Most of the major studios have been around for nearly 80 years if not more–at least in terms of the actual facility, even if the name on the door has changed, like MGM becoming Lorimar, and then Sony.
A thing I"ve always wondered is how the prop and costume departments operate. With studios being in existence so long, does it ever happen that the props used for films made in 1930 that were supposed to be set in 1930’s present day are still in a warehouse somewhere, so that when the studio wants to make a film in 2005 which is set in 1930, they can just use the same exact props?
I know that the larger studios do, indeed, hold onto some of the props and costumes from other productions, though time and temperature are not always kind to them. From time to time, they either pitch or auction off items that are no longer usable or viewed as worth saving.
Most props aren’t built to survive much beyond the end of production. It’s just not worth the expense. Also, there’s always the problem of some crew and extras walking off with props (science fiction films always have this problem.)
Some production companies and studios hang on to props, mainly for “repurposing” for future films, especially when the prop cost a large amount to build.
I doubt it. Who’s to know if the studio will even be in business that far into the future? Plus, there’s storage problems. It’s easier for the studio to give away or sell off the props (especially if they’re made just for one movie) that to try and store and keep track of them.
Sometimes, props are auctioned off for charities.
Franchises like Star Trek would be an exception. Several sets from TNG were used in Voyager after some repainting. On one of the TNG DVDs, there’s a segment where they’d lost track of the original Enterprise-D used in the pilot. This was a multi-million dollar prop built by ILM (all the rest were built by the show’s prop department). The model had ended up in the kitchen of some restaurant hanging over the ovens!
By the time they’d gotten it back, it was severely damaged and caked in grease.
I know that there is a place in Hollywood that sells wardrobe items. A friend of mine bought a kilt several years ago that had been used in Rob Roy. And I worked on a student film, where some of the props (classroom tables) were obtained from Sony Studios.
I’m pretty sure that many on-screen vehicles come from companies that specialise in supplying them to studios. This allows the studios to use period vehicles without having to buy and maintain them. But that doesn’t mean that there are no large props that are not kept.
I signed up with an extras casting agency a long time ago, and one of the questions on the application was what kind of car (year, make, model, condition, etc.) you have. Certainly some cars you see on-screen are owned by the extras.
One question I have: I have a '66 MGB undergoing restoration. When it’s done, it will be ‘new’. It might have some use in a 1960s period piece. How can I get on a list, so that I might be able to let it out for a film?
All you need to do when this happens is reroute the deflector power grid and configure the the main EM detector couplings as a tachyon emitter and you’re good to go.
I have an interest in ancient armor, and I’ve seen the same horribly-fitting and incorrectly-designed Roman helmets used in many films from the 60’s, on TV mini-series, and most recently in The Passion movie.
Contact your local film and TV commission (or the one in the closest city that has one). When a production company comes to town and needs period cars, you’re in.
If they use your car just for background, you get a certain fee per day. If they actually use your car, you get more.
MGM had an enormous auction in 1970, clearing the prop and wardrobe departments pretty much to the walls. IIRC MGM was teetering on bankruptcy at the time and the auction, which I believe was unprecedented, brought in enough revenue to keep the studio going.
OTTO is right-MGM sold off a lot of stuff (I believe this was when Kirk kerkorian bought the almost-bankrupt MGM and stripped the corpse). Anyway, i remember reading that Dorothy’s red shoes (from THE WIZARD OF OZ) went for cheap money-any idea what they would be worth today? They also trashed a great deal of MGM official correspondence-including the files of Louis B. Mayer! Imagine what a signed letter ny Mayer would be worth today!
On another note-some movie props have an incredibly long life…“Robby the Robot” (from “FORBIDDEN PLANET”-a 1950’s flick) is stio=ll around and in use!
With computer graphics and desktop publishing what they are today, many of the most common “period” props aren’t the real thing, but a mock-up. Need an authentic looking Swanson TV dinner from 1972? No problem, we’ll make a box up for you that looks just like it. Heck, with a little time on Photoshop and my digital laser printer using some poached graphic files from google, I could probably make one in an afternoon, and I’m not a professional.
Set pieces, too, are cheaper to make than to purchase and store for decades. An art deco lamp doesn’t have to be art deco, it just has to *look *art deco. In fact, in costuming, there’s some colors and fabric choices which simply cannot be “historically accurate” because they look different filmed than in real life. No one uses actual vintage '70’s polyester in costuming. It’s incredibly stiff, and just too hot for an actor’s makeup to stay in place. And it will eventually disintigrate and begin to “powder” under lights. The fabric blends we have today are much more practical, and look more like the actual thing than the actual thing. (Usually poly/rayon blends instead of 100% polyester.)
There are “prop houses” however, which rent props to studios. Usually, these are big and hard to make props. Those places to exist to catalog and store things, but they need to maximize their profits by providing the hard to find stuff that’s expensive to make. They don’t have room or money to store what can be more cheaply made. I doubt they’re stocking up on the latest label style from Spaghetti-Os.
When I was fresh out of college, I worked on a weekly-drama TV set for a season. The props people had a whole arsenal of techniques for making clean new things look old. For one episode that took place in a dusty basement, the props guy had a bag of “diamtomaceous earth” (a kind of light gray very fine dirt, made of the ground-up bodies of ancient little hard-shelled critters, sold for use in gardens as a relatively safe & natural bug killer) and a variety of ways to sift it onto whatever didn’t look old and dusty enough.
Folks back in the painting department spent a lot of time spraying things with various dingy colors of diluted paint.
If a studio has enough storage space to make it cost-effective, they probably keep a lot of props and costumes and whatnot, just like many university drama departments do.
There are three pairs of ruby slippers known still to exist. Two pairs are in the hands of private collectors and one pair is in the Smithsonian. The last time I’m aware of a pair being auctioned they went for $660,000.
There may be other pairs out there. The man who rediscovered the known pairs has died and if he didn’t turn over all the pairs he found then they could still be sitting in a safety deposit box or something waiting to be found.
On a visit to San Francisco in 1973, we found a small store somewhere near the touristy part of Fisherman’s Wharf that had a bunch of items they’d bought at the MGM auction. For 3 bucks I bought a small cloth pouch with a fleur-de-lys design embroidered on it. I like to think it might have been a prop used in one of MGM’s many period flicks.
I worked as a technical advisor for a big Hollywood movie filmed at Warner Bros.; specifically by helping the prop people properly set-up the scientific equipment used in various laboratory scenes. Most of the equipment was tagged with labels indicating that it was being rented from a third-party prop supply house. I was rather impressed by the wide variety, completeness and modernity of equipment they were given…some of the stuff was nicer than I had in my own, real lab and I could have easily done some real experiments right there on that set.
So, answering the OP based upon my limited experience, it may be unlikely that an individual studio would keep many prop pieces, except for things that might be especially unique to that movie (i.e. models used for special effects, certain costumes). It’s more likely that a prop supply vendor catering to many different studios might keep these things, though.
