Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545257
she was designing for. He realized that the props had to be of that caliber to fit the world. Early in my experience with the Muppets, Fred asked me to make a guitar for Rizzo the Rat. He wanted it to look like B.B. King's guitar, "Lucille." I was quite proud of the build and photographed it alongside a dollar bill for scale. Years later, a friend was looking at the photos and asked where I got the oversized dollar made. I guess I passed that test. On Team America: World Police, the prop team tried to find a one-scale-fits- all approach, but we couldn't. Even in a world entirely scaled to the puppets, there was no easy answer. The puppets were almost all around 22 inches tall, but their heads and hands were out of proportion with their bodies. Since most props are seen in the context of heads and hands, we couldn't rely on a strict mathematical scale. The long guns were particularly tricky. In wide shots, the length needed to feel right against their bodies. In camera tests, however, we found we had to exaggerate the barrel size and overall thickness to match the heads and hands. As a rule, we would mock-up props at three to five different sizes and see what looked best. When Fred Buchholz first showed me this method on Muppets Tonight, I was using photocopiers and foam core. Now we have plotters and rapid 3D printing, something Fred always said he wished he had in his early days. The principle, however, is the same: if the mock-up looks right, that's the scale. If the scale is done correctly, it's not noticed. For example, when the pigs are discussing Scrooge's funeral in The Muppet Christmas Carol, nobody notices the custom 20" umbrellas that Fred Buchholz had made. They just fit. If those umbrellas were any bigger or smaller, they would have taken us all out of the scene. In the case of Team America: World Police, however, scale was something we were asked to get wrong. Trey Parker and Matt Stone wanted to play to the fact that their characters were puppets. They regularly encouraged me to break scale and leave clues as to how big everything really was. When designing the team's battle gear, I had fun making belt buckles out of quarters and dimes. One character has a full- sized nail clipper on his chest, while another carries a flashlight light bulb on her belt. I gave one character a nickel- plated golf tee as part of his kit. In the surgical scene, we even used a martini shaker as a piece of equipment. The list goes on and on. Materials are as important to pay attention to as scale and weight. Puppets are expensive to make and are rarely machine washable. When Fred Buchholz had to make cookies for Cookie Monster to eat, they had to break apart and crumble out of his mouth. The cookies can't have any oils; the chocolate can't stain; and the cookie has to have consistent color inside and out. Fred found a two-part foam that, when adding a bit of water as it cured, foamed up to a perfectly brittle consistency. When colored hot glue became available, the chocolate chips became much easier to make. Nobody thinks much about those cookies when they get completely annihilated by the puppet. Sometimes we have to cheat. On Team America: World Police, our budget would not support building hundreds of small-scale croissants, baguettes, and muffins to populate a boulangerie. A puppet had to be blown back into the shop with bread raining down as they landed. We found a local bakery willing to make everything for real, using as little oil as possible. We then sprayed the pieces with a heavy coat of clear satin. They didn't hold up for more than a few takes, but they were stable MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN BRAD ELLIOTT, PMG AT HIS WORKSHOP STATION