Have You Ever Done This?

[Jim Koepke]

While watching Shakespeare In Love this evening, I found myself pausing to admire some of the woodworking and wonder about the moldings and joinery.

In the Rose theater it looked like the mortise and tenon beam construction was pinned. Was it draw bored?

Many of the timbers showed the roughness of the saw cuts. It was clear that they were not from a circular saw.

The turning and carving on the bed posts in Viola De Lesseps bed chamber is awesome.

My wife sometimes chuckles when I catch something and rewind and pause, but she is a good sport about it and even calls things to my attention if she thinks it got by me.

So, has anyone else paused a movie to just look at the craftsmanship of a piece of furniture or other prop?

If so, what movies and what items?

Just a side note, I am a sucker for adirondack chairs and will almost always take a closer look.

jtk

[Pam Niedermayer]

You bet. The banjo Aiden Quinn played in "Songcatcher" was very interesting, made from a cake tin or something similar, so I isolated a frame and saved it on my computer. Often do that. Don't know about "Shakespeare in Love," though, it's all pretty much foam and such.

Pam

[Joe Zerafa]

The TV show "According to Jim" that ran from 2001-2009 used to have a nice looking scraper plane sitting on a mantel in the lounge room, later on it looked to have been swapped out for a no 4.


Joe

[george wilson]

I always examine the items in productions. Then,I wonder what "expert" they relied upon for this or that. In the latest Robin Hood movie,the music was horrible,and the "lute",too. Who came up with the bows in that English Robin Hood series? In"The New World",I did not enjoy seeing the very coarse and obvious thickness planer marks on the woodwork of the houses. It was the hand of a friend of mine which did the calligraphy in a closeup of signing a document. Another friend who has some native American blood told me that the indians in that movie were treated poorly when off camera.

It also is not good to see actors turning their faces away every time they fire a flintlock or matchlock gun. Makes me wonder what business these re enactors even have owning an open ignition gun. Saw a lot of that in "The Patriot." and in the Henry VIII series when they were laying siege. I have never yet been burned by my flintlock.

[john brenton]

Honestly, the dwarve's cottage in the old animated Snow White. A lot of those old Disney king and queen fairy tales have that rustic, robust German cottage architecture that I like.

[john brenton]

Haha, that's funny George. I thought the same thing...the music in the Russel Crow Robin Hood was G...A....Y, and nothing like the music of the period. I hate when they do that. Speaking of the Patriot, the music at the wedding when they are at the slave quarters is totally out of period too and annoyed me. I can't stand that. In the last Indiana Jones Jones movie there is a scene when they are in Peru, but as they are walking through the fair in the Peruvian Andes the music in the background is Mexican Mariachi. Why can't these dopes get it right?? They invest millions and million in these movies but screw everything up. The worst is when they go ahead and throw a top-40 song right in the middle of the middle ages.


I always examine the items in productions. Then,I wonder what "expert" they relied upon for this or that. In the latest Robin Hood movie,the music was horrible,and the "lute",too.

[george wilson]

Volumes could be written about the last Indiana Jones movie. Of course,they are all just fantasy,but "the METAL in gunpowder"???????? Also,magnetic lead shot????? No use going on about it, Just written by some totally ignorant idiot. I'd at least like SOME level of credibility to be present in a movie. How can young people these days EVER learn the truth about things when they are constantly bombarded with made up stuff?? Oh,don't forget the LEAD LINED fridge!!!! That was convenient,wasn't it ? I'll have to get one of those in case we get nuked.

I was a bit dismayed,but not surprised,when,on one of those war documentaries,where they use a lot of computer simulation to show animated battles,they showed THE WHOLE CANNON SHELL being fired at Syrian tanks,instead of just the projectile itself. That has been a common mistake in many movies. I'd hope they could get it right in a documentary,though(at least.)

[Zach Dillinger]

I always examine the items in productions. Then,I wonder what "expert" they relied upon for this or that. In the latest Robin Hood movie,the music was horrible,and the "lute",too. Who came up with the bows in that English Robin Hood series? In"The New World",I did not enjoy seeing the very coarse and obvious thickness planer marks on the woodwork of the houses. It was the hand of a friend of mine which did the calligraphy in a closeup of signing a document. Another friend who has some native American blood told me that the indians in that movie were treated poorly when off camera.

It also is not good to see actors turning their faces away every time they fire a flintlock or matchlock gun. Makes me wonder what business these re enactors even have owning an open ignition gun. Saw a lot of that in "The Patriot." and in the Henry VIII series when they were laying siege. I have never yet been burned by my flintlock.

Interesting about the woodwork in "The New World". I thought that they had hired Roy Underhill as consultant on that film. Surprised he let them get away with that. I remember seeing a still photo of Roy and Colin Ferrell, practicing timber hewing.

[Jerome Hanby]

Giibb's basement workshop on NCIS causes me to pause the Tivo and look closer. Kind of looks like a real workshop. Wonder if it is and that's part of Mark Harmon's deal to do the show?

[Chuck Nickerson]

In the movie "Back to the Future", Doc Brown lives in a beautiful old craftsman-style home.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I'm kind of a graphic design and type nerd in another life; the discrepancies there drive me nuts in period pieces. (But that typeface wasn't released until 1957! That's a great piece of design, but Rams didn't finish that until '62!) Sometimes the films that try the hardest fail the hardest too.

We love going to museums when we travel, and a lot of times when they're museums in weird old buildings, I spend more time looking at the woodwork in the building than the displays. Architecture museums are always interesting, we went to the CCA, and got to tour the old building half; the disconnect between the guide who was interested in the "big picture" and me, who was interested in particular parts of doors or panelling and such was funny.

When i visit friends new apartments in town, I end up spending a lot of time looking at entry doors and stairwells and inspecting the weird built-ins and other woodwork in their buildings. They've all learned to deal with it.

[Russell Sansom]

Twice this week I stopped the movie to look at paneling. We watch a lot of Art Deco era movies. I often see panels on walls and doors which look like they use applied moulding on flat sheets rather than true paneling.
It's possible that fake paneling was a style of the time, but I doubt it.

[Jim Koepke]

In the movie "Back to the Future", Doc Brown lives in a beautiful old craftsman-style home.

I do not remember where it is, but that is actually a Greene & Greene built home used for the movie. That one has been paused a few times. I stopped it in places to show my wife the "rising cloud" features.

Some of the scenes in the Illusionist are filmed in actual buildings built at the time of the movie's setting.

jtk

[James Pickering]

While watching Shakespeare In Love this evening, I found myself pausing to admire some of the woodworking and wonder about the moldings and joinery ..........
I must admit, Mr. Koepke, that I am always completely absorbed in looking at Viola's joinery and have never even noticed the woodworking in her bedroom -- I don't think Will did either! :)


.......... So, has anyone else paused a movie to just look at the craftsmanship of a piece of furniture or other prop?.......... Yes, I do that quite frequently, however I will list them in a separate post.


.......... Just a side note, I am a sucker for adirondack chairs and will almost always take a closer look ..........Well, I am a sucker for voluptuous, fine figured young women, Mr. Koepke, and always do likewise.

Please do not take offense at my levity, Jim, but I ate oatmeal for breakfast this morning and feel like a ribald eighty two year old -- which I am!

I know ribald is somewhat antiquated, but, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet ..."

James

[Tom Vanzant]

I think we can all relate to guide/tourist disconnects at museums. I spent a lot of tour-time studying joinery under the skullery tables in the humongous kitchen at Hampton Court (England) and the plantation owner's cooling-off chair and double-sized dovetails in the cabinets at Whim House in St. Croix (V.I.) As I understood it, mahogany was harvested and sent back to Holland as ballast, then returned to St. Croix as rough lumber where it then became furniture. The carcasses were made of 24" wide planks 1-1/4 to 1-1/2" thick and with beautiful grain and color with book-matched crotch panels from solid stock, not veneer. I had to hurry to catch up with the rest of the group. A half day was entirely too little time.

[James Pickering]

While watching Shakespeare In Love this evening, I found myself pausing to admire some of the woodworking and wonder about the moldings and joinery .......... So, has anyone else paused a movie to just look at the craftsmanship of a piece of furniture or other prop?

If so, what movies and what items? ..........Yes, in that very movie I paused it to get a closer look at Will dressing the chisel edge on his quill (albeit somewhat rushed and haphazard) -- a task I have performed as a Calligrapher myself many thousands of times over the years. Incidentally, I noted that the quill he uses is configured authentically -- sans feathers -- in most historical movies they are fully plumed: it is obvious members of the Property Department have never written using a quill. By the way, I love the line of Richard Burbage in Shakespeare in Love: "Where is that thieving hack who can't keep his pen in his own ink pot!?"

James

[Zach Dillinger]

In the movie "Back to the Future", Doc Brown lives in a beautiful old craftsman-style home.

It's the Gamble House. http://www.gamblehouse.org/

[John Toigo]

I've had set decoarators rent tools & machinery from me for sets. Some of my stuff was in an episode of 'Law & Order; Criminal Intent' last year. Of course when the tools were returned they were insufferable.... wanted a star on the shop door & all that.....

[Johnny Kleso]

I do it with wrist watches..
I like to see what models the stars are wearing :)

[Stu Gillard]

I'm guilty of this ....
I thought I was the only one who paid more attention to the furniture and background settings than the plot of the movie :o


The other day I was checking out the biggest indoor photo in the world. The 40 gigapixel panoramic view of the 18th century baroque library in the Strahov monastery in Prague.
Nice books and all, but the high resolution zooms of the marquetry/veneers, joinery, architraves etc. were absolutely amazing.

Here's the link ...

http://www.360cities.net/gigapixel/strahov-library.html

If you haven't seen it, it's an unbelievable experience.

[Jake Rothermel]

I've done this sometimes, too but I confess that I've built sets like that and can tell you there's little to no "joinery" in most of what makes it onto "film" these days (I mean, it's almost all digital now anyways, it's not even FILM anymore...!). Most often it's 2x4 butt joints covered in fabric and LAYERS of joint compound or jaxsan then painted. Movies and theatre are about illusion, not reality. The ones that really get you are the scenic painters who can make a 1x8 built0up box column look like an oak 8x8 post, even up close!

[Jim Koepke]

Well, I am a sucker for voluptuous, fine figured young women, Mr. Koepke, and always do likewise.

That is why Shakespeare in Love is one of my favorites.

I have watched it many a time and it was just recently I noticed the color of the blanket on the bed in a couple of scenes.

jtk

[harry strasil]

I like to go into especially old churches and look at the joinery in the roof beams.

[john brenton]

We go to St. John the Baptist's Catholic cathedral in Savannah http://savannahcathedral.org/index.php/virtual_tour

and I find myself staring at the fleck on the oak pews, the carvings, the edge joints that have split, the massive oak doors...I love that place.


I like to go into especially old churches and look at the joinery in the roof beams.

[Paul Erickson]

When in San Jose California, I visited the Lick observatory on top of Mt. Hamilton. James Lick was a piano maker, and the craftsmanship in the woodwork of the buildings demonstrates his care and craft.

cheers, Paul