By Marcel Damen and Steve Fronczek
11 February 2008

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Basically the way it works is that I get the script and break it down, then meet with the director to talk about what his vision is for that episode and then I come up with a master list. Really it's just a giant shopping list for everybody. I delegate who's gonna do what. Once we start to get the props, as they come in, they all get loaded on the truck to be delivered onto the stages. We use them knowing they are going to be reused again, and again, and again because that's just the way it is on this show. Because, we keep coming back to story lines from past episodes and we have flashbacks and reshoot things and do inserts. We have to organize and catalogue things so they're available and in good repair so they're ready to be used again. It's a huge inventory. I've never had to deal with an inventory this big; even the inventory for the X-Files wasn't as big as this over the years I did that show.

It's an organizational challenge and we've had to bring on extra people for that reason. With just the amount of paperwork involved with doing a show of this size we had to bring on an extra person just to handle that.

We have a variety of lockups on set. If certain things are only going to be used on one set then we have lockup built into the set. On the hanger deck... all the hanger deck props will be stored on there aside from say the flight helmets which are far too valuable to be left around. They will be locked under several different layers of security in our main props lockup on the lot. That's were the majority of the stuff is kept. That's where a majority of the hot props are kept and for things that we know we are going to be reusing and know we have to have readily at hand in the future. We have another lock up off site which is almost kind of dead storage. Although on this show it never is cause once a season we always go back to this stuff. It's for the props that we use very seldom but we know we can't throw them out because we are going to use them again at some point. Usually they are for specific sequence we've done where there've been a lot of props that we've used at a particular location. You don't want to throw them out because everything we do no matter what it is, you just don't buy something off the shelf and use it we always do something to it. There's always something to it to Galactiguise it to make it look specific to the show. You're reluctant to throw anything away because if you repurchase it you're going to have to put some more work into it just making it look like that again.

Oh yeah! Very much so. A lot of them even if they are purchased items. We do a lot of buying online because we don't want things to look too mundane. We don't want them to look like everyday items that anyone can buy at a local department store or whatever. We do a lot of searching online to find really unique looking things that are only available from specialty shops or whatever for things that are purchased. Obviously, if they are manufactured for us then they are one-of-a-kind.

No, not as such. We have a person who is our stores person who keeps the lock ups organized and keeps the flow of inventory moving. It's not a full time job but it's almost a full time job. It's not really an archivist as such but that's their responsibility. I think when the show finally wraps up we will have to start thinking about preserving these things. Right now they're just the tools of the trade, we use them every day. They're just props we don't think of them as museum items but they'll eventually become that I'm sure. I've had a lot of experience with that on the X-Files because literally any of the unique props we built for that show we always made one extra one to go into the X-Files museum. The mandate for that show was to never reuse anything. Everything had to have a unique look in each episode, we never reused anything. So that was very much and archival process there.

I like that. Hey, anytime anyone wants to compare what I've done to Blade Runner that's fine with me. (chuckle) You learn from the best. Syd Mead was a genius. These are the kind of design minds that you admire. Actually, I've spoken to Syd on another show I did. He designed guns for the other show. You learn how these people work and think, so you try to emulate them in terms of style because it's brilliant work.

Oh very, very much. I work very closely with Glenne Campbell. Our offices are next door to each other. We work very closely together. My first job in this business was with Glenne and Richard actually. We work very closely and very well, particularly because there's so many of the things married together in terms of when we get into a situation where we've got to have somebody in a space suit or we're creating a new military look. I've got a fair bit of knowledge about militaria so Glenne will ask my advice on stuff or have me give suggestions on how the military aspect of it works. I've never been in the military but I know a fair bit about it. I've done a lot of research over the years and you happen to learn a lot about it. So, we work together very closely.

Oh yeah sure. There've been crossovers all the time. I'll make something that goes in their costume or they'll take something we're doing and make it look better or make it look like it fits more in the costume than the way we maybe necessarily had in the first place. It's a very symbiotic give and take kind of relationship.

My adhesive of choice! (big laugh) Well you know what it all depends on what it is. There are a million different bonding agents out there and it just really depends on what we're trying to glue together. Now obviously the hardest thing is when you've got to glue two different materials together. We try not to use anything too exotic because everything has to happen fast in television. We use all of the standard glues.

Yeah I do. I spend a lot of time -- and my wife will attest -- spend a lot of Sundays at flea markets and things finding a lot of stuff we use in the show. A lot of times it's really silly to reinvent the wheel when some-body's already designed something you can incorporate into a prop that you are building. Particularly for Battlestar Galactica because it's got a very, "kind of clunky, kind of retro," industrial look to it a lot of times. It really doesn't make sense nor do I have the budget to design a lot of props from scratch. Probably a third to half of what I do is from scratch what we come up with a design and build it, but a lot of it incorporates found objects. Very much of it incorporates found objects.

Yeah, yeah. Although I'm not technically working, if I'm out shopping and I see something that I know at some point we could use I'll pick it up. We'll sort it out later how I get reimbursed for it. (laughs) Because when I'm not working, if I'm not on the clock, it's hard to get reimbursed for something. If it's something I know we're going to use... and I've found things and our buyers have found things that just by looking online for something else they'll find something and say "Hey, what do you think of this?" and I'll say "Yeah, let's get it. I know we'll use it somewhere." We've had many things like that. Happens all the time.

Oh sure, all the time. I'm always rummaging through my stuff at home to find things that we can use. It's happened may times. I'll go through my props kit that I have -- that I carry from show to show -- and there will be something in there that I know will be perfect for this item. It happens all the time.

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