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
When you when you watch movies or TV shows, do
you find yourself thinking about like how the prop was
done or what it was or do you let yourself
just enjoy watching the entertainment.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
I've gotten to where I can enjoy it. I can
turn it off. I've got no problem with that. And
I'm kind of surprised at how unobservant I am because
my daughter will be like, did you see what they
did there? I'm like what Then I'll oh, yeah there, yeah,
so she catches the continuity mistakes more than I do.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
Well, good, you get to take a break. I find that,
like I'm from New York City, and so I find
when I always immediately see the inconsistencies with when movies
or shows are filming, Like they say they're downtown and
they show a shot of Central Park and it's like,
this is not downtown.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
This is Oh yeah, I'm not that.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
I can't very.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
And I get very nitpicky about location stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
I was I was watching some show with Gene Hackman
and there was a so I grew up in the
kind of the Houston area, kind of near Galveston and
Port author Uh, and it's just flat. I mean it's
flat everywhere on that side of Texas. And there was
this scene that said north of Galveston, Texas and it
(54:46):
was like the mountains and I was like, way, that's
like way north of Galveston, Canada.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Yeah, like Montana something. Yeah, Oh that's funny.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
But yeah, So anytime I see mountains where I know,
it's plane so that cracks me up.
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Yeah, I'm like, how do they not catch this? But
I'm not the expert.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Yeah, I like watching the movie mistakes.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
Those are fun and you know, I hope no one
but I make mistakes too, so and I never I
never do it to I don't Pike poke mean fun
at people about it. I just think they're fun to catch.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
I feel like as a viewer, it kind of makes
you feel like, ah, like how it smarted you a
little bit, or like I've picked up on this. I
don't know, at least for me.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Now.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
There's one thing that I don't know what to do
about it.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
It's the whole empty coffee cup thing, because there are
so many videos about people complaining the coffee cups and
TV shows look empty. And you know, my team, they
all are real diligent about you know, if putting liquid,
but you don't want to have like if it's a
just you know, to go coffee cup, you don't want
(55:54):
to fill it to the rim, especially with coffee. You
could with water, but or else it's gonna you know,
it'll stain the uh, you know, the outfit, So you
need to go three quarters full. And then a lot
of times now that they're not people aren't shooting on
film anymore. It's all digital they can do. They'll sit
(56:16):
there and do ten takes without you know, yelling cut,
and so you can't get in there if they've finished
drinking the cup. But a lot of a lot of
people will complain about coffee cups. I don't think it
happens as much on our show because I I really
you know, yeah, uh fuss at the folks about it,
(56:37):
you know, make sure.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
So is it that it changes the liquid level or that,
because if it doesn't have aid, you hold it differently
than you would if it did.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Yeah, yeah, you hold it differently for sure.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
It's just it just it looks empty. And a lot
of times it's like the actor knows, you know, subconsciously,
this isn't scalding hot. It's not going to burn me,
so they'll hold it a little more gingerly and stuff.
But you can't have scalding sculd scalding hot water in
the cup or else it could hurt the actor.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:12):
Yeah, So that's one of those things it's hard to
hard to fight is making that look, and you can't
expect the actor to They need to worry about their performance,
not if they're holding the coffee cup properly.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
I don't know, but I've experimented. I put silicone and
coffee cups and stuff and use those for background uh
background actors before, But it doesn't really work.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
So you're going to keep playing that scientist.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
Oh yeah, to figure out how to keep us post
one day. I will figure out the empty coffee cup problem.
And luggage people complain about luggage.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
Yeah, I get that. I get that, well, Scott. We
are going to round out the episode with an if
you're honest, rapid fire. All right, question, So what is
the coolest place that you've been on set to film?
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Oh? No, the Redwood Forest and uh and you know,
outside of San Francisco. That was pretty cool. The most
impressive built location was the fourteen city blocks of Iraq
out out in the middle of a field. That was impressive,
watching a whole town be built in a matter of
three weeks.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
All right, nixt next question, what is your go to
lazy homemade dinner?
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Oh, crescent rolls with the little link sausage. You know
where you wrap it? You know, you wrap them in
the crescent rolls. That's my favorite.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
I love that. Is there a director that you'd love
to work with?
Speaker 2 (58:45):
I'd like to work with Scorsese? I think, oh, that'd
be awesome. Yeah, I like to work with Scorsese. I
have a lot of respect for him. I have a
lot of respect for it.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. Last question, What is something
that you're grateful for right now?
Speaker 2 (59:01):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (59:01):
My family, that's the first thing.
Speaker 2 (59:03):
Yeah, for sure, I'm grateful that I'm able to have
a career where I can still go home and see
my family and and share things with them and watch
them grow and become funny and creative. And that's the
coolest thing ever.
Speaker 1 (59:18):
Mm hmm. That's great. So, Scott, where can everyone find
you on TikTok on Instagram so that they can go
watch your incredibly cool, very interesting video.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
Oh and I'll link it all in the description Scott
prop and Roll. And you got a YouTube, I've got
some worry. Yeah, I'm at nine hundred and fifty four
thousand subscribe, so I'm getting real close to a million.
So it helped me get to a million.
Speaker 1 (59:45):
I was not aware of your YouTube, so I will
go subscribe well, and we will promote it.
Speaker 2 (59:49):
It's all Scott prop and Roll if you yeah. Yeah,
and on Facebook as well, but make sure that it's me,
because there's on Facebook there's several fake account ounce uh bastards. Oh,
there's there's like four of them. There's one that's uh,
this one person that has like seventy thousand followers, that
(01:00:12):
people that think they're following me it's and they're using
the same page name, Scott prop and Roll. But I've
had mine. I had mine a lot longer than they did. Anyway,
this one would make sure properly. Yeah, go for the
one that's two hundred and six thousand followers.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
Yeah, that's very good.
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
That's the one to follow on Facebook. But one, but
I suggest to YouTube. That's there's most of my stuff
there perfect YouTube, ticktk, Instagram, Scott prop and Roll.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking time out
of your busy schedule on set to chat with me.
This was so much fun. Everyone. Thank you for tuning
in and for listening. Go follow Scott, go watch all
the content. It is so so cool. As always, thank
you for letting us be honest with you and I
will forward to seeing you next week.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Up be
Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of If
I'm Honest with Julia Landauer. Today we have a TikTok
and YouTube star on the podcast, and we are talking
with a man who combines behind the scenes movie set
prop information with dad jokes. I mean, this is a
dream come true for me and I love a dad joke,
(00:25):
I love a pun and so I am thrilled that
Scott Reader, who is a prop master, is joining us
on the podcast today. So Scott was born and raised
in Southeast Texas and is based in Austin, and he's
been in the film and TV industry for thirty five years,
working as a prop master on hundreds of TV and
film projects. Among his notable credits are Friday Night Lights,
Pitch Perfect, Parenthood, Machete, Necessary Roughness, and The Leftovers. In
(00:49):
two thousand and four, he opened a prop shop in Austin,
Texas and has rented out props to thousands of productions
across the US. And In twenty twenty, Scott started posting
film and TV related videos on so social media and
quickly built a large following with his comedic spin on
edutainment by combining his film industry knowledge with dad jokes
and puns. Scott currently has over one point eight million
(01:10):
followers on TikTok, over nine hundred and fifty thousand subscribers
on his Scott Prop and Roll YouTube channel, and he
was so great in joining us and sharing all of
the tidbits of the industry. I really really loved this
conversation because not only did we learn how he got
into prop work and what it's like to play mad
Scientists as he's trying to develop a prop, but we
(01:32):
also got to talk about his experience on racing and
car related sets. We got to talk about the very
specific props that I had questions about that were featured
in a lot of his videos. And we also talk
about some serious stuff like his take on the fatal
tragedy and accident that was on the Rust set when
a firearm was discharged and killed a member of this
(01:54):
production set. And he also talks about what he's still
working on from a prop perspective, and he's very very chill,
he's very thoughtful. I, as many of you know, really
the Doore puns and dad jokes, and that was how
I originally found him when I was back on TikTok,
and so I'm really excited that he's joined us, and
(02:15):
I hope you enjoy the super interesting discussion. Scott, thank
you for joining me on if I'm honest with Julia Landauer.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Thanks for having me so for our.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Listeners, and maybe for you too. I came across your
content back when I was on TikTok. I'm no longer
on TikTok, but I loved that you were incorporating such
clever dad jokes into all of your content. And at
the time, the reason it resonated with me so much
was because I was having to do physical therapy for
my shoulder. So I found myself like laying on the
(02:47):
ground doing these stretches for several minutes every day, and
I got bored and I don't know how I started,
but I started delivering random dad jokes that I came
across while I was doing it was stretching, and it
was on my Instagram stories and so and then after
kind of relating to you on that, I just thought
the content that you were posting was so cool about
everything all behind the scenes related to props. And you know,
(03:08):
I think so many of us appreciate what goes into
making movies, but to see the science of it. The
nitty gritty of it was just it's always been really cool,
continues to be really cool. And so could you let
us know what exactly is a prop master and how
did you get into this industry?
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, I'm a prop master is someone who handles anything
touched or held in a film or television show or
a theatrical production. I don't handle couches or paintings on
the wall. That's all set decoration. But when it comes
to if it's a shootout, I provide the prop weapons.
(03:50):
If it's a bar fight, I provide the breakaway beer bottles,
if it's you know, like I said, anything touched or held.
I got started when I was going to the University
of North Texas just north of Dallas at in Denton, Texas,
and there happened to be a movie shooting in town
when I was, I guess a sophomore, and I found
(04:13):
out a location where they were going to be, and
I just showed up and offered to pick up trash
or whatever. I started out just basically as an intern,
but I made connections on that. I was very proactive,
and I interned at the North Texas Film Commission where
(04:34):
I got to go scout locations and I always knew
what was coming long before it was coming to the
state of Texas, so I could get my name in
the hat. Early on, I wasn't sure what I wanted
to do for the first few years, but it did
help pay my way through college. I was doing karaoke
(04:54):
music videos. I was doing anything I could jump in on.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Wait, I need to pause you right there. When you
say you were doing karaoke music videos, what does that mean?
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Like, oh, pardon me, Okay, back back, this dates me here,
I go way back. So the first movie I interned
on was in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I was nineteen years old.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Then I worked there were some small production companies that
would do what are called karaoke videos, and back in
the day, they were like low budget music videos. So
as the words are coming up, if you're in a
bar and you're singing a song, the words would be
coming up. They would have a music video that would
(05:37):
play right behind it. And I helped make those. So
that's kind of where I learned, you know, doing sound,
running camera, what a grip was? What I mean, you're
doing something that's that low budget, you do a little
bit of everything. So I always recommend to people that
are wanting to get into the business to work on commercials,
(05:58):
work on the small indie because that's where the cruiser
smaller and you're giving a lot more responsibility early on,
and you learn how to problem solve and deal with
the high pressure of you know, of having responsibility thrown
(06:19):
on you at an early age. That's where, you know,
kind of how I got started. And then I ended
up working on doing props on a show called Necessary Roughness,
which was it was a film for Paramount that came
to town in the Dallas area, and I just went
and basically begged the prop master for a job and
(06:42):
got on as like a prop production assistant basically, and
it was you know, it was a lot of fun
and I learned a lot and I just started out
that way doing like prop assistant work. Then I found
the best training ground was being a prop buyer where
on television. So I did a really cheesy late night
(07:06):
CBS show. Yeah, it was for CBS. It was called
Dangerous Curves and that was like ninety two and that's
where you know, we had like seven days to prep,
you know, and then seven days to shoot per episode.
And then following that, I got on the original Walker
(07:27):
Texas Ranger, and I did that for years and that's
kind of how I cut my teeth in the business.
But yeah, so a pridmaster has to break down the
script and look and see what all is needed, figure
out how much labor it's going to take if you've
got to have anything fabricated like a rubber act. It's
(07:48):
the little details that you don't think about. Like if
we're shooting in a parking lot and we're filming in
Texas and it's set in New York, I've got to
put New York plates on all of the cars and
put registration stickers. If it's New York and you know,
nineteen sixty, then you've got to think about Okay, you
got to do the research and okay, what what did there?
(08:11):
You know, what did the registration stickers look like? What
do the plates look like? Down to you know, then
the set decorators are worried about the street signs. When
did those change over? You know, you really, you know,
when you period shows, you really have to do your research.
Because they have this thing on IMDb called the the
(08:32):
goofs in Blooper section or what.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
And call you out on your on your ship.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Basically, Oh, I've been everyone that does what I do
is called out on, you know, and sometimes sometimes they're right,
sometimes they're not. You know, you know, I'll admit it
if I you know, I'm I'm not perfect. I make
mistakes like everybody. So uh but yeah, you've got to
have some thick skin. Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
But you know what I loved about doing TikTok.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I'll hear people like I'll show how to do something
right now, whatever the trick is, be it making a
rubber glass or whatever whatever it is, and someone will
come in and have a way they do it that's interesting.
It's not necessarily better or or sometimes it is. But
(09:24):
I've learned from other people on this app as well.
So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
That is really cool. So I have a follow up
question to something that you said earlier. How you know,
obviously you have to think about license plate all these
little details, and like on a racing team, like crews
also have like they have just so many little details
that they have to check that they have to make
sure are on point, and they create these massive checklists
and they're pretty uniform because gotta do the same stuff.
(09:50):
A track, no matter what track it is. But for you,
is there the same kind of meticulous like list making
and like do you have a set thing that you
have to, you know, to pay attention to, for like
a street scene versus a home scene versus.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Well, I do a breakdown of every episode and then
I send it out to the director, the producer, the
art coordinator, the production designer, and we go through my
list and like that's what we did today is I
went through scene by scene and just to make sure
I'm on the same page as the director and that
(10:24):
we and that I don't you know, miss anything, And
sometimes there'll be something that's not scripted that they'd like
to add. This is the opportunity to do that. And
then then I continue to gather stuff. In a few
days after that, we'll have a prop show and tell,
where I will lay everything out on tables and show
(10:47):
everything that we have and then they can make their
final notes there. But by then we typically like start
shooting the next day, and you know, so I better
really get it in gear. And but ly by the
show and Tell, I know I don't have any buyers
to put out really right. It's funny you talk about
(11:10):
I've done. On the original Walker, we had two episodes
where we shot at the Texas Motor Speedway and we
hired NASCAR two hour episode.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
It was back when.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Chuck Norris's son, Eric, who was a stunt coordinator, started
in NASCAR, or he was a NASCAR driver for a
very I would say maybe for two years, and so
I think he talked to Chuck and doing and they
wrote a story around that and we shot at the
Have you ever have you ever been to the Texas
(11:47):
Motor speed I've.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Actually never been, but like I'm very filar with seeing
on TV and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Well, I guess it was like nineteen ninety nine or
something like that. And I don't know how I got
to do it. I drove of my I had a
beat up old Volvo station Wagon and I drove it
on the track. So I got to say, I drove.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
On How was it? How was it?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
It was? I was in a beat up old car.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
But fast? Did you go fast?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
I don't remember exactly. I know, I just yea, I
took it as fast as it would go.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
It was cool.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
You didn't really even have to turn the steering where
you just kind of just kind of took you around.
It was crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Banking is really yeah, the banking is really impressive like that.
And our cars are actually like the Oval specific race
players are staggered to go left, so it's even like
less input in a way because the chassis and suspension
are you know, angled for that. But that's really cool
that you got to drive.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
But I'm I'm a horrible driver though, but I've got
I've done a lot of projects about that. So we
I did a IBM commercial at the F one track.
What did it called? Codis Circuit of the Americans. They
had this, Oh, I did an accurate commercial. And on
a lot of commercials, I'll end up doing both props
(13:06):
and special effects. Or on this one, they wanted me
to do smoke and it was they had these like
two accurate concept cars that they would really really pass.
And they have this camera car that's typically a Porsche
high end. Am I pronouncing that right? And they've got
(13:28):
this big crane built on top of it. It's got
a wide wheelbase that particular Porsche is perfect for to
be a camera vehicle. And I had a Dodge pickup
truck that they had rented for me and I had
these two smoke machines that are gas powered with mineral
(13:49):
oil or whatever, and they make these huge plumes of
smoke and they have this practice this f one practice
track outside of Austin called Driveway Austin, and that's where
we were filming a lot of these scenes. And I
was scared to death because we smoked it up so much.
(14:10):
I have my assistant strapped in the back with a
harness and mind you remember I said I'm a horrible driver. Yeah,
I'm not lying, and I've got the assistant director riding
shotgun and I've got it smoked up to where I
can't see where anyone's coming from. And there was one
part of the track where it crosses. I had a
(14:31):
weird feeling. I was like, where are they? And the
smoke started to clear and they just went. I mean,
they were within twelve inches of the front bumper. And
that's what I called time out and said, guys, I said,
let's have a big meeting. We need to We really
need to utilize these radios and coordinate so we don't
(14:54):
hurt anybody.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
We don't want to be actual race car drivers that
crash right now.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, and by the way, I reminded him, I'm a
horrible driver. How I got picked to smoke it up
in the truck. But anyway, but it was fun. I
love I love working on car commercials. They're fine.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Obviously there's a smoke that you can produce. Are there
other like tricks of car commercials that are prop dependent
that share? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
If we're doing like on a dirt road, a lot
of times, you know they won't it won't kick up
the dirt that they wanted to. So we'll have this
stuff called walnut dust, and it's not really walnuts. It's
the walnut shells ground up into a powder, and we'll
go in with like in a in a four wheeler
(15:45):
and dump bags of it, you know, on the road,
so when the car hits it, it makes a huge
plume of dust. It looks pretty good. I've done that
on a lot of commercials and a lot of show
a lot of TV shows where you just dust up
the road and because just the lightest little bit of
rain will you know, the existing road, typically you can't
(16:06):
won't kick up any dust. And then we'll use like
a rose duster. They will put dust in movie dirt
they call it. And then we'll age a vehicle like
that if they want to be kind of covered in dust.
I own like police light bars, so I will help
(16:27):
gear up, you know, like we have like a Dodge
charger or something, I'll turn it into a police car
and we'll do.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
That sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
You know. I prefer working television just because I've just
done it so much. That's my comfort zone. But it
does get fast paced sometimes, and this like this one,
we're shooting forty five minute episode in six days, which
is quite a which is pretty fast for a narrative show.
(17:01):
Every once in a while I like to fill in
with features like in between seasons or whatever. Those are
fun too. A script is one minute per page, so
that's how they gauge it, right, And so if you
think one minute per page, so if I look at
a script it's like forty five pages, the forty five
(17:24):
to forty eight pages, that's going.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
To be a forty eight minute deal.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And uh, and it kind of it always works out
pretty much to be within within five minutes of what
you know, a minute per page will shoot on in
television anywhere between six to eight pages a day, but
in feature films you're shooting two pages a day. You know,
you'll be at one location, you know. But back when
(17:51):
I did Friday Night Lights, that was insane. We would
do like five days to shoot one episode, and we
would hit like five locations a day. We didn't do
any stage work like on this, we're on stage, like
we have sets built and we shoot those like at
least over half of the episode is on stage. Friday
(18:12):
Night Lights was we would go into businesses. They wouldn't
really do much decorating. We would just shoot it like
it was there, and we would hit four and five
locations a day. It was kind of insane how fast
that went. They didn't rehearse. The actors loved it because
there wasn't any putting marks down. It was. They'd have
(18:32):
four cameras. Actors would walk in, like I said, no rehearsals,
and they would maybe do two takes and then packed
the trucks up and leave all handheld. They weren't ever
putting dollies down, And yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Is so cool. Well, we're is here a quick break,
but we'll be right back with Scott. We are back
on if I'm honest, Julia Landauer with Scott Reader. So
we were just talking about movie sets versus TV sets. Now,
I kind of want to jump into the specifics with
(19:11):
the props. So I have gone through your Instagram a bunch,
and there were a few props that I was really
intrigued by or found very interesting. So one was how
you made a prop out of a charcoal grill because
you're not going to be using an actual grill.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I guess on set, well, if it's interior, there are
some times where you're on an interior set, but it's
they make it to look like you're outside.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Sometimes you'll be on a sound stage and yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Okay, okay, so it's only okay, that's yeah, that makes sense.
One that I was cond.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
There's a burn band. Sometimes there's a burn band and
you'll be outside and you have to fake it too.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Oh, got it? Okay, that makes sense. One that I
was confused by was you had to post about edible deodorant,
and I guess, why make it edible? Oh?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I just saw this TikTok where a guy was eating deodorant,
and I thought I wanted to figure out how to
do it, and that that was just being goofed. That
was just me being good. But you never know. I mean,
I literally had to do a show and tell today
with I can't go into the specifics of it, but
we have one of our main characters that I had
(20:20):
to have edible dirt, which I've done those videos too,
and everyone's like, why on earth do you need to
make edible dirt? Well, you know, you can get in
situations where someone's got dirt on their face or thrown
in their face. You know, we make edible versions so
they don't you get some funky bacteria from dirt.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, yeah, which is which I'm sure on behalf of
the actors, thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Right exactly, And so you know it sounds crazy, but
we do.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
We are in that situation.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And I found out today that we're gonna have to
make like bucket loads and bucket loads of edible dirt.
And you know there have been movies where people are
eating butter.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yep, it's gonna bring that up next to the animal
on the Mayo the butter.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And then but I love a challenge, it's like.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And also then I found out from the special effects
because I said, send me pictures that part of my
my Texas accident pictures, uh, pictures of what the the
dirt looks like that we're going to be using and uh,
and it's kind of mulchy. So I'm like, oh great,
so now we got a Yeah, I've got this good
looking fake dirt, but now we gotta make it look mulchy,
(21:37):
you know, like with like little pieces of bark or whatever.
My assistant Matt, who's in a lot of the videos
as well and YouTube, he was like, let's try shredded
beef jerky. And once that was mixed in in like
the dust from the fate from the edible dirt which
is made out of oreos and cheerios, and and then
(21:59):
check cereal and whatnot, Uh, it looked it freaking looked
like mulch. So that was fun. We just we just
figured that out today. Yeah, it's fun. I enjoy that
part of it. And but typically, uh, when I'm brought
mastering for television, I'm not I'm not able to do
all the fabrication because the things are moving so fast.
(22:21):
I have assistance that do all that or I or
I have to sub out to other people. There are
a couple of really good mold makers in town. So
like I had to have like a a shovel, a
rubber shovel like a fireplace shovel, you know those fireplace statula.
I'd have a fireplace shovel molded out of rubber. And
(22:41):
I have a guy that if I get if I
have two days notice, he can mold it and get
it to me cool. And so I've kind of I'm
always coordinating and doing logistics on all that stuff, making
sure I get things in ahead of time.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
I also have to rent from prop houses in Los
Angeles sometimes, so I have to make sure I give
myself time to good things. Ship you get real, real spoiled,
you know, to fed having FedEx. And I did a
series in Rhode Island back in twenty nineteen where I
(23:21):
had never I'd never done a show east that far east,
and I was so spoiled to being able to get
stuff overnighted from Los Angeles. There's no overnight, or there
wasn't twenty nineteen. Is like they would say they would
call it overnight, but I never could get next day
(23:42):
from coming from Los Angeles for whatever reason. It's just
it's a long wait.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Whole new level of project management there, huh.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, So I just had to adapt the way or
be less of a procrastinator.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Hey, Hey, sometimes they gotta do that. So with the food,
was there any type of like otherwise kind of gross
food that you wanted to make a substitute prop for
that was particularly challenging to get it to match either
like consistency or color or.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
The most difficult prop food situation I was in was
on a TV pilot called GCB and for ABC, and
we had a character that was a binge eater. So
the character every scene was eating handy bars, banana splits,
(24:37):
chocolate cake. I mean, it was non stop, the whole
every time we saw this person. And she was gluten free,
she couldn't have sugar, she couldn't have milk, lactose intolerant.
So I had to basically I had everything we had
(24:58):
to hand to make basically wow and figure out how
do you do chocolate cake? You know. We were my
assistant and I were like hand dipping candy bars or
something that would look like a candy bar, hand dipping
it in unsweetened chocolate, you know, and rewrapping. And it
was just that was the nightmarey, just because it was
(25:21):
so much and so many different things, right, So, yeah,
dealing with with actors dietary limitations can be quite a thing.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
But I'm very fortunate.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
To be on a show right now where everyone's just like, yeah,
I eat whatever.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Perfect. We love a little maintenance cast, right yep, yep.
You know in some of your videos you show things like,
you know, having a tea kettle and that it has
to be rubber, but then it's still sound like real
typod and so you do the overlap with overlay with sound.
But in general, what are the guidelines for when you
use the actual object versus when you need to prop?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Oh well, well, I'll just talk to the director and
we'll find out, you know, and where in the stunt,
in the stunt coordinator, and we'll we'll we'll swap it out.
I'll just have an identical prop for when it's going
to be, if it's going to hit someone or you know, uh,
if the real item could be a danger to anyone,
I'll swap it out with a fake.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Okay, And we do that a lot.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It's always something different though, you never know.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
For sure, and I'm sure it's really set dependent, so
when you do when you are creating props, are there
a lot of types of props where there's kind of
an industry standard way of making them, or do you
find yourself still experimenting a lot, Like obviously with the
food kind of situation, like you have make edible dirt,
that's experimenting. But would you say, like typically at this
point there's like set ways to do things or are
(26:50):
you playing mad scientists with your prop devoiment?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Well, we do some some mad scientists stuff, and I'm
very fortunate to have an assistant, Matt, who loves being
a mad scientist. He'll he'll say no, no, there's a
different ways, a better way, and we'll And because of Matt,
we do a lot more in house than we used to,
like such as he's mastered the cricket vinyl cutter. So
(27:14):
if we need to make a silk screen to make
our own custom grocery bags, you know, with the logo
whatever our you know, we have to do fake logos
on everything, and we'll do some of it in house,
and and that's fun. I love that if there's time,
but I unfortunately, you know, don't, don't have a whole
(27:35):
lot of time for prop making.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
So at the prop master level, do you find that,
like now, majority of it is kind of more the
organizational stuff and like.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Yeah, for television, for sure, it's a little more administrative
and on that's what's fun about doing features. I still
like to do features when I can, because on a
feature film, you do all the prep ahead of time,
and then I can be on set and really interact
with the actors more so than I do on like
on a television series. It's all different. That's that's the
(28:07):
big difference between film and television and props is I
can be on set and really get my get my
hands in it, and uh, it's fun.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Yeah. What was the last feature films that you were on?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
It was breaking news in Yuba County and we filmed
it in Natchez, Mississippi, and it had Matthew Modine, Mila
Kunis Aquafina, who else.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It was one of those.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Ensemble casts, Yeah, Wanda Sykes, Ellen Barkin. It was directed
by the guy wrote and directed by the guy that
did The Help.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Okay, And actually I haven't heard of the movie, but
now I need to go check it out.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
That's breaking news in Yuba County, you know. I I
haven't seen it.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Oh, Okay, So that's a whole nother question. How many
like do you? What's your do you want your films
after or TV shows after you work on them?
Speaker 2 (29:04):
No, not not all of them. I but think about
I've read the script so many times. I mean I
will go back and kind of check quality of my work.
I do go watch you know, uh, you know, a
selection of them, but not but I don't religiously watch
every episode.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I figured it up one time.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I've worked as a as a prop buyer and a
prop master. I've worked on over six hundred episodes of television.
Oh wow, oh wow, Well one hundred and ninety six
of those were the original Walker and then the television
show that I did before that, and then I did
what seventy six episodes or Friday Night Lights. I've done
(29:46):
leftovers for HBO Panic, you know, all those shows that
they add up.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
H Are you primarily? I feel like you've referenced being
in Texas a lot. Do you typically go to a
different location for this film?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Well? When I when I have to, I mean, my
family's here, my wife and my two kids. So i'd
love to, you know, work at home. You know, I'll
be you know, and when I can. But I'll travel
when I have to, and I do on occasion.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
It sounds like a lot of it is done in Texas, right, a.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Lot of stone in Texas. But I did like the
Parenthood pilot.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
I did that in San Francisco, done a couple of
movies in Pittsburgh, and I'll, you know, like I said,
I'll travel when I when I have to. During the pandemic,
I started doing just dad jokes, just straight up dad jokes,
and that was that was fun and I built a
(30:41):
decent following just doing the dad jokes. And when I
got back on once the film industry started going again,
one of my assistants was like, you know, Scott, why
don't you do something proper related? What we do is
kind of interesting, and I, you know, I guess you
get to where you do one job so long you
(31:02):
don't think anyone else would think it's that interesting. Right.
That's when I started incorporating, well, I'll, you know, I
broke a bottle over my head and describe what it's
made out of and how, and then that and I
didn't put a dad joke on the end of that one,
but that one did pretty good. And the adding a
joke thing that came about when I did the Silent
(31:24):
Grocery Bag video right, and that I just made it
up as like as I was filming it, and I
almost didn't almost cut it out. I almost didn't put
it in there because it was a little you know whatever.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
It was some innu window there, and.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
As someone with a deeply immature sense of humor, I
appreciate it so.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
So I but I went ahead and put it in
there and said what the heck? And I it was
like at nine to twenty at night. I remember this
very well, and it was like nine to twenty pm.
I just left the office because that's kind of what
I would do, is once I was done for the day,
I would go up to the prop lock up and
(32:10):
shoot a video. And I shot uh, I did the
silent pullballs in silent grocery bags and posted it at.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Like nine to twenty went home. By the time I
pulled in my driveway.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Which is about twenty twenty five minute drive, I had
like one hundred thousand views. It was insane, and that
that video ended up getting twelve or thirteen million views
or something like that. I was I couldn't believe it
and that and then it just shot up and then
then I was like, okay, well that's my formula. I
(32:45):
gotta you know, how am I going to do this?
How I people are going.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
To expect a joke?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
And but it was fun because I'll go back and
look at at some of those and I was like, well, wow,
that was kind of funny.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
That was clever because.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I've forgotten so good.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Not all of them, Not all.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Of them are great. Some of them are bad. Well,
a lot of them are bad.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
But there's also some of them that I look back
and think, well, you know, I may have been the
only one that got that joke, but I still think
it's funny.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Some some some of them are kind of obscure.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
But I enjoy doing it. But that's kind of what
sets me apart from your standard just making do channel
or you know, this is how it's made kind of
thing is I, you know, sprinkle that in and it's fun.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
It's very funny some.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
People, some people don't really care about the film business
at all. They just want to see how I'm gonna
fit a joke in there.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Well, it's true because it's like it seems like it
could be like a challenge because you're dealing with very
specific content that you're talking about, and it's like how
are you going to put this spin on it? I
think it's super clever. I haven't come across one where
I was like, oh, this is a dud, So I think.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I think there are some duds in there, but they
are our.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Own harshest critic. Yeah, yeah, all right, guys, we're gonna
take one more quick break and I'll be right back
with Scott. All right, we are back on it. I'm
on Julie Landauer with our guest Scott Reader. So we
were just talking about very fun dad jokes and punniness
(34:27):
and all that. I do want to take a kind
of shift to a slightly more serious topic. In twenty
twenty one, cinematographer Helena Hutchins was fatally shot on the
set of Rust, and that's obviously still going on. I'm
wondering if you can share from your perspective and whatever
you're comfortable with kind of what might have gone wrong
(34:50):
or what, or just your thoughts on the incident. As
someone who spent so much time on sets.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I believe that it's strictly because they didn't followed the protocols. Well.
Number one, you should never have live round, should never
be anywhere. That's what I'm near a film set. So
that's the whole thing. It's like, it's a weird anomaly.
That's you know, what I try to explain to people
is film sets are dangerous places. And it's not just
(35:18):
with weapons. It's with equipment, cars, planes, motorcycles. A lot
of times, there's stunt related. A lot of times, it's
camera people that get killed. Sarah Jones got hit by
the train. It's just we we get put in dangerous situations.
Of the forty three deaths since nineteen ninety two have
(35:41):
been firearms related, that's Brandon Lee on the Crow and
Lena Hutchins. So yeah, I'm not saying that's a good thing.
I'm saying but that's two out of forty three. The
rest were equipment related. Worked vehicles were helicopters, airplanes, or
a piece of equipment fallowing and hitting someone and killing them.
(36:02):
Boat there were several boat ones every once in a while,
and like I said, they're like the Crow was a
really freakish thing. Again, that led to us in the
mid early nineties really upping our game as far as
adding protocols to where okay, not everyone was checking the barrel,
(36:24):
something got lodged up in the barrel. So now we
run a rod through the barrel, we shine a flashlight.
We you know, we have ten different ways to clear
a weapon.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
So that one it wasn't a bullet, it was something
else got lodged on the.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
On the crow well. It was a it was a
bullet head that got jammed in where a dummy had
come apart and it got jammed up in the barrel.
So when they put a blank in it, it was
just like having a real bullet. Yeah, but with with
(37:00):
RUSS that was pure negligence of real rounds got brought in.
I mean, there were two live rounds in Alec Baldwin's
gun belt, like the bandolier that he would wear with
his bolster. Two live rounds were found there. Two were
found on her cart or in her fanny pack. I
don't know. There were like six rounds total that they found.
(37:22):
I believe five or six, I can't remember exactly, but
it was every protocol was broken. The assistant director they're
kind of okay, the end all be all is the armorer. Yeah,
I'm not blaming Alec Baldwin at all, because typically you
don't want the actor to start messing with the gun.
(37:45):
Once you have cleared it as safe. You don't want
them pulling the rounds out. You show them that those
are dummy rounds. So when you shoot, when you fire
a cartridge, the firing pin, the firing pin made that
little mark, and that shows that this has been shot.
(38:08):
It's done. They someone took it and put a bullet
head in it, you know, as far as there was
no powder and they put a BBI and then most
revolvers nowadays, Uh, you can dry fire and we'll just
shoot well, like we'll go and I don't know a
lot of people do it differently, Like if you're outside,
(38:30):
you don't ever want to point a gun up in
the air. But if you know, if I am one
hundred percent sure that these are dummy that I have
dummy bullets, you'll, uh, for the assistant director, you'll go
around the chamber. You'll just start pulling the trigger and
it'll go around the cylinder. If it's a revolver like
it was with Alec Baldwin, and and it'll fire hit
(38:52):
that firing pin will hit the back of your dummy
bullets and prove you prove one hundred percent to the
actor and the assistant director look, I've already checked these.
These are good nothing, These aren't going to hurt anybody. Well,
they didn't do any of that, you know, It's like they.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Just decided to. Do you think that they I mean
obviously were speculating here, but like, do you think a
decision was made like no, let's use real bullets or
do you think.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Oh no, no, no, they didn't know. The armorer she
just mixed in some live she she apparently would go
target shooting on the weekends and stuff, and mixed in
some live AMMO with her dummy rounds.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
And I saw that.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
You can find it online some of the evidence photos
from the case where they showed the box of dummy
rounds and you can tell which ones are the Yeah,
the real ones that they had silver.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
They feel different, like when you wouldn't they weigh a
different amount.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
And they wouldn't and they wouldn't make the noise.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
They wouldn't they But they didn't check.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Them, so they didn't follow any of the protocols. Plus
they shouldn't have had live rounds on the set, and
that led to what happened. Happened personally the way I
have been taught for years and it's always worked, is
for the armor to be the end all, be all
(40:22):
you trust that. You know, their job is to keep
people safe, you know what? And I did heard one
reporter make a good analogy or way of describing it
was if you hand the keys to an actor and
they've got to drive two blocks down the road in
a scene. Right, So they get in the car and
(40:45):
the brakes don't work and they hit a crew member
and kill them. Are they going to get You're going
to try them for manslaughter? When we're given a defective
piece of equipment. You know, it's like it's you know,
that's the whole thing, as the actor isn't paid to
be a weapons expert.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
And there there there's footage of Alec Baldwin. There's two
different ways to look at it. If you see some
of it. There's one where he's rushing things where he
can tell he's getting frustrated, and there are other scenes
where he like tells Helena, hey, get out of the way.
You know, you know, I don't want to point the
gun at you. But what they don't people don't understand
(41:26):
the shot they were lining up was him pointing the
gun at the camera, right, So he was doing what
he was told. He was told to point it this way,
from what I understand, and that happens a lot where
you need to you know, the camera needs to look
right down the barrel, and you know there's no other
(41:47):
way to do it but pointing it directly at the camera.
And she happened to be, you know, looking through the
viewfinder with the director standing right behind her, and you know, so, yeah,
it's a horrible thing. Yeah, but.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
We can hope that it encouraged a little more thoroughness
and compulsion on sets for any people who might not.
But I mean, obviously, the industry has done so many
films with dangerous scenes that with no problem.
Speaker 2 (42:17):
Obviously, Well, I mean, I personally think it begins with
the hiring process. I mean they should have hired an
experienced arm or someone that I mean for the for
the amount of gunfire that they were doing, or the
blank gunfire. You needed an experienced person. She had only
done one other show, and she wasn't a member of
the union.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
You kind of now, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
What I'm saying is being a union member does at
least help vet that person. You know that they've got
a certain number of films under their belt, and you know,
the prop master on that show had only worked one,
had only prom mastered once. You know, it's like they
didn't have they scrimped on their prop and weapons department,
(43:04):
and you know, you get you know, you get what
you pay for.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Yeah, no, totally. And so to get to the point
of being like a really experienced armorer, is it the
kind of thing where you are like an assistant armorer
on a lot of things, like how do you that's
how you get that distinguished Okay.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, yeah, you work underneath someone and you see what
the protocols are do you learn under that person, and
then you understand the etiquette of how to deal with
an actor, and you want to make an actor feel comfortable.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
And not nervous.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Most armors were an assistant armor for several years, right
and done, you know, did ten shows before they took
took on the role of you know, head armor.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
So it's it's important that whoever you hire has has
several films as a as an armor of their belt
as the lead armor, you know. And it also depends
on how many how many weapons are being used in
the project you're working on. Is it going to be
a big gun battle. You know, I did a show
called The Long Road Home for National Geographic that I promptmastered.
(44:16):
But I hired all the armorers. I hired the lead armor,
and then we sought out, you know, experience. We wanted
to have experienced assistant armorers as well because it was
going to be an intense amount of loading. We were
shooting at Fort Hood and we had built fourteen city
(44:36):
blocks of like supposed to be the slums of Iraq,
and I did fill in with some airsofts for the
far background, but we went through three hundred and fifty
thousand rounds of ammunition, of blank ammunition, and I was,
you know, I was a nervous wreck that whole time
(44:56):
because I had just about the whole It was eight
up a pisodes of an ambush that happened in two
thousand and four. So every day it was just gunfire, gunfire, gunfire, gunfire. Luckily,
a lot of our background extras were military, so that helped.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
So yeah, yeah, No, it also relates back to racing
in this sense that like you do things in and
out every day, and you're used to being around like
heavy machines and stuff, and you can kind of take
for granted that it's still dangerous industry. To your point,
a set has a lot of dangerous elements, and really
taking those seriously and not getting comfortable, I think is
(45:38):
just critical.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
Now that's one thing I missed from the old The Walker.
The first one I worked on, the one with Chuck
Chuck Norris, was we had a whole what we call
a second unit. So you'll have your main unit that
shoots your main actors, and then we'd have a stunt unit. Basically,
it was second unit that was the car crashes, the
(46:03):
you know, the the big time, the big fight scenes
and all that and uh but yeah, we did a
lot of car crashes in and blew up a lot
of houses.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
Yeah, oh we did.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Uh DFW Airport was getting rid of they bought some
property to put a new runway in.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
Right, so there were all these like.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Like twelve homes that they were going to demo, and
they reached out to our production to the Walker production company,
and said, uh, do you want to destroy these homes
for us? And uh so the writers wrote a mad
bomber episode and we, uh, the special effects guys went
(46:51):
in and and rigged all these houses to blow up.
So you had Chuck Norris running down. You had all
the stunt performers in yards, like tending to mow the
grass and whatnot. And they were all hired snunt people,
you know, people in their cars pulling in, pulling out.
And then Chuck finds out that there's that all the
(47:11):
houses are going to blow up, and he's running down
the neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Screaming get out of your house.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
And as he's screaming, like the houses just start blowing
up behind him. It's a great it's a great shot.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
But I'm gonna have to watch.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
That was the kind of stuff we did. Yeah, you
could just google, or you get on YouTube, google Walker
Mad Bomber. You'll find it.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
I will. Well, it's funny you mentioned all the stunt
people because my last guess on if I'm honest, was
a stunt performer for driving someone I race go carts
with initially Brett Smurs, who he said that one of
his first crashing scenes was having to crash this big
like Chevy Avalanche into a truck or something and just
you know, all the prep work that goes in the
stunt bag that he had ready to go. And he's
(47:54):
worked on films like Ferrari and Ford versus Ferrari and
just it's really cool to have this as like the
next episode, another very niche industry that just you know,
we as the average consumer sees only the final product,
but hearing all of the fun stuff that goes into
it is So.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I love watching the precision driving. It's amazing. It's just
it's a work of art.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Oh yeah, oh the I mean I can't imagine that
or like some of the like chase seams through streets,
or like being near the edge of cliffs like that.
That is terrifying to me. So I applaud all the
stunt people who do that.
Speaker 2 (48:30):
I was on set the other day and I saw this.
There's this older stunt man. He'll get mad at me
saying that we won't tell, but he was. His name's
Russell Towery, and the way he got started was he
was really good on the motorcycle and he he was
(48:51):
working on RoboCop I think as an electrician. But they
ended up hiring him to be Peter Weller stunt double.
And he it was only like he was skinny enough
to fit into the costume. Uh, and Peter Weller couldn't
drive a motorcycle. So Russell had to do it in
the RoboCop outfit, and you know, and drive a car
(49:16):
and do all that. He was an incredible He is
an incredible precision driver as well. But sometimes you'll have
to do it and hide. I've seen I've seen them
have to What was it? There was some show where
a car was supposed to be driving by itself and
they like built a new seat to where the person
where the stunt driver is inside the seat and there's
(49:39):
like a little mesh at the head rest to where
they can see what's going on.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
That's wild.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
Yeah, there's there's so much fun stuff. I did did
a show called Machete for Robert Rodriguez. There's a film
company in town called Troublemaker Studios, and they do all
the Spike Kids movies, and you know Rob Robert Rodriguez
is he shoots a lot of his shows here. I
did Sin City and whatnot, and I did one called
(50:08):
Machete and we had a big like a lot of
motorcycle stunts where we had to mount I had to
mount this machine gun to a motorcycle and then you
don't think of what goes into that, but you gotta
have it balanced out right. You gotta make sure that
they can still maneuver. Yeah, you throw off the balance
(50:30):
with yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah, Well we're gonna hear a quick break. But we'll
be right back with Scott on if I'm honest to
Julia Land Well, I have one more specific prop related
question which you kind of mentioned earlier way back in
the beginning, But silicon versus breakaway glass and I or
(50:56):
is that like silicon glass versus breakaway glass is what
would be? Can you explain the difference and why you
would use one over the other for a certain situation.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Yeah, For so, breakaway is rigid. It actually even sounds
like glass when it breaks up. I should have I
should have brought one.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Well, direct people to I'll put a link in the
description specifically showing this one.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
So it's it's just a brittle resin and uh so
that's good for when you need to see it breaking.
The same with a pane of glass in a door
or in a window, you'll use breakaway resin and it
won't cut you. It's real. It like I said, it
looks and sounds like glass breaking, but it's so brittle
(51:44):
it won't It would never like stab you or anything
it would break before it would stab you. Silicone glass,
rubber glass.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
We call it.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
It's uh you you use that as already broken. You
see what I'm saying. So, so like if we're doing
a car crash scene, you would use a lot of times.
If it's tempered safety glass, they'll just break that. They
won't even use breakaway for that. But then we're doing
an aftermath where someone's laying on glass or has to
(52:16):
walk or crawl on broken glass, We'll use rubber glass
for that. So because I guess, you know, breakaway glass
could still it could still scratch, I guess, but it's
just not comfortable, Yeah, not comfortable at all. You would
break it up into little squares to where it looked
like safety glass and then just sprinkle that all around
(52:37):
and it'll keep the actors safe. There are I know,
like in the movie die Hard, people were saying when
I said they use rubber glass for that, which they did.
People said, well, no, he wore rubber feet. Well he
did for some of it. He wore rubber feet when
it was breakaway glass dropping all around him, and they didn't.
They weren't able to get dressed rubber glass in it.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
You know.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
But for the close ups, I can tell when you're
looking at it that they definitely had some rubber glass
for him, so you know, for when they they were
too close to for him to wear the rubber feet.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
But in uh, in.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Home alone, you can see Daniel Stern wearing the rubber
feet as well.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Keep an eye on that.
Speaker 2 (53:20):
Yeah. For the wide shots, you see it, like when
he's walking around outside and stuff and uh, but inside
he's barefoot. When he start he steps on breakaway Christmas
ornaments there.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Okay, So I actually have one more questions.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
When you when you watch movies or TV shows, do
you find yourself thinking about like how the prop was
done or what it was or do you let yourself
just enjoy watching the entertainment.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
I've gotten to where I can enjoy it. I can
turn it off. I've got no problem with that. And
I'm kind of surprised at how unobservant I am because
my daughter will be like, did you see what they
did there? I'm like what Then I'll oh, yeah there, yeah,
so she catches the continuity mistakes more than I do.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
Well, good, you get to take a break. I find that,
like I'm from New York City, and so I find
when I always immediately see the inconsistencies with when movies
or shows are filming, Like they say they're downtown and
they show a shot of Central Park and it's like,
this is not downtown.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
This is Oh yeah, I'm not that.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
I can't very.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
And I get very nitpicky about location stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
I was I was watching some show with Gene Hackman
and there was a so I grew up in the
kind of the Houston area, kind of near Galveston and
Port author Uh, and it's just flat. I mean it's
flat everywhere on that side of Texas. And there was
this scene that said north of Galveston, Texas and it
(54:46):
was like the mountains and I was like, way, that's
like way north of Galveston, Canada.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Yeah, like Montana something. Yeah, Oh that's funny.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
But yeah, So anytime I see mountains where I know,
it's plane so that cracks me up.
Speaker 1 (55:02):
Yeah, I'm like, how do they not catch this? But
I'm not the expert.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
Yeah, I like watching the movie mistakes.
Speaker 2 (55:08):
Those are fun and you know, I hope no one
but I make mistakes too, so and I never I
never do it to I don't Pike poke mean fun
at people about it. I just think they're fun to catch.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
I feel like as a viewer, it kind of makes
you feel like, ah, like how it smarted you a
little bit, or like I've picked up on this. I
don't know, at least for me.
Speaker 2 (55:30):
Now.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
There's one thing that I don't know what to do
about it.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
It's the whole empty coffee cup thing, because there are
so many videos about people complaining the coffee cups and
TV shows look empty. And you know, my team, they
all are real diligent about you know, if putting liquid,
but you don't want to have like if it's a
just you know, to go coffee cup, you don't want
(55:54):
to fill it to the rim, especially with coffee. You
could with water, but or else it's gonna you know,
it'll stain the uh, you know, the outfit, So you
need to go three quarters full. And then a lot
of times now that they're not people aren't shooting on
film anymore. It's all digital they can do. They'll sit
(56:16):
there and do ten takes without you know, yelling cut,
and so you can't get in there if they've finished
drinking the cup. But a lot of a lot of
people will complain about coffee cups. I don't think it
happens as much on our show because I I really
you know, yeah, uh fuss at the folks about it,
(56:37):
you know, make sure.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
So is it that it changes the liquid level or that,
because if it doesn't have aid, you hold it differently
than you would if it did.
Speaker 2 (56:45):
Yeah, yeah, you hold it differently for sure.
Speaker 1 (56:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:49):
It's just it just it looks empty. And a lot
of times it's like the actor knows, you know, subconsciously,
this isn't scalding hot. It's not going to burn me,
so they'll hold it a little more gingerly and stuff.
But you can't have scalding sculd scalding hot water in
the cup or else it could hurt the actor.
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:12):
Yeah, So that's one of those things it's hard to
hard to fight is making that look, and you can't
expect the actor to They need to worry about their performance,
not if they're holding the coffee cup properly.
Speaker 3 (57:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
I don't know, but I've experimented. I put silicone and
coffee cups and stuff and use those for background uh
background actors before, But it doesn't really work.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
So you're going to keep playing that scientist.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
Oh yeah, to figure out how to keep us post
one day. I will figure out the empty coffee cup problem.
And luggage people complain about luggage.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
Yeah, I get that. I get that, well, Scott. We
are going to round out the episode with an if
you're honest, rapid fire. All right, question, So what is
the coolest place that you've been on set to film?
Speaker 2 (58:01):
Oh? No, the Redwood Forest and uh and you know,
outside of San Francisco. That was pretty cool. The most
impressive built location was the fourteen city blocks of Iraq
out out in the middle of a field. That was impressive,
watching a whole town be built in a matter of
three weeks.
Speaker 1 (58:24):
All right, nixt next question, what is your go to
lazy homemade dinner?
Speaker 2 (58:29):
Oh, crescent rolls with the little link sausage. You know
where you wrap it? You know, you wrap them in
the crescent rolls. That's my favorite.
Speaker 1 (58:40):
I love that. Is there a director that you'd love
to work with?
Speaker 2 (58:45):
I'd like to work with Scorsese? I think, oh, that'd
be awesome. Yeah, I like to work with Scorsese. I
have a lot of respect for him. I have a
lot of respect for it.
Speaker 1 (58:55):
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. Last question, What is something
that you're grateful for right now?
Speaker 2 (59:01):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (59:01):
My family, that's the first thing.
Speaker 2 (59:03):
Yeah, for sure, I'm grateful that I'm able to have
a career where I can still go home and see
my family and and share things with them and watch
them grow and become funny and creative. And that's the
coolest thing ever.
Speaker 1 (59:18):
Mm hmm. That's great. So, Scott, where can everyone find
you on TikTok on Instagram so that they can go
watch your incredibly cool, very interesting video.
Speaker 2 (59:28):
Oh and I'll link it all in the description Scott
prop and Roll. And you got a YouTube, I've got
some worry. Yeah, I'm at nine hundred and fifty four
thousand subscribe, so I'm getting real close to a million.
So it helped me get to a million.
Speaker 1 (59:45):
I was not aware of your YouTube, so I will
go subscribe well, and we will promote it.
Speaker 2 (59:49):
It's all Scott prop and Roll if you yeah. Yeah,
and on Facebook as well, but make sure that it's me,
because there's on Facebook there's several fake account ounce uh bastards. Oh,
there's there's like four of them. There's one that's uh,
this one person that has like seventy thousand followers, that
(01:00:12):
people that think they're following me it's and they're using
the same page name, Scott prop and Roll. But I've
had mine. I had mine a lot longer than they did. Anyway,
this one would make sure properly. Yeah, go for the
one that's two hundred and six thousand followers.
Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
Yeah, that's very good.
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
That's the one to follow on Facebook. But one, but
I suggest to YouTube. That's there's most of my stuff
there perfect YouTube, ticktk, Instagram, Scott prop and Roll.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking time out
of your busy schedule on set to chat with me.
This was so much fun. Everyone. Thank you for tuning
in and for listening. Go follow Scott, go watch all
the content. It is so so cool. As always, thank
you for letting us be honest with you and I
will forward to seeing you next week.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Up be
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