Doctor, It Feels Like My Chest Is On Fire?
Around about ten years or so ago I had the opportunity to make some props for a nation-wide TV commercial for Kraft Macaroni Cheese. A friend of mine, Kate, is a props buyer/organizer for various production companies here in Melbourne and she wanted to know if it was possible to design and make some hella funky furniture for the ad. The idea was that we’d make a couple of (non functional) chests of drawers in two different sizes, a fake television that would only be seen from the back, and a surfboardy oval type coffee table. There would also be a few other items in the ad – a funky wonky wall clock, a cartoony looking telephone and a painting for the wall. The couch that the actors would sit on would be a real one sourced from one of the upmarket contemporary furniture stores.
Now I have to say at this stage that I FUGGAN HATE Kraft Macaroni Cheese. It’s powdery and it tastes like CRAP! However:
(a) It was not gonna cost me anything to do.
(b) I was actually gonna be PAID to make the props – even though the job was organized by a friend, and
(c) It was absolute madness to even hope that we’d be able to make four pieces of fake furniture from start to finish in less than three days!
I like a challenge – and a bit of an emergency – so I thought “Hell, why not!”
Because of the nature of the furniture (ie. a very short life span) and the available time in which to make them I knew that “attention to detail” was going to be a concept that could be easily ignored. Things were gonna be made well enough – just not laboriously crafted over. Kate had managed to get some super-quick drying paint which would help take the pressure off. While she and Dominique both designed “the look” I thing I watched TV? Actually no! I think I was doing something productive…. just not sure what it was?
When the designs were finished I took a look and knew that it wasn’t exactly going to be a piece of cake – what with those curvy angles and all. Still, I had plenty of clamps, tons of glue, as much material as I needed and one or two ideas of how to go about it all. As it turned out it wasn’t gonna be as difficult as I thought it was gonna be.
For the sides and the top of the chests I used 3 mm (1/8″) medium density fiberboard – or mdf as we call it here. For the base I used 19 mm (3/4″) thick mdf. It’s a little bit like chipboard, only finer. The cool thing about it is that it’s cheap and can be used for heaps of things. The only problem with it is dust – so use your masks. Because there’s also a lot of glue used in the making of mdf it can be hard on edge tools like planes and spokeshaves (I used both tools in making the chests).
Because the 3 mm mdf is flexible it was easy enough to cut out the shapes and bend them how I wanted them. It helped to have another person with me to hold everything in place while I glued and screwed the initial holding blocks in. The holding blocks were just offcuts of pine so that the screws had some “grip”. Once the glue dried I took the screws out again and filled up the holes with some wood filler. I also made sure I drenched the inside edges with plenty of glue for strength. Basically the chests were held together under tension. They really wanted to spring apart but they couldn’t because the glue was too good. As it turned out it was plenty strong because instead of staying together for a few days they ended up lasting 10 years. They would’ve lasted at least another ten if it wasn’t for the fire. ;-)
We bought some red plastic knobs from the hardware store to use for the “drawer” handles. The legs of the chests were made from used cardboard cotton spools that were bought from a reclaimation center. We originally had bright pinky-red balls on the end of them but they went missing a while back. I think their original use was for street hockey and I remember buying them from the local K Mart. I had to drill a half inch hole in each of them so that the tapered cotton spools would fit into them. They would’ve burned really well. :-)
The TV was also made from mdf, but it also had a plastic ice cream container glued to the back of it. There was also a set of funky “rabbit ears” antennas – also made from very long tapered cotton spools and hockey balls. The lighting crew were going to put a bright light in the front of the TV so that it would flash on and off the faces of the actors watching it. Because it had no front it kinda made it wonky. Still by this stage I was basically running out of time so it was good enough!
The coffee table was easy! A 19 mm mdf oval on four cotton spools. In the end though they used a substitute coffee table that looked much better.
The day of the filming was hella cool – but it was a VERY long day. Kate and Dominique had spent the previous day painting the background after the builders had built the fake walls and floor. It looked really cool. We took some pictures in between filming but I can’t find any of them right now, which sucks. They’re around here somewhere! Anyhow, there are three very important things I learned:
(a) The catering ROCKS on film sets!
(b) The food stylists are hella good at what they do. I found out all about “hero burgers” (PERFECTLY CRAFTED burgers like NOTHING you could EVER ACTUALLY buy!), varnished raw “roast” chickens (the roast chickens that you see in the ads are hardly ever cooked. They’re cold, raw and varnished to look like they’re cooked) and I also found out that tampons work great when you soak them in water, microwave them and stick them in food to make the food “steam” so that it looks like it’s hot. It’s all done with smoke and mirrors, folks!
(c) The days can be very, very long and there’s a lot of downtime!
I should also add that almost as soon as the director yelled “cut” for the final time, the large chest of drawers fell over – smashing the heavy mosaic and VERY ugly vase that was sitting on top of it! THAT would’ve been cool to get on film!
The finished ad aired on Aussie TV over the next few months or so and it was always cool to see it. I’m not sure how many extra packets of Kraft Macaroni Cheese they sold but I DO know that I wasn’t one of their customers!
Now fast forward ten or so years. The chests have been upstairs in the attic for about seven of those years but it’s now time to clean up and get rid of them. Of course if they actually worked as drawers then they’d have a purpose but, alas, no. They’re just taking up space.
So I decide to burn them. I thought of it a while back but I didn’t get around to it until now. Yesterday I thought “Hey? I could take photos of them as they’re burning” and that kinda spurred me into doing it.
This morning I go upstairs and grab them, bring them downstairs and take them out into the back yard. I find a spot with no overhead branches (don’t want the trees to catch on fire after all) and I clean the cobwebs and the dust off them. It seems fitting to spruce them up a bit as this is their second, and final, performance. The ground underfoot is soft and damp from the night’s rain – perfect! No brush fires either!
I cut a square hole in the back of each chest with a drill and a small pad saw. The dogs are running around excitedly because they know that something interesting is going to happen. Goldie thinks it might contain some throwing of sticks and stones and possibly some food, but Goldie is stupid cause he should know by now that hardly anything happens outside with food. Gus just wants me to throw him his tennis ball so he can chase it. Not this time, guys. I’m on a mission!
I grab some newspapers from inside the house and start scrunching up pages to stuff in the holes of the chests. When I’m done I add some paint thinner for added measure. It can’t hurt, I figure? Well, unless the whole lot explodes and covers me with burning flames…..which is a very, very slight possibility – but a possibility nonetheless. Finally I go back inside, grab some matches and the camera and a chair to sit on in case I have to wait a while.
I light the paper and sit down. There’s a lot of smoke but not much in the way of flamage. Then the little chest kinda “explodes” with a loud bang – but nothing else happens? It seems that the explosion blew the fire out – kinda like how that Red Adair guy would put out fires in oil wells and stuff.
Anyhow, the paint on the large chest of drawers was bubbling up nicely and there was A LOT of smoke pouring out from the back – but still no sign of flames. I was starting to think how majorly my plan seemed to be sucking when WHOLLOP!! The chest exploded in flames and promptly fell sideways with the force. Goldie ran inside and hid under the table in the computer room (I found out afterwards) but Gus just looked at it for a while before chewing on his tennis ball again. I tried to get a picture of the chest as it was falling but it was just too quick!
Seizing an opportunity I decided to pick up the small chest and put it on top of the burning mass. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It didn’t take long for the small chest to catch on fire and I snapped off a couple of pictures, before switching my digital camera to movie mode for a short Quicktime video of the event (which you can see below).
So, all up, it was a pretty fun morning!
Check out the short Quicktime video!
8.9 MB
