The Prop Master

His name is Ross MacDonald. He is an editorial and book illustrator and typographer who makes props for motion pictures.

From a profile in the Atlantic...

During his current break from eight months working on Boardwalk Empire, I asked Macdonald to share a brief history of some of his cinematic accomplishments.

For his first film, Baby's Day Out (1993), Macdonald illustrated and handled the design and production of the children's book used to push along the movie's plot. The illustrations were also used in the opening credits, and appear full-screen throughout the movie. "I also did sketches for some of the other stuff -- the rooftop set, the kidnapper's van, the baby photographer's van."

For The Alamo (2004), Macdonald consulted on and produced all of the paper props: documents, books, almanacs, letters, journals, and maps. "I started off doing William Travis' journal, and it ballooned from there," he says. But even propmakers sing the blues. "After a few months, the director quit and the production shut down. A few months later, a new crew came in and started up, and all the props I had made had disappeared, so I had to remake everything. That's where I learned the hard way to save every email, every sketch, every file, everything."

For Seabiscuit (2003), Macdonald consulted on period comics, and produced a faux Flash Gordon book. The book was originally a much more important prop, he notes. The illustrations he did were going to appear full-screen and cross-dissolve into the action. "I also did a little rolling ball-bearing game, the art for that was a huge production; I was the fifth person to take a crack at it. I was told that the little game prop ultimately ended up costing $90,000. It also was intended to get bigger play than it did."