you've got to understand the various ways of doing that, because invari-
ably the director wants to lower them three inches or pull them back.
You've got to solve the problem without rerigging the whole thing."
Professional Profile: Rick Toone, Prop Master
Rick Toone planned to be a rock and roll lighting designer, until he dis-
covered property work. The Virginia native earned a bachelor's degree in
technical theater from the Virginia Commonwealth University, then found
work doing lighting design with a Baltimore theatrical lighting company.
After a couple of years, he decided that to further advance his career, he
needed to relocate to New York or Los Angeles. He picked the latter.
Through friends working in the film industry, Toone found employment
as a carpenter on a couple of movies. Connections made on set led to work
as a lead man in set dressing for the television movie Love & War, and six
films for Cannon. Over the next couple of years he worked on a variety of
projects, eventually drifting toward props. "I realized I lifted too many
refrigerators and couches and
worked longer hours for less
money than the prop guys."
In conjunction with an art
director who worked steadily
in commercials, Toone and
another man handled set dress-
ing and props on her projects.
"The three of us would kind of
do everything," affording him
an opportunity to gain more set
experience and make contacts.
Through a production
designer he had worked with
on several commercials, Toone's
first job as prop master was on
the film Pontiac Moon. Prop
master gigs continued to come in, bringing work on such well-known com-
mercial campaigns as the Jerry Seinfeld spots for American Express and the
first series of Got Milk? "I did a lot of AT&T and Federal Express stuff."
When the Oxygen network started up, Toone decided to try out
working in television. "I was intrigued because they used the same crew
to shoot six shows; I was propping all six at the same time. We did a show
in the morning, one show after lunch, and one show in the late afternoon.
We just moved the cameras around the stage. The quality of the work
What do you like
least about your job?
"The unpleasant thing is
the sense of urgency that
you have to go through.
The panic that happens
because there is so much
money involved."--Rick Toone
What do you love most
about your job?
"The best thing is that you get to work on a
lot of different locations with a lot of different
people."--Rick Toone
VOICES OF
EXPERIENCE
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