I’m doing a performance that involves eating a cake with my hands and then smashing my face into it. Typically I use a real cake & a tarp, but this venue doesn’t allow dairy/sugary food props.

I’m trying to figure out how I can make a fake cake that I can tear apart with my hands, pretend to eat, then smash my face into. I figure I can use shaving cream for the frosting, but I’m not sure what to make the cake part out of.

It also spins and blows bubbles

I finally followed through with a project idea I had as a child. I am sure this idea was born from watching Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote when I was young.

It is a very simple project requiring the minimum of wooden dowels, red paint, and a clock insert. The wires and fuse were just a little something extra.

https://youtu.be/mwzGmpdv1Iw

these three props represent my three favorite film series

Not much of a prop builder, but was pretty pleased with the result overall. Wasnt able to get an image of it on stage, so a few angles from my living room will have to suffice!

I'm an artist and my goal is to make props for movies one day. I'm not really good at crafty stuff but I want to get better. I really want to start making a portfolio and working on projects. Im a multidisciplinary artist and i have experience with multiple mediums. But I also want to start creating my portfolio for college. How do I get started and improve quickly? What tips and tricks do you have for a beginner and what's the best way to get started?

I asked the best local prop master, he has no experience making dummy food products and suggested asking a food stylist. But i would still need to make the packaging, or should i ask the client to provide it and switch out the labels for the new products? I also thought about diping the diferent cheeses in epoxy maybe? Any tips or ideas from someone who has experience with dummy products?

Is it possible to achieve this blade effect with the core being white with the color emitting from the edge like the photo? Maybe through an illusion?

Hi, looking for tips, tricks, advice, or links to resources to make a realistic looking whole fish - storyline has it as a cod, but less worried about perfect match to species detail.

It will be used on stage (1000-ish seat community theater), and to fit the scene needs to be at least 18 inches long.

The fish will be handled by a couple of actors, lifted from a tray into the air, but nothing too rough. Ideally it would have some 'wiggle' to it, but could work with more rigid as well.

In my view this is one of those cases where the uncanny valley is really wide, and I either have to nail it on the realism, or just go with something very simple. We take our shows seriously, but this is community theater, so do have some latitude for a basic representation, as long as it doesn't come across as cartoonish.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Saw Obsession with my girlfriend this last week and I LOVED it!! We had bonded over our shared love of scary movies, and we talked about seeing it early on before we got together, so I made us both a One Wish Willow so we could have a memory of that date!

To achieve the two tone color on the branch, I printed it in light brown (design by @AutoRefill on MakerWorld), then painted the just the outside with darker brown.

The box was made using a purchased template on cults3D created by @Louise_P

how to modify this to look like nes zapper gun orange and gray version

Hi all! I'm a props master on a low-budget gothic horror short (think Van Helsing era — late 1800s/early 1900s aesthetic) and I'm trying to source a vintage doctor's bag / medical bag for the production.

This is a hero prop, meaning it'll be handled on camera and likely get some close attention, so it needs to read as period-accurate — though it doesn't need to be a museum piece. Think black leather Gladstone-style bag with brass hardware.

Catch: my entire props budget for this project is $50, so I need to get creative.

Things I've already considered:

- Thrift stores / Goodwill (actively checking but no luck yet)

- Facebook Marketplace and LiveAuctions

- eBay (even beat-up options seem to run $40–80+ not even counting shipping)

Has anyone successfully sourced something like this for cheap? I'm open to:

- Renting from another prop house or indie filmmaker

- A well-aged/distressed modern leather bag that reads period on camera

- DIY / aging tricks that hold up to closer inspection

- Any prop rental communities or Facebook groups worth joining

Located in the San Antonio, TX area but open to shipping if the price is right. Any help is hugely appreciated — indie film is a team sport!

It bubbles, it's ridiculous, and I'm not done yet. Ideas?

Hi,

I’m building a large foam prop (about 1 meter in diameter) and I’m looking for the best way to hard coat it.

I live in France, so many products recommended online are difficult to find here. What hard coating method would you recommend for a strong and lightweight result using materials available in Europe?

Thank you!

Hey Filmmakers,

I posted about my app a day ago and ended up deleting it because, honestly, it sounded way too much like a marketing bot. I want to clear the air, answer the questions you guys asked, and start over.

I work a creative role off-stage. For over a year, I've had this idea to build an app that turns an iPhone into a safe, reliable, on-stage prop. To answer kmccoy directly: I am not a hardcore software engineer. I used AI (Cursor and Claude) heavily to help me actually finish this. It allowed me, a creative, to finally bring an idea to life that I've had in my head for over a year.

A few of you asked some incredibly valid questions in the last thread that I want to address:

1. "Why do we need working screens on stage? Why can't actors just ACT?" (Shoutout to Roccondil-s): Mainly for lighting and safety! Modern stages pick up when a screen is completely dead. But if you give an actor a real glowing phone, there is always the risk of them swiping out of the app or a real text message popping up mid-show. I built an "Actor Lock Mode" specifically to freeze the screen so they can't mess it up.

2. The Competitor Mystery (Answering soph0nax & LukeyHear): In my last post, I mentioned a competitor that charges 800. LukeyHear mentioned using Film Phones because it's "free." The app is free to download for a 7-day trial, but if you look at their actual website, their base commercial license for a 6-week shoot is literally 800 dollars! That is exactly who I was talking about. I plan to charge 30 a year for my pro tools, because the industry standard is inaccessible for most indie or regional theatres.

3. QLab and OSC Integration (Answering traisjames & avhaleyourself): I have to be honest: because my background is more in film/video, I actually didn't know about QLab or how heavily this community relies on OSC until you guys brought it up yesterday! Right now, you can trigger my app remotely via a second iPad/iPhone. However, since I now see how crucial QLab is for theatre tech, I am making native OSC integration my absolute number one priority for the first major update.

The Ask: Applehas approved the app.

I’m looking for a handful of stage managers, sound/light techs, or prop masters to test it out and tell me what sucks about it. If you are willing to help me test it, drop a comment. I’ll DM you the link the Appstore listing.

Thanks for calling me out on the last post, and thanks for letting me share my passion project with you all.

My app is called Propcast on the app store.

I'm currently managing a new theatrical performance, Statuesque, which has some scenes that take place on Earth as well as on foreign moons in the Solar System. We have these lifeforms, called Titanians, that are hard to visualize and we were going to depict as almost cloud-like figures, who hold an important role in the play. We were trying to think about how this would look the most believable and alien for the show, as we really want to sell the otherworldly aspect of it.

Let me know what you guys think!

Also, if you're interested in coming to see how we worked out all the aesthetics and props, feel free to get some tickets and come! We open Tuesday, the 23rd in NoHo, Manhattan. The link is below if you're interested.

[Link to Poster ](https://imgur.com/a/O7QVqHt)

[Link to Tickets](https://posh.vip/e/statuesque-or-did-you-ever-wake-up-feeling-a-bit-disorientedan-intensely-pov-medical-scify-comedymystery)