Fugee and Success. Props. Burgers and Chips and Pizza Crusts! and a Birthday Cake thrown in!!!

I started to get involved with the prop making of the burger and chips and then eventually of the pizza crusts.
When I joined the prop making team, at this point, which was Pippa and Paige, they had already made all the chips and was about half way through in painting them.

CHIPS 

The chips were made as far as I could gather from gluing 2 lolly sticks together down the edge to form a 'V' shape and wrapping masking tape around them from top to bottom.
When I joined in, my first task was to add more masking tape running the length of the chip, as the masking tape had originally been wrapped round the sticks running downwards in a spiral motion, thus giving the chips ridges all the way down. By adding further tape in a lengthwise position, it gave the chip a flatter, smoother surface.

I then helped to paint the remaining chips plus re-paint the chips that had further masking tape applied, not every chip that had been made had the masking tape spiralling down the chip.
We initially applied yellow and white paint then a splash of gold looking paint then finally along the edges a touch of brown, ever so lightly, to give it that cooked slightly crispy burnt look. They were looking good. Enough chips were made to make 5 portions of chips that were needed.

One of the Tutors commented that they were all the same length and that smaller, shorter ones should also be made, which I did agree with. They were all uniform in size, which wouldn't be so if they were genuine chips. No further chips were made though, as we did have to get on with the rest of the props and time was of the essence, as we are currently working on 3 productions, and 2 productions were to be held quite soon and the props needed to be made and finished.
Also I questioned the thickness of the chips as they were definitely 'chip shop' chips and not like the fries that you get in 'fast food' chains and as it was going with burgers my question was whether they are restaurant food or fast food chain meals? which I did feel was a valid question but didn't really get a reply to, so I left it that and went along with what had been made.
Also I shall add here that as time went on and the chips had been left on the workshop table, other crew members would sit and add extra paint to the supposedly finished chips. So although they did still look ok, I must agree with one of the Tutors, they were now looking like roasted parsnips  :-)   note to oneself: once something is presumed finished, move it off the workshop table and put it away safely to one side so no-one can play around further with it, as idle hands like to find things to play around with!!

BURGERS

Pippa and I started to make the burgers together. We initially made a burger each by using print paper and wrapping masking tape round it to hold the paper in place and give it shape and form. We made the top and bottom of the buns individually and we each made a burger.

 When we compared our burgers we needed to make adjustments as we had to get uniformity of size. We decided to make the burgers slightly oversized as they were a prop and we felt they needed to be able to be seen clearly from the back of the audience. We also decided to make the actual meat burger part thinner, as I had made mine, as when the burger parts were to be put together, it couldn't look overly fat in size. We also decided to make some of the burgers as cheese burgers and made thin square slices out of the print paper.

The tomatoes that we decided to add to the burgers were going to be added on at the end when the burger parts were constructed together, again so it didn't add extra height to the finished burger. The tomato parts, were just that, small sections that were added to the final burger shape only to the outside edge. The lettuce leaves were also added on at the end and just stuck around the outside edge. We cut up some fabric ivy leaves that we had in the prop department.
As Pippa wasn't at college the next time I sat down to work on the burgers, I continued to make the paper burger parts as we had to make 7 burgers in total. After I had made all the parts I decided, after speaking to the Tutor, that I would assemble each individual burger together and hold them in place by stitching them together. I did this by using a very large needle, that was possibly an upholstery needle, and double cotton thread. It was quite difficult to push the needle through but obviously not impossible, and once securing the cotton to the bottom bun, proceeded to push the needle and cotton through all the parts, burger, buns (and cheese, when necessary), up and over the top bun and back through the other side, back down to the bottom bun again, where I secured the cotton off.

The next lesson I added in tomato pieces to the buns, that had been made in paper and masking tape and then 3 of us covered the burgers in 'mudroc', plaster of Paris bandages, to firmly secure all the burger parts together and make them durable and hard wearing.

Once reasonably dry, we started to paint the burgers. This was quite time consuming, trying to get what we felt was the right shades for the buns. I had taken a picture of burgers in Burger King's window for reference but it wasn't that a good of quality picture and it would of been handier if we had an actual burger bun in front of us.

 It was also difficult to try and match our colour tones for each individual burger so again there would be uniformity in the burger colours, as we all worked individually and building the paint colours actually up on the burgers and not in a mixing dish. We did struggle to agree which colour we felt was the best colour, so the final pieces do actually vary slightly in tones but I do not think this is a bad thing as the overall look of all the buns together, I think look good.

The picture I took of BK's burgers, had sesame seeds sprinkled on top of the buns, I felt rather than try and reproduce these or attempt to paint them, I had some sesame seeds at home, which I bought in and once the burgers had been painted and were dry, Pippa and I spread PVA glue on top of the buns and I sprinkled the seeds over the glue. Once the glue was dry, it went clear again and the finished result of the buns looked quite good.
The actual meat burgers, once painted with an initial brown coat, I then painted with a darker shade of brown and black, added in splodges, to give it a more meaty look. I painted one lot of the tomatoes that were in a burger with more detail on the top parts that were showing but the rest of the tomatoes were just painted red with no other detail. The cheese was painted yellow and when we had applied the 'mudroc' we curled the cheese down over the burger to give it the effect that it had melted onto the hot burger.

The finished burgers I glued lettuce leaves (cut from fabric ivy leaves) around the outside edge to give them a more authentic look.

PIZZA CRUSTS 

We needed to make pizza crusts, so Poppy and I decided to make 8 in total. We had not been given a specific amount and all we knew it was crusts to be found in 1 pizza box the next day after they had been eaten.
I made the crusts from print paper held in shape with masking tape and I also felt I needed to add a section of the pizza to each of the crusts so it would look more like the remains of a pizza. I felt just crusts would not be significant enough for the audience to see and look good.
Poppy and I then covered the crusts in 'mudroc' and allowed them to dry.

 

 

We again struggled to get the right shade of paint to look like crusts so we took a break from it.

 

When we returned to work on the crusts again it was Pippa and I. We added extra 'mudroc' to the uneaten part of the pizza to give it texture to appear like pizza toppings. Pippa then re-painted the crusts and she also painted the pizza topping part of the crusts.

 

 

 

 

BIRTHDAY CAKE 

Paige was assigned to make the birthday cake which she started to do using card and 'mudroc'.

 

After a discussion between us as to what the Birthday Cake was going to look like and as there was no preference to what type of cake it should be, other than it being a birthday cake, Paige made the cake to look like a Chocolate Cake.