Episode Transcript

Julia Landauer 0:04 Hello, everybody and welcome back to another episode of if I'm honest with Julia Landauer. Today, we have a Tiktok and YouTube star on the podcast. And we are talking with a man who combines behind the scenes movie set prop information with dad jokes. I mean, this is a dream come true for me and I love a dad joke I love upon. And so I'm thrilled that Scott Reeder who is a prop master is joining us on the podcast today. So Scott was born and raised in Southeast Texas and is based in Austin, and he's been in the film and TV industry for 35 years, working as a prop master on hundreds of TV and film projects. Among His notable credits are Friday Night Lights, Pitch Perfect, parenthood, machete, Necessary Roughness, and the leftovers. In 2004, he opened a prop shop in Austin, Texas and has rented out props to 1000s of productions across the US. And in 2020, Scott started posting film and TV related videos on social media and quickly built a large following with his comedic spin on edutainment. By combining his film industry knowledge with dad jokes and puns. Scott currently has over 1.8 million followers on Tiktok, over 950,000 subscribers on his Scott prop and roll YouTube channel. And he was so great in joining us and sharing all of the tidbits of the industry. I really, really love this conversation because not only did we learn how he got into prop work, and what it's like to play mad scientist as he's trying to develop a prop. But we also got to talk about his experience on racing and car related sets, we got to talk about the very specific props that I had questions about that were featured in a lot of his videos. And we also talk about some serious stuff like his take on the fatal tragedy, an accident that was on the rust set when a firearm was discharged and killed a member of the production set. And he also talks about what he's still working on from a prop perspective. And he's very, very chill. He's very thoughtful. I, as many of you know really adore puns and dad jokes. And that was how I originally found him when I was back on TikTok. And so I'm really excited that he's joined us and I hope you enjoy the super interesting discussion. Scott, thank you for joining me on if I'm honest with Julia Landauer. Scott Reeder 2:24 Thanks for having me. Julia Landauer 2:25 So for our listeners, and maybe for you too, I came across your content back when I was on TikTok. I'm no longer on TikTok. But I love that you were incorporating such clever dad jokes into all of your content. And at the time, the reason it resonated with me so much was because I was having to do physical therapy for my shoulder. So I found myself like laying on the ground doing these stretches for several minutes every day. And I got bored. And I don't know how I started. But I started delivering random dad jokes that I came across while I was doing stretching, and it was on my Instagram stories. So and then after kind of relating to you on that, I just thought the content that you were posting was so cool about everything all the behind the scenes related to props. And you know, I think so many of us appreciate what goes into making movies. But to see the science of it, the nitty gritty of it was just has always been really cool continues to be really cool. And so could you let us know what exactly is a prop master and how did you get into this industry? Scott Reeder 3:26 Well, I'm, a prop master is someone who handles anything touched or held in a film or television show or a theatrical production. I don't handle couches or paintings on the wall. That's all set decoration. But when it comes to, if it's a shootout, I provide the proper weapons. If it's a bar fight, I provide the breakaway beer bottles of bits, like said anything touched or held. I got started when I was going to the University of North Texas, just north of Dallas, in Denton, Texas. And there happened to be a movie shooting in town when I was I guess a sophomore. And I found out a location where they were going to be and I just showed up and offered to pick up trash or whatever. I started out just basically as an intern. And but I made connections on that I was very proactive. And I interned at the North Texas Film Commission where I got to go scout locations and I always knew what was coming long before it was coming to the state of Texas. So I could get my my name in the hat early on. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for the first few years. But it did help pay my way through college. I was doing karaoke music videos. I was doing anything I could jump in on where Julia Landauer 4:58 I need to pause you right there. We When you say you were doing karaoke music videos, what does that mean? Like, Scott Reeder 5:04 oh, poor me, okay, back back. This, this dates me here. I go way back. So the first movie I interned on was in 1989, I was 19 years old, then I worked, there were some small production companies that would do what are called karaoke videos. And back in the day, they were like, low budget music videos. So as the words are coming up, if you're in a bar, and you're singing a song, the words would be coming up, they would have a music video that would play right behind it. And I helped make this. So that's kind of where I learned, you know, doing sound or any camera. What a grip was what I mean, you're doing something that's that low budget, you do a little bit of everything. So I always recommend to people that are wanting to get into business, to work on commercials work on the small indies, because that's where the crews are smaller, and you're given a lot more responsibility early on. And you learn how to problem solve and deal with the high pressure of you know, of having responsibility thrown on you at an early age. That's where, you know, kind of how I got started. And then I ended up working on doing props on a show called Necessary Roughness, which was a film for Paramount that came to town in the Dallas area. And I just went and basically begged the prop master for a job and got on as like a production assistant, basically. And it was it was a lot of fun. And I learned a lot. And I just started out that way doing like proper assessment work. Then I found the best training ground was being a prop buyer. Were on television. So I did a really cheesy, late night CBS show, it was for CBS. It was called Dangerous curves. And that was like no, do. And that's where, you know, we had like seven days to prep, you know, and then seven days to shoot, per episode. And then following that I got on the original Walker Texas Ranger, and I did that for years. And that's kind of how I cut my teeth in the business. But yeah, so a prop master has to break down the script, and look and see what all is needed. Figure out how much labor it's gonna take. If you've got to have anything fabricated like a rubber axe, it's the little details that you don't think about, like if we're shooting in a parking lot. And we're filming in Texas, and it's set in New York, I've got to put New York plates on all the cars and put registration stickers. If it's New York and you know, 1960 then you got to think about okay, you got to do the research and Okay, what did their you know? What did the registration stickers look like? What are the plates look like? Down to you know, then the said decorators are worried about the street signs. When did those change over? You know, you really, you know, period shows you really have to do your research because they have this thing on IMDb called the goofs in blooper section or what? And Julia Landauer 8:37 are you out on your on your shit, basically? Oh, I've Scott Reeder 8:40 been everyone that does what I do is called out on, you know, and sometimes, sometimes they're right, sometimes they're not. And I'll you know, I'll admit that, you know, I'm, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes, like everybody, so. But yeah, you've got to have some thick skin. But you know, what I loved about doing tick tock, I'll hear people do like, I'll show how to do something. Right now, whatever the trick is, be it making rubber glass or whatever, whatever it is. And someone will come in and have a way they do it. That's interesting. It's not necessarily better or, or sometimes it is, but I've learned from other people on this app as well. So that's pretty cool. Julia Landauer 9:28 That is really cool. So I have a follow up question and something that you said earlier how, you know, obviously, you have to think about license plate all these little details and like on a racing team, like Crews also have like they have just so many little details that they have to check that they have to make sure are on point and they create these massive checklists and they're pretty uniform because I do the same stuff that I attract no matter what track it is. But for you, is there the same kind of meticulous, like list making and like do you have a set thing that you have to you know, to pay attention to? or like a street scene versus a home scene versus Well, Scott Reeder 10:02 I do a breakdown of every episode. And then I send it out to the director, the producer, the art coordinator, the production designer. And we go through my list, okay. And like that's what we did today is I went through scene by scene. And just to make sure I'm on the same page as the director, and that we in that I don't miss anything. And sometimes they'll be something that's not scripted that they'd like to add, this is the opportunity to do that. And then then I continue to gather stuff. And a few days after that, we'll have a prop show until water where I will lay everything out on tables, and show everything that we have. And then they can make their final notes there. But by then we typically like start shooting the next day. And yeah, so I better really get get it in gear and but typically by the show until I know, I don't have any fires to put out really, right. It's funny you talk about I've done on the original Walker, we had two episodes where we shot at the Texas Motor Speedway, and we really hire NASCAR, to our Julia Landauer 11:20 episode. Oh, we're gonna go find some footage of Scott Reeder 11:23 this. It was back when Chuck Norris, his son, Eric, who's a stunt coordinator, started in NASCAR or he was a NASCAR driver for a very, I'd say maybe for two years. And so he talked to Chuck into doing it. They wrote a story around that. And we shot it the if you ever have you ever been to the Texas Motor Speedway Julia Landauer 11:47 I've actually never been but like I'm very familiar with seeing it on TV and stuff like that. Scott Reeder 11:52 Well, I guess it was like 1999 or something like that. I don't know how I got to do it. I drove my I had a beat up old Volvo station wagon. And I drove it on the track. So I got to say I drove Julia Landauer 12:07 on. And how was it? How was it? It was? Scott Reeder 12:11 I was in a beat up old car. But did you go fast? I don't remember exactly. I know that. I just, yeah, I took it as fast as it would go. It was cool. You didn't really even have to turn the steering wheel. You just kind of kind of took you around. It was crazy. I'm Julia Landauer 12:28 thinking is really Yeah, the banking is really impressive like that. And our cars are actually like the oval specific race cars are staggered to go left. So it's even like less input in a way. Because while chassis and suspension are, you know, angled for that. But that's really cool that you got to drive. Scott Reeder 12:45 I'm a horrible driver, though. But I've got I've done a lot of projects about that. So we I did a IBM commercial at the f1 track. What is it called COTA Circuit of the Americas they had this Oh, I did an Acura commercial. And on a lot of commercials, I'll end up doing both props and special effects are on this one. They wanted me to do smoke. And it was they had these like two Acura concept cars. They went really, really fast. And they have this camera car that's typically a Porsche Cayenne. Am I pronouncing that right? And they've got this big crane built on top of it. It's got a wide wheelbase that that particular Porsche is perfect for to be a camera vehicle. And I had a Dodge pickup truck that they had rented for me and I had these two smoke machines that are gas powered with mineral oil or whatever. And they make these huge plumes of smoke. And they have this practice this f1 Practice track outside of Austin called driveway, Austin. And that's where we were filming a lot of these scenes. And I was scared to death because I we'd smoked it up so much. I have my assistant strapped in the back with a harness. And mind you remember I said I'm a horrible driver. I'm yeah, I'm not blind. And I've got the assistant director riding shotgun. And we're I've got it smoked up to where I can't see where anyone's coming from. And there was one part of the track where it crosses. I had a weird feeling. I was like, where are they? And the smoke started to clear. And they just went I mean, they were within 12 inches of the front bumper. And that's what I call timeout and two guys. We said let's have a big meeting. We need to we really need to utilize these radios and coordinate so we don't hurt anybody Julia Landauer 14:55 but we don't want to be actual racecar drivers that crash right? Yeah, yeah. And Scott Reeder 15:00 by the way, I reminded I'm a horrible driver, how I got big to smoke it up in the truck. But anyway, but it was fun. I love. I love working on car commercials. They're fun. Obviously, Julia Landauer 15:13 they're just smoke that you can produce. Are there other like tricks of car commercials that are prop dependent? That? Sure, yeah, yeah. Scott Reeder 15:22 If we're doing like on a dirt road, a lot of times, you know, they won't, it won't pick up the dirt that they want it to. So we'll have this stuff called walnut dust. And it's not really walnuts, it's the walnut shells ground up into a powder. And will go in with like in a, in a four wheeler and dump bags of it, you know, on the road. So when the car hits it, it makes a huge plume of dust, it looks pretty good. I've done that on a lot of commercials and a lot of shit a lot of TV shows where you just dust up the road. And because just the lightest little bit of rain will be out the existing road typically get won't kick up any dust. And then we'll use like a rose duster, they will put dust in movie dirt they call it and and then we'll age a vehicle like that if they want to be going to cover it. And I own like police light bars, so I will help gear up. Like we have like a Dodge Charger or something, I'll turn it into a police car. And we'll do that sort of thing. You know, I prefer working television just because I've just done it so much. So my comfort zone. But it does get fast paced sometimes in this like this one, we're shooting 45 minute episodes, and six days, which is quite a which is pretty fast for a narrative show. Every once in a while I like to fill him with features like in between seasons or whatever. Those are fun two, a script is one minute per page. So that's how they gauge it right. And so if you take one minute per page, so if I look at the script, it's like 45 pages, to 45 to 48 pages, that's going to be a 48 minute deal. And it kinda, it always works out pretty much to be within within five minutes of what you know, a minute per page will shoot on Intellivision anywhere between six to eight pages a day. But in feature films, you're shooting two pages a day, you'll be in one location, you know, but in back when I did Friday Night Lights, that was insane. We would do like five days to shoot one episode. And we would hit like five locations a day. We didn't do any stage work like on this. We're on stage. Like we have sets built. And we shoot those like, at least over half of the episode is on stage. Friday Night Lights was we would go into businesses we would they wouldn't really do much decorating we would just shoot it like it was there. And we would hit four and five locations a day. It was kind of insane. How fast that went. They didn't rehearse the actors loved it because there weren't any putting marks down. It was they'd have four cameras. Actors would walk in like said no rehearsals, and they would maybe do two takes and then pack the trucks up and leave. All handheld they weren't ever putting dollies down. And yeah, that was a fun. Julia Landauer 18:49 That is so cool. Well, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with Scott on If I'm Honest with Julia Landauer. We are back on iF I'm Honest with Julia Landauer with Scott Reeder, so we were just talking about movie sets versus TV sets. Now I kind of want to jump into the specifics with the props. So I have gone through your Instagram a bunch and there were a few props that I was really intrigued by or found very interesting. So one was how you made a prop out of a charcoal grill because you're not going to be using an actual grill I guess on set. Scott Reeder 19:29 Well, if it's interior, there are some times when you're on an interior set, but it's there make it to look like you're outside. You know, sometimes you'll be on a soundstage and yeah, Julia Landauer 19:41 okay, great. So it's only Okay, well, is that yeah, that makes sense. One that I was worth Scott Reeder 19:45 this. There's a burn band. Sometimes there's a burn band, and you'll be outside and you have to fake it to Julia Landauer 19:50 Oh, got it. Okay. Yeah, that's one that I was confused by was you had a post about edible deodorant. And I guess why make it Trouble. Oh, Scott Reeder 20:01 I just saw this TikTok where a guy was eating deodorant and figure out how to do it. And that was just being goofy. Now it was just me being, but you never know. I mean, I literally had to do a show until today with I can't go into the specifics of it. But we have one of our main characters that I had to have edible dirt, which I've done those videos to. And everyone's like, why on earth do you need to make edible dirt? Well, you know, you can get in situations where they're someone's got dirt on their face or thrown in their face. You know, we make edible versions, so they don't you get some funky bacteria from dirt. Yeah. Yeah. Julia Landauer 20:44 Which is which I'm sure on behalf of the actors we thank you. Exactly. Scott Reeder 20:49 And so, you know, it sounds crazy, but we do we are in that situation. And I found out today that we're going to have to make like bucket loads and bucket loads of edible dirt. And you know, there have been movies where people are eating butter. Julia Landauer 21:08 Yep. And it's gonna bring that up next the edible ones, the mayo, the butter Scott Reeder 21:13 and then but I love a challenge. It's like and also then I found out from the special effects guys I said send me pictures. Pardon, my Texas accent pictures, pictures of what the dirt looks like that we're going to be using. And it's kind of mochi so I'm like, Oh, great. So now we got a I've got this good looking fake dirt. But now we got to make it look multi, you know, like with like, little pieces of bark or whatever. My assistant Matt who's in a lot of the videos as well. In YouTube. He was like, let's try shredded beef jerky. And, and once that was mixed in and like the dust from the Fate from the edible dirt, which is made out of Oreos, and Cheerios and, and and check cereal and whatnot. It looks freakin look like mulch. So that was fun. We just We just figured that out today. Yeah, it's fun. I enjoy that part of it. And but typically, when I'm brought mastering for television, I'm not, I'm not able to do all the fabrication because things are moving so fast. I have assistants that do all that, or I or I have to sub out to other people. There are a couple of really good mold makers in town. So like, I had to have like a shell of a rubber shovel like a fireplace shovel, you know, those fireplace sets, you'll have a fireplace shovel molded out of rubber. And I have a guy that if I get if I have two days notice he can mold it and get it to me. Cool. So I've kind of I'm always coordinating and doing logistics on all that stuff, making sure I get things in ahead of time. Yeah, also have to rent from Prop houses in Los Angeles sometimes so as to make sure I give myself time to get things shipped. You get real, real spoiled to, you know, to fit having FedEx. And I did a series in Rhode Island back in 2019, where I had never, I'd never done a show east that Far East. And I was so spoiled to be able to get stuff overnighted from Los Angeles. There's no overnight or there wasn't 2019 is like they would say they would call it overnight but I never beginning next day. Oh, from coming from Los Angeles for whatever reason. It's just it's a long wave. Julia Landauer 23:48 whole new level of project management there, huh? Yeah, so Scott Reeder 23:52 I just had to adapt to whatever be it'll be less of procrastinate. Julia Landauer 23:58 Hey, sometimes you gotta gotta do that. So with food has was there any type of like otherwise kind of gross food that you wanted to make a substitute prop for that was particularly challenging to get it to match either like consistency or color or Scott Reeder 24:16 the most difficult prop foods situation I was in was on a TV pilot called GCB and for ABC, and we had a character that was a binge eater. So the character every scene was eating candy bars, banana splits, chocolate cake. I mean, it was nonstop the whole every time we saw this person and she was gluten free. She couldn't have sugar. She couldn't have milk, lactose intolerant, so I had to basically. I had everything we had a hand to make basically, wow, and figure out how to do chocolate cake. You know, we were my assistant. Now we're like hand dipping candy bars or something that would look like a candy bar hand dipping it in unsweetened chocolate, you know? rewrapping. And it was just, that was the nightmare just because it was so much in so many different things. Right? So yeah, dealing with, with actors, dietary limitations can be quite a thing. But I'm very fortunate to be on a show right now where everyone's just like, Yeah, I'll eat whatever. Julia Landauer 25:37 Perfect. We love a low maintenance cast, right? Yeah, yep. Yep. You know, in some of your videos, you show things like, you know, having a tea kettle and that it has to be rubber. But then it starts to sound like real tea pot. And so you do the overlay overlay with sound. But in general, what are the guidelines for when you use the actual object versus when you need a prop? Scott Reeder 26:02 Oh, well, we will, I'll just talk to the director. And we'll find out you know, and we're in the stunt court in the stunt coordinator. And we'll, we'll we'll swap it out, I'll just have an identical prop for when it's going to be if it's going to hit someone or, you know, if the real item could be a danger to anyone else, swap it out with a fake. Okay, we do that a lot. It's always something different, though. You never know for Julia Landauer 26:29 sure. And I'm sure it's really set dependent. So when you do when you are creating props, are there a lot of types of props where there's kind of an industry standard way of making them? Or do you find yourself still experimenting a lot like obviously with the food kind of situation? Like you have to make edible dirt that's experimenting. But would you say like, typically at this point, there's like set ways to do things or you playing mad scientist with your property. Scott Reeder 26:55 We do some some mad scientist stuff. And I'm very fortunate to have an assistant Matt, who loves being a mad scientist, he'll he'll say, no, no, there's a different ways a better way. And we'll in because of Matt, we do a lot more in house than we used to like such as he's mastered the Cricut vinyl cutter. So if we need to make a silkscreen to make our own custom grocery bags, you know, with the logo, whatever our you know, we have to do fake logos on everything. And we'll do some of it in house. And, and that's fun. I love that if there's time, but I unfortunately, you know, don't don't have a whole lot of time for printmaking. So Julia Landauer 27:38 at the prop master level, do you find that like, now majority of it is kind of more the organizational stuff. And like, for Scott Reeder 27:46 television, for sure, it's a little more administrative. And on that's what's fun about doing features, I want to still like to do features when I can, because on a feature film, you do all the prep ahead of time, and then I can be on set and really interact with the actors. More so than I do on like, on a television series. It's all different. That's the big difference between film and television. When props is i i can be on set and really get my get my hands on it, and it's fine. Yeah. Julia Landauer 28:22 What was the last feature films that you were on? Scott Reeder 28:24 It was breaking news in Yuba County and we filmed at Natchez, Mississippi, and it had Matthew Modine, Mila Kunis awkwafina. Charlie to go Who else? It was one of those ensemble casts? Yeah, Wanda Sykes. Ellen Barkin. It was directed by the guy wrote directed by the guy that did the help. Okay. And Julia Landauer 28:50 you haven't heard of the movie, but now I need to go check it out. That's the breaking news Scott Reeder 28:53 and you because you know, I just haven't seen it. Julia Landauer 28:57 Oh, okay. So that's a whole nother question. How many like do you what's your Do you watch your films after you or TV shows after you work on them? No. Scott Reeder 29:08 I even think about I've read the script so many times. I mean, I will go back and kind of check the quality of my work I do go watch you know, you know, a selection of them. But not, but I don't religiously. watch every episode. I figured it up one time. I've worked as a as a prop buyer and a prop master. I've worked on over 600 episodes of television. Oh, wow. Wow. Well, 196 of those were the original Walker. And then the television show that I did before that and then I did what 76 episodes are Friday Night Lights. leftovers for HBO panic. You know, all those shows they add up? Julia Landauer 29:53 Hmm. Are you primarily I feel like you've referenced being in Texas a lot. Do you typically go to a different location for this filming or what Scott Reeder 30:02 I when I have to, I mean, my family's here my wife and my two kids. Yeah. So I'd love to, you know, work at home be I'll be here and when I can, but I'll travel when I have to and I do on occasion. Julia Landauer 30:15 It sounds like a lot of it is done in Texas, right? A lot of Scott Reeder 30:19 stuff in Texas about did like the parenthood pilot, I did that in San Francisco, done a couple movies in Pittsburgh. And I'll you know, I said I'll travel when I when I have to. During the pandemic, I started doing just dad jokes, just straight up dad jokes. And that was it. That was fun. And I built a decent following. Yeah, just doing the dad jokes. And when I got back on once the film industry started going again. One of my assistance was like, you know, Scott, why don't you do something properly to what we do is kind of interesting. And I guess you get to where you do one job, so long as you don't think anyone else would think it's that interesting, right? That's when I started incorporating well, I'll be I broke a bottle over my head and describe what it's made out of. And, and, and then that, and I didn't put a dad joke on the end of that one. But that one did pretty good. And the adding a joke thing that came about when I did the silent grocery bag video, right? And that I just made it up as like, as I was filming it. And I almost didn't almost cut it out and put it in there. Because it was a little you know, whatever it was that some innuendo there. And as Julia Landauer 31:47 someone with a deeply immature sense of humor, I appreciate it. Scott Reeder 31:51 So in but I went ahead and put it in there and said What the heck. And I was like 9:20 at night, I remember this very well. And it was like 9:20pm I just let the office because that's kind of what I would do is once I was done for the day, I would go up to the prop lock up and shoot a video. And I shot did the silent bull balls and silent grocery bags and posted it it like 9:20 went home. By the time I pulled in my driveway, which is about a 20-25 minute drive. I had like 100,000 views it was insane. And that that video ended up getting 12 or 13 million views or something like that. I was I couldn't believe it. And then it just shot up and then then I was like, Okay, well, that's my formula. I got to you know, how am I going to do this? How am I people are going to expect a job? Yeah. And but it was fun, because I would go back and look at it some of those. And I was like well, wow, that was kind of funny. That was clever, because I've Julia Landauer 33:04 forgotten. Good whether on your TikTok, Scott Reeder 33:07 not all of not all of them are great. Some of them are bad. Well, a lot of them are bad. But there's also some of them that look back and think, Well, you know, I may have been the only one that got that joke. But I still think it's funny, some some some of them are kind of obscure, but I enjoy doing it. But that's kind of what sets me apart from your standard just making do channel or this is how it's made. Kind of thing is I you know, sprinkle that in, and it's fun. It's very funny. Some people some people don't really care about the film business at all. They just want to see how I'm going to fit a joke and Well, Julia Landauer 33:47 it's true because it's like it seems like it could be like a challenge because you're dealing with very specific content that you're talking about. And it's like how are you going to put this spin on it? I think it's super clever. I haven't come across one where I was like, Oh, this is a dud. So I think Scott Reeder 34:02 there are there are some some duds in there but Julia Landauer 34:06 our own harshest critic. Yeah, yeah. All right guys. We're gonna take one more quick break and I'll be right back with Scott All right, we are back on If I'm Honest with Julia Landauer with our guest Scott Reeder. So we were just talking about very fun dad jokes and punniness and all that I do want to take a kind of shift to slightly more serious topic. In 2021 Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot on the set of Rust and that's obviously still going on. I'm wondering if you can share from your perspective, like whatever you're comfortable with kind of what, what might have gone wrong or what were just your thoughts on the incident as someone who spent so much time on sets Scott Reeder 35:00 I believe that it's strictly because they didn't follow the protocols. Okay? Well, number one, you should never have live round should never be anywhere. That's what I'm hearing near a film set. So that's the whole thing. It's like it's a weird anomaly. That's, you know, what I try to explain to people is film sets are dangerous places. And it's not just with weapons, it's with equipment, cars, planes, motorcycles, a lot of times they're not related. A lot of times it's camera people that get killed, like Sarah Jones, got hit by the train. It's just we get put in dangerous situations. Of the 43 deaths since 1992. had been firearms related. That's Brandon Lee on the crow and Halyna Hutchins. So yeah, I'm not saying that's a good thing I'm saying but that's two out of 43 The rest were equipment related work vehicles were helicopters, airplanes, or a piece of equipment falling and hitting someone and killing them boat there were several boat ones. Every once in a while they like said they're like the Crow was a really freakish thing. Again, that led to us in the mid early 90s. really upping our game as far as adding protocols to where Okay, not everyone was checking the barrel something got lodged up in the barrel. So now we run a rod through the barrel we shine a flashlight, we you know, we have 10 different ways to clear weapon Julia Landauer 36:39 one, it wasn't a bullet it was something else got lodged Scott Reeder 36:42 on the on the Crow Well, it was a it was a bullet head that got jammed in, where a dummy had come apart and it got jammed up in the barrel. So when they put a blank in it, it was just like having a real bullet. Yeah, but with with rust that was pure negligence of real rounds got brought in. I mean, there were two to live rounds in Alec Baldwin's gun belt like the bandolier that he would wear with his holster to live rounds were found there too or found on a her cart. Or in her fanny pack. I don't know there were like six rounds total that they found, I believe five or six I can't remember exactly. But it was every protocol was broken. The Assistant Director they're kind of okay, the end all be all the armor. Yeah, I'm, I'm not blaming Alec Baldwin at all. Because typically, you don't want the actor to start messing with the gun. Once you have cleared it as safe. You don't want them pulling the rounds out, you show them that, that those are dummy rounds. So when you shoot when you fire, a cartridge, the firing pin the firing pin made that little mark and that shows that this has been shot, it's done. They someone took it and put a bullet head in it, you know as far as there was no powder and they put a BB and then most revolvers nowadays, you can dry fire and we'll just shoot well like we'll go and I don't know a lot of people do it differently. Like if you're outside you don't ever want to point a gun up in the air but if you know if I am 100% sure that these are dummy that I am dummy bullets, you'll for the assistant director, you'll go around the chamber you'll just start pulling the trigger and it'll go around the cylinder if it's a revolver like it was with Alec Baldwin and and it'll fire hit that firing pin will hit the back of your dummy bullets and prove you prove 100% to the actor and the assistant director. Look, I've already checked these these are good. These aren't going to hurt anybody. Well, they didn't do any of that. You know it's like they just Julia Landauer 39:13 decided to do you think that they I mean obviously we're speculating here but like do you think a decision was made like no, let's use real bullets? Or do you think Scott Reeder 39:21 oh no, no, no, the armor. She just mixed in some live...she... She apparently would go target shooting on the weekends and stuff and mixed in some live ammo with her dummy rounds. And I saw that you can find it online. Some of the evidence photos from her case where they showed the box of dummy rounds. And you can tell which ones are the Yeah, the real ones that they had silver also Julia Landauer 39:56 feel different like when you wouldn't they weigh a different amount out and they Scott Reeder 40:01 went in, they wouldn't make the noise. They wouldn't Yeah, they but they didn't check them. So they didn't follow any of the protocols. Plus, they shouldn't have had live rounds on the set. And that led to what happened happened? Yeah. Personally, the way I have been taught for years, and it's always worked is for the armor to be the end all be all. You trust that their job is to keep people safe. You know, what I did heard one reporter make a good analogy or way of describing it was if you pan the Keystone actor, and they've got to drive two blocks down the road, in a scene, right? So they get in the car, and the brakes don't work. And they hit a crew member and kill them. Are they going to get you're gonna try them for manslaughter when we're given defective? piece of equipment? Yeah, yeah. It's like, it's, that's the whole thing is it? The actor isn't paid to be a weapons expert. Right, right. And they're there. There's footage of Alec Baldwin, there's two different ways to look at it. If you see some of it. There's one where he's rushing things where he can tell he's getting frustrated. And there are other scenes where he like tells Halina Hey, get out of the way. You know, I don't want to point the gun that yet. But what they don't people don't understand this shot, they were lining up was him pointing the gun at the camera. Right. So he was doing what he was told, he was told, yeah, pointed this way. That from what I understand. And that happens a lot where you need to, you know, the camera needs to look right down the barrel. Right. And, you know, there's no other way to do it, but pointing it directly at the camera. And she happened to be, you know, looking through the viewfinder with the director standing right behind her. And, you know, so yeah, it's a horrible thing. Yeah. But Julia Landauer 42:06 we can hope that it it encouraged a little more thoroughness and compulsion on sets for any people who might not. But I mean, obviously, the industry has done so many films with dangerous scenes that with no problem, obviously. Well, Scott Reeder 42:22 I mean, I personally think it begins with the hiring process. I mean, they should have hired an experienced arm or someone that I mean, for the lip for the amount of gunfire that they were doing, or the blink gunfire, genius and an experienced person, she had only done one other show. And she wasn't a member of the Union, you kind of know, I'm not what I'm saying is, being a union member does at least help vet that person, you know that they've got a certain number of films under their belt. Right? And, you know, yeah, the prop master on that show had only worked one hit only Prop Mastered once, you know, it's like, they didn't have the script on their prop and weapons department. And, you know, you know, you get what you pay for. Yeah, Julia Landauer 43:12 no, totally. And so to get to the point of being like, a really experienced armor, is it the kind of thing where you are like an assistant armor on a lot of things like how do you that's how you get that? Distinguished? Okay. Scott Reeder 43:25 Yep. Yep. You work underneath someone and you see what the protocols are. You learn under that person. And then you understand the etiquette of how to deal with an actor, and you want to make an actor feel comfortable. And not nervous. Most armors were an assistant armor for several years, right? They've done you know, did 10 shows before they took took on the role of head head armor now. So it's, it's important that whoever you hire has has several films as is an armor under their belt as elite armor. Yeah. And it also depends on how many how many weapons are being used in the project you're working on? Is it gonna be a big gun battle? You know, I did a show called The Long Road Home for National Geographic that I brought mastered. But I hired all the the armors I hired the lead armor, and then we sought out, you know, experience. We wanted to have experienced assistant armors as well, because it was going to be an intense amount of loading. We were shooting at Fort Hood. And we had built 14 city blocks of light supposed to be the slums of Iraq. And I did fill in with some airsoft for the far background, but we went through 350,000 rounds of ammunition of blank ammunition. And I was you know, I was a nervous wreck that hold I'm because I had just about the whole it was eight episodes of an ambush that happened to do 1004. So every day it was just gunfire. Gunfire, gunfire, gunfire. Luckily, a lot of our background extras were were military. Oh, well, that helps. Yeah, Julia Landauer 45:22 yeah. No, it also relates back to racing in the sense that like you do, you do things in and out every day. And you're used to being around like heavy machines and stuff. And you can kind of take for granted that it's still dangerous industry. To your point a set has a lot of dangerous elements and really, taking those seriously and not getting comfortable I think is just critical. Scott Reeder 45:44 Yeah. Now that's one thing I missed from the old Walker. The. The first one I worked on the one with Chuck Chuck Norris was we had a whole what we call a second unit. So you'll have your main unit that shoots your main actors. And then we'd have a stunt unit basically, it was called second unit. That was the car crashes the you know, the the big time the big fight scenes and all that. And but yeah, we did a lot of car crashes in blew up a lot of houses. Oh, yeah. Oh, we did. DFW airport was getting rid of, they bought some property to put a new runway in, right. So they're all these like, like 12 homes that they were going to demo? And they reached out to, to our production to the walker production company, and said, Do you want to destroy these homes for us? And so the writers wrote a Mad Bomber episode. Okay, and we the special effects guys went in and and rigged all these houses to blow up. So you had Chuck Norris running down. You had all the stunt performers in yards, like pretending to mow the grass and whatnot. And they were all hired stunt people, people in their cars pulling in pulling out and then chuck finds out that there's that all the houses are gonna blow up. And he's running down the neighborhood screaming get out of your house gonna get in as he's screaming. Like the houses just start blowing up behind him. It's a great, it's a great shot. But that was the kind of stuff we did. Yeah, you could just Google or get on YouTube. Google Walker Mad Bomber, you'll find it Julia Landauer 47:36 I will. Well, it's funny. You mentioned all those 10 people because my last guest on if I'm honest, was a stunt performer for driving someone I race go karts with initially Brett SMRZ, who he said that one of his first crashing scenes was having to crash this big like Chevy Avalanche into a truck or something and just you know, all the prep work that goes in the stunt bag that he had ready to go. And he's worked on films like Ferrari and Ford versus Ferrari. And just, it's really cool to have this as the next episode. Another very niche industry that just, you know, we as the average consumer sees only the final product, but hearing all of the fun stuff that goes into it is so cool. I Scott Reeder 48:15 love watching the precision driving. It's amazing. It's just it's a work of art. Oh, Julia Landauer 48:19 yeah. Oh, the pursuit. I mean, I can't imagine that are like some of the like, Chase scenes through streets or like being near the edge of cliffs like that. That is terrifying to me. So I applaud all the stunt people who do that. Scott Reeder 48:33 I was on set the other day, and I saw this there's this older stunt man, he'll get mad at me saying that we won't tell. But he was. His name's Russell Towery. And the way he got started was he was really good on the motorcycle. And he he was working on Robocop I think as an electrician, but they ended up hiring him to be Peter Weller stunt double. And he was the only like he was skinny enough to fit into the costume. And Peter Weller couldn't drive a motorcycle. So Russell had to do it in the the Robocop outfit and you know, and drive a car and you all that he was an incredible he is an incredible precision driver as well. But sometimes you'll have to do it in hide. I've seen I've seen them have to what was that? There was some show where a car was supposed to be driving by itself. And they're like built a new seat to where the person where the stunt driver is inside the seat. And there's like a little mesh at the headrest to where they can see what's going on. Julia Landauer 49:48 It's a wild yeah, Scott Reeder 49:51 there's there's so much fun stuff. I did I did a show called machete for Robert Rodriguez. There's a film company in town called Trouble Maker Studios, and they do all the Spy Kids Movies. And Rob Robert Rodriguez is he he shoots a lot of his shows here. He did Sin City and whatnot. And I did one called machete. And we had a big like a lot of motorcycle stunts where we had to mount I had to mount this machine gun to a motorcycle, and then you don't think what goes into that. But you got to have it balanced out. Right? You got to make sure that they can still maneuver. Yeah, you throw off the balance with Yeah, Julia Landauer 50:34 yeah. Well, we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back with Scott on If I'm Honest with Julia Landauer Well, I have one more specific prop related question, which you'd kind of mentioned earlier way back in the beginning, but silicone versus breakaway glass and I had? Or is that like silicone glass versus breakaway glass is what would be can you explain the difference? And why you would use one over the other for certain situation? Yeah, Scott Reeder 51:13 first. So breakaway is rigid. It actually even sounds like class when it breaks up, I should have, I should have brought one well, direct Julia Landauer 51:20 people to I'll put a link in the description, specifically showing one. So Scott Reeder 51:26 it's just a brittle resin. And so that's good for when you need to see it breaking the same with a pane of glass in a door or in a window. We'll use breakaway resin, and it won't cut you. It's real. It looks it looks and sounds like glass breaking. But it's so brittle, it won't, it would never like stab you or anything it would break before it would stab you. Silicone glass, rubber glass we call it it's use, you use that as already broken. You see what I'm saying? So. So like if we're doing a car crash scene you would use a lot of times if it's tempered safety glass, they'll just break that they want to use break away for that, but then we're doing an aftermath where someone's laying on glass or has to walk or crawl on broken glass. We'll use rubber glass for that. So because I guess you know, breakaway glass could still it could still scratch I guess but it's not comfortable. Yeah, not comfortable at all. You would break it up into little squares to where it looked like safety glass and then just sprinkle that all around. It'll keep the actor safe. There are no like, in the movie diehard people were saying when I said they use rubber glass for that, which they did. People said Well, no, he wore rubber feet. Well, he did for some of it. He will rubber feet when it was breakaway glass dropping all around them. And they didn't. They weren't able to get dressed rubber glass in it. You know, but for the close ups. I can tell when you're looking at it that they definitely had some rubber glass for him. So, you know, for when they they were too close to, for him to where the rubber feet. But in, in Home Alone you can see Daniel Stern wearing the rubber feet as well. Julia Landauer 53:22 Oh, I'm gonna keep an eye on. Yeah, Scott Reeder 53:25 for the wide shots. You see it like when he's walking around outside and stuff. And but inside he's barefoot when he said he steps on breakaway Christmas ornaments there. Julia Landauer 53:37 Okay, so I actually have one more question because I'm sure that when you when you watch movies or TV shows, do you find yourself thinking about like, how the prom was done or what it was? Or do you let yourself just enjoy watching the entertainment. Scott Reeder 53:50 I've gotten to where I can enjoy it. I can turn it off. I've got no problem with that. And I'm kind of surprised at how unobservant I am because my my daughter will be like, Did you see what they did there? And like what? Oh, yeah, there. Yeah. So she catches the continuity mistakes more than I do. Oh, Julia Landauer 54:10 good. You get to take a break. I find that like I'm from New York City. And so I find when I always immediately see the inconsistencies with when movies or shows or filming like they say they're downtown and they show a shot of Central Park and it's like this is not downtown. This is Oh Scott Reeder 54:25 yeah. Now that I can vary and I get Julia Landauer 54:27 very nitpicky about Scott Reeder 54:29 location stuff. I was. I was watching some show with Gene Hackman. And there was a I grew up in the kind of the Houston area kind of near Galveston and Port Arthur. And it's just flat. I mean, it's flat everywhere on that side of Texas. And there was this scene that said North of Galveston, Texas, and it was like the mountains. It was like way that's like way north of Galveston, Canada. Julia Landauer 55:00 Montana something Yeah. Oh, that's funny. But Scott Reeder 55:02 yeah, so anytime I see mountains where I know it's playing so that cracks me up. Yeah, Julia Landauer 55:07 I'm like, how do they not catch this? But I'm not the expert. Yeah, Scott Reeder 55:11 I like I like watching the movie mistakes. Those are fun. Yeah, those are fun for sure. You know, I hope no one but I make mistakes too. So I never, I never do it. I don't pick poke mean fun at people about it. I just think they're fun to catch. Julia Landauer 55:27 It was cool to see it. I feel like as a viewer, it kind of makes you feel like, ah, like, I outsmarted you a little bit, or like I've picked up on this. I don't know, at least for me. Scott Reeder 55:36 Now there's one thing that I don't know what to do about. It's the whole empty coffee cup thing, because there are so many videos about people complaining that coffee cups, and TV shows look empty. And, you know, my my team, they all are real diligent about you know, if putting liquid, but you don't want to have, like, if it's a you know, to go coffee cup, you don't want to fill it to the rim, especially with coffee, you could with water, but or else it's going to you know, it'll stain the, you know, the outfit, so you need to go three quarters full. And then a lot of times now that they're not people aren't shooting on film anymore. It's all digital they can do. They'll sit there and do 10 takes without, you know, yelling. And so you can't get in there if they've finished drinking the cup. But a lot of a lot of people will complain about coffee cups. I don't think it happens as much on on our show. Because I really, you know, yeah. fuss at the folks about it, you know, make sure so Julia Landauer 56:44 is it that it changes the liquid level or that because if it doesn't have liquid you hold it differently than you would if it Yeah, Scott Reeder 56:50 yeah, yeah, hold it differently. For sure. Yeah, it's just, it just looks empty. And a lot of times it's like the actor knows, subconsciously. This isn't scalding hot. It's not gonna burn me. So they'll hold it a little more gingerly. But you can't have scalding skull scalding hot water in the cup. Or else it could hurt the act. Yeah, yeah. So that's one of those things it's hard to hard to fight is making that look and you can't expect the actor to they need to worry about their performance. Not they're holding the coffee cup properly. Yeah. But I've experimented I put silicone and coffee cups and stuff and use those for background background actors before but it doesn't really work. Julia Landauer 57:41 For me, you're gonna keep playing mad scientist. Oh, yeah. Scott Reeder 57:45 We'll figure it out. To keep us posted one day, I will figure out the empty coffee cup problem in luggage. People complain about luggage. Julia Landauer 57:52 Yeah, I get that. I get that. Well, Scott, we are going to round out the episode with an if you're honest, rapid fire. All right, question. So what is the coolest place that you've been on set to film? Oh, Scott Reeder 58:06 no, the redwood forest and and you know, outside of San Francisco. That was pretty cool. The most impressive built location was the 14 city blocks of Iraq. Out in the middle of a field. That was impressive watching the whole town be built in a matter of three weeks. Alright, next repetition. Julia Landauer 58:31 What is your go to lazy homemade dinner? Oh, Scott Reeder 58:34 crescent rolls with the little link sausage. You know where you wrap? You wrap them in the crescent rolls? That's my favorite. Julia Landauer 58:44 I love that. Is there a director that you'd love to work with? Scott Reeder 58:50 I'd like to work with Scorsese. I think Julia Landauer 58:54 that'd be awesome. Yeah, I Scott Reeder 58:56 like to work with Scorsese. I have a lot of respect for him. I have a lot of respect for it. Yeah, yeah. Julia Landauer 59:00 No, I agree. Last question. What is something that you're grateful for right now? Scott Reeder 59:05 Oh, my family. That's first thing. Yeah, for sure. I'm grateful that I'm able to have a career where I can still go home see my family and and share things with them and watch them grow and become funny and creative. And that's the coolest thing ever. Julia Landauer 59:24 That's great. So Scott, where can everyone find you on TikTok on Instagram so that they can go watch your incredibly cool very interesting video and I'll link it all in the description Scott Reeder 59:36 Scott prop and roll and you got a YouTube I've got some water yeah, I'm it 954,000 subscribers I'm getting real close to a million so helped me get to a million. Julia Landauer 59:49 I was not aware of your youtube so i will go subscribe. Oh, and we will promote Scott Reeder 59:54 it's all Scott prop and roll if you Yeah, yeah. In on Facebook. as well, but make sure that it's me because there's on Facebook there are several fake accounts. Julia Landauer 1:00:05 Bastards. Scott Reeder 1:00:08 Oh, there's, there's like four of them. There's one that's this one person that has like 70,000 followers that people that think they're following me it's in there using the same page named Scott prop and roll, but I've had mine I had mine a lot longer than they did anyway. This one was properly yeah governor the one that's 206,000 followers. Yeah, that's that's the one to follow on Facebook. But, but I suggest you to that's there's most of my stuff there. Perfect. Tick tock Instagram, Scott. profiterole. Amazing. Julia Landauer 1:00:48 Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule on set to to chat with me. This was so much fun, everyone. Thank you for tuning in. And for listening. Go follow Scott. Go watch all the content is so so cool. As always, thank you for letting us be honest with you and I look forward to seeing you next week.