MoviePropCollector
07-16-2009, 04:14 PM
From the Wall Street Journal.
LIFE & STYLE
JULY 16, 2009, 1:34 P.M. ET
FILMMAKING
Propping Up Hollywood
By JOANNE KAUFMAN (http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=JOANNE+KAUFMAN&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND)
New York
The phone rang recently at Weapons Specialists, a SoHo-based company that supplies prop firearms to the entertainment industry. Bruce Willis, who was in town shooting the action comedy “A Couple of D i c k s,” wanted a left-handed ankle holster for his back-up gun, pronto if not sooner, reported the anxious caller from the movie’s set. Or maybe—who’s to say?—the Glock wouldn’t be the only thing to get fired.
Let others sweat bullets. Weapons Specialists founder and top gun Rick Washburn, 63, remained cool. “I don’t know yet what I’m going to do, but we have to provide it. Maybe I’ll make something in the shop,” he said, referring to the basement workroom. “We do little bitty miracles every day. That’s why they come to us.”
They come in droves. Since Weapons Specialists opened for business in 1981, the burly Mr. Washburn, a former actor, has furnished the firepower and other instruments of murder and mayhem for television series (“The Sopranos,” for example), plays, operas and ballets (rapiers for New York City Ballet’s recent production of “Romeo and Juliet” plus lessons in swordplay). The movies brandishing Weapons Specialists materiel include “The Bourne Ultimatum,” “I Am Legend,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and the comedy “Did You Hear About the Morgans,” with Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant.
View Full Image
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AJ847_washbu_D_20090715122453.jpg
Weapons Specialists, Ltd. Rick Washburn and his son in the their ‘main vault.’
http://s.wsj.net/img/BTN_insetClose.gif
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AJ847_washbu_G_20090715122453.jpg
“Rick’s the premier weapons guy on the East Coast. Whatever I’ve ever needed I’ve gotten. If I need a pink rifle, I know he’s got one and I know where it is,” said Michael A. Saccio, a property master who’s worked with Mr. Washburn on “Law & Order,” and such movies as “A Couple of D i c k s.”
“Fort Knox” reads the sign on the door of what Mr. Washburn calls the showroom vault. Firearms line the walls, arranged by type and chronology, all modified in accordance with New York City regulations to fire blanks only. Over here: submachine guns, machine guns, rocket launchers and assault rifles. Across the way: revolvers, shotguns, sporting weapons and semiautomatic pistols.
But depending on the demands of a script, the company can just as easily handle the combat requirements of Sitting Bull, Robin Hood, William the Conqueror, Ben-Hur or Fred Flintstone. Behold a wall in the basement backroom hung with tomahawks, swords, spears, battle-axes, crossbows, maces, wheel locks, matchlocks, morning stars, and a prehistoric spear-thrower known as an atlatl. Mr. Washburn estimates the Weapons Specialists arsenal at 10,000 pieces.
Mr. Washburn and a 10-member staff that includes his two sons also provide technical guidance in the fine points of pumping lead. Action star Steven Seagal, according to Mr. Washburn, “is really good.” Ed Harris and Will Smith also get a thumbs-up. But “even the actors who don’t know weapons leave Rick ready to rock and roll,” said Mr. Saccio.
Lesson No. 1? Safety above all. Always keep your weapon pointed at the ground, Mr. Washburn enjoins performers. Always treat your weapon as if it’s loaded. Keep your finger off the trigger until the moment you’re ready to fire. Remember that blanks can kill.
According to Mr. Washburn, improper use of firearms, blanks and deactivated bullets were responsible for the death of John-Erik Hexum on the set of “Cover Up” in 1984, and of Brandon Lee on the set of “The Crow” in 1994.
“I tell everyone ‘this is a movie,’” Mr. Washburn continued. “‘You can shoot a scene a dozen times. That just costs money. But I can’t give you back an eye or a limb or a life.’”
Mr. Washburn became interested in weaponry through his father, a defense contractor and avid gun collector. “He got me shooting at an early age,” he said. “And I began to research what the first guns were and how they came about and what people used before there were guns.”
After working in the construction business, Mr. Washburn moved to New York in the late 1970s determined to make it as an actor. One of his first roles was a bit part in the 1980 TV movie “Playing for Time,” starring Vanessa Redgrave as a concentration-camp inmate.
“My friend didn’t know one end of a firearm from the other and didn’t care,” recalled Mr. Washburn. “But this was a World War II movie and it was loaded with guns. I offered to go through the script and make a list of all the weapons that would be needed. The director was so enthusiastic that he told my friend to hire me as a consultant. And lo and behold I had a part-time business.”
Despite small roles in a few big movies and starring roles in a few small ones, Mr. Washburn ultimately decided to make that part-time business a career. “From a business standpoint acting was too much of a crapshoot,” he said. These days, his company charges up to half a million dollars for a big-budget feature, a fee that often includes a Weapons Specialists staffer on-set to ensure the proper deployment and storage of things that go bang.
Rest assured that Mr. Washburn knows on which side his bread is buttered. Consider the unnamed big name who wanted the lead character in his movie, a Special Forces guy, to carry a Desert Eagle, a huge pistol.
“A real Special Forces guy wouldn’t carry a Desert Eagle,” Mr. Washburn explained patiently.
“I don’t care,” said the director. “I think they’re cool.”
“How many do you want?”
A look at the headlines helps Mr. Washburn refine his search for additional inventory at gun shows, estate sales and on the Internet. “Obviously, we’re going to have some movies about Iraq,” he said. “We’re going to have movies about terrorist organizations and the pirates of Somalia, so I have to get AK-47s, Makarov pistols and RPG-7s,” shoulder-launched antitank weapons.
But he’s been around showbiz long enough to know that all bases must be covered. “Just this morning I said to myself, ‘I don’t have any leather thong slings like the one David used to kill Goliath,’” said Mr. Washburn, who was adding a few to his shopping list. “I haven’t used them in 30 years, but you never know when someone is going to make a Bible movie.”
—Ms. Kaufman writes about culture and the arts for the Journal.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
LIFE & STYLE
JULY 16, 2009, 1:34 P.M. ET
FILMMAKING
Propping Up Hollywood
By JOANNE KAUFMAN (http://online.wsj.com/search/search_center.html?KEYWORDS=JOANNE+KAUFMAN&ARTICLESEARCHQUERY_PARSER=bylineAND)
New York
The phone rang recently at Weapons Specialists, a SoHo-based company that supplies prop firearms to the entertainment industry. Bruce Willis, who was in town shooting the action comedy “A Couple of D i c k s,” wanted a left-handed ankle holster for his back-up gun, pronto if not sooner, reported the anxious caller from the movie’s set. Or maybe—who’s to say?—the Glock wouldn’t be the only thing to get fired.
Let others sweat bullets. Weapons Specialists founder and top gun Rick Washburn, 63, remained cool. “I don’t know yet what I’m going to do, but we have to provide it. Maybe I’ll make something in the shop,” he said, referring to the basement workroom. “We do little bitty miracles every day. That’s why they come to us.”
They come in droves. Since Weapons Specialists opened for business in 1981, the burly Mr. Washburn, a former actor, has furnished the firepower and other instruments of murder and mayhem for television series (“The Sopranos,” for example), plays, operas and ballets (rapiers for New York City Ballet’s recent production of “Romeo and Juliet” plus lessons in swordplay). The movies brandishing Weapons Specialists materiel include “The Bourne Ultimatum,” “I Am Legend,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and the comedy “Did You Hear About the Morgans,” with Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant.
View Full Image
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AJ847_washbu_D_20090715122453.jpg
Weapons Specialists, Ltd. Rick Washburn and his son in the their ‘main vault.’
http://s.wsj.net/img/BTN_insetClose.gif
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AJ847_washbu_G_20090715122453.jpg
“Rick’s the premier weapons guy on the East Coast. Whatever I’ve ever needed I’ve gotten. If I need a pink rifle, I know he’s got one and I know where it is,” said Michael A. Saccio, a property master who’s worked with Mr. Washburn on “Law & Order,” and such movies as “A Couple of D i c k s.”
“Fort Knox” reads the sign on the door of what Mr. Washburn calls the showroom vault. Firearms line the walls, arranged by type and chronology, all modified in accordance with New York City regulations to fire blanks only. Over here: submachine guns, machine guns, rocket launchers and assault rifles. Across the way: revolvers, shotguns, sporting weapons and semiautomatic pistols.
But depending on the demands of a script, the company can just as easily handle the combat requirements of Sitting Bull, Robin Hood, William the Conqueror, Ben-Hur or Fred Flintstone. Behold a wall in the basement backroom hung with tomahawks, swords, spears, battle-axes, crossbows, maces, wheel locks, matchlocks, morning stars, and a prehistoric spear-thrower known as an atlatl. Mr. Washburn estimates the Weapons Specialists arsenal at 10,000 pieces.
Mr. Washburn and a 10-member staff that includes his two sons also provide technical guidance in the fine points of pumping lead. Action star Steven Seagal, according to Mr. Washburn, “is really good.” Ed Harris and Will Smith also get a thumbs-up. But “even the actors who don’t know weapons leave Rick ready to rock and roll,” said Mr. Saccio.
Lesson No. 1? Safety above all. Always keep your weapon pointed at the ground, Mr. Washburn enjoins performers. Always treat your weapon as if it’s loaded. Keep your finger off the trigger until the moment you’re ready to fire. Remember that blanks can kill.
According to Mr. Washburn, improper use of firearms, blanks and deactivated bullets were responsible for the death of John-Erik Hexum on the set of “Cover Up” in 1984, and of Brandon Lee on the set of “The Crow” in 1994.
“I tell everyone ‘this is a movie,’” Mr. Washburn continued. “‘You can shoot a scene a dozen times. That just costs money. But I can’t give you back an eye or a limb or a life.’”
Mr. Washburn became interested in weaponry through his father, a defense contractor and avid gun collector. “He got me shooting at an early age,” he said. “And I began to research what the first guns were and how they came about and what people used before there were guns.”
After working in the construction business, Mr. Washburn moved to New York in the late 1970s determined to make it as an actor. One of his first roles was a bit part in the 1980 TV movie “Playing for Time,” starring Vanessa Redgrave as a concentration-camp inmate.
“My friend didn’t know one end of a firearm from the other and didn’t care,” recalled Mr. Washburn. “But this was a World War II movie and it was loaded with guns. I offered to go through the script and make a list of all the weapons that would be needed. The director was so enthusiastic that he told my friend to hire me as a consultant. And lo and behold I had a part-time business.”
Despite small roles in a few big movies and starring roles in a few small ones, Mr. Washburn ultimately decided to make that part-time business a career. “From a business standpoint acting was too much of a crapshoot,” he said. These days, his company charges up to half a million dollars for a big-budget feature, a fee that often includes a Weapons Specialists staffer on-set to ensure the proper deployment and storage of things that go bang.
Rest assured that Mr. Washburn knows on which side his bread is buttered. Consider the unnamed big name who wanted the lead character in his movie, a Special Forces guy, to carry a Desert Eagle, a huge pistol.
“A real Special Forces guy wouldn’t carry a Desert Eagle,” Mr. Washburn explained patiently.
“I don’t care,” said the director. “I think they’re cool.”
“How many do you want?”
A look at the headlines helps Mr. Washburn refine his search for additional inventory at gun shows, estate sales and on the Internet. “Obviously, we’re going to have some movies about Iraq,” he said. “We’re going to have movies about terrorist organizations and the pirates of Somalia, so I have to get AK-47s, Makarov pistols and RPG-7s,” shoulder-launched antitank weapons.
But he’s been around showbiz long enough to know that all bases must be covered. “Just this morning I said to myself, ‘I don’t have any leather thong slings like the one David used to kill Goliath,’” said Mr. Washburn, who was adding a few to his shopping list. “I haven’t used them in 30 years, but you never know when someone is going to make a Bible movie.”
—Ms. Kaufman writes about culture and the arts for the Journal.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved