on Toshareproject.it - curated by Bruce Sterling
This video is quite interesting in terms of “restoration” theory. A movie prop can be the “original prop,” but it’s not the “original pistol,” because the pistol is fantastic, dramatic and imaginary, never a real pistol.
You’ll note that Savage has the plans of the prop-makers of the first prop, but he doesn’t feel driven to slavishly copy all the workings and materials of the first prop. A replica prop is a replica that *photographs like* the other prop. Because that’s its purpose as a prop; not to be an authentic original artwork but to be effectively photographed.
Savage doesn’t actually photograph his replica prop in any movie. He puts his replica prop on display in his office, in order to demonstrate to visitors and customers that he, a professional FX technician, has the skill and ability to create props that look and even feel indistinguishable from famous movie-props. He doesn’t sell the replica prop, although he presumably could. The prop is a form of tradesman’s advertising and an implicit guarantee of his skills and dedication.
Also, although the prop is not real and isn’t used as a gun, it’s a real material object that decays and has use-wear. He doesn’t want to show people a tarnished and beat-up old prop — although a prop collector might very much WANT a tarnished and beat-up old prop so as to prove that he has the old prop that was used long ago by famous actors in a famous movie. Savage doesn’t want any of this veteran patina on his prop, though; he needs his prop to look shiny and up-top-date.
Also, in his extensive career, he’s made several of the same prop over the years, and he might make another one. He’s not worried about the market being diluted by all these “pirate copies.” It’s common for prop-makers to make several similar props so that they will have workable spares during the movie production; they’re not jealously guarded “originals. Also, as a movie FX pro, he’s simply not a “pirate” any more than a special recording technician making several “takes” of an unreleased song is a pirate. It’s certainly possible to “pirate movies,” but the props in the movie are not the artwork, they’re like costumes, set and decor.
Often the props in movies are chimeric objects cobbled-together out of other model kits — “kit-bashing” or pieces of junked machinery. They’re not original sculptures but a form of collage.
Savage spends a lot of time befriending real museum staff in charge of maintaining and refurbishing real historic objects. This work is “real restoration work,” and it’s performed with “real restoration tools,” but it’s not a real thing.