Planning Your Prop Build

I stepped in to my first build to just be there to help having no idea what I was in for. The team leading the build had been together for a couple of years and I expected to just help put this prop together and move on. Here it is 8 years later and I still help out. But for a couple of years I did lead in the build. For a tinkerer this endeavor is challenging, rewarding and exhausting! You never know what crazy ideas these directors have floating in their heads!!! No, seriously wild imaginations! That first year was a trial by fire. It was the VEGAS year and the director wanted a 48 foot wide by 12 feet tall prop that would light up and say VEGAS! The prop build was not going well. The panels holding the lighting were so heavy we could not lift them. So we had to start again and redesign the main parts which took a lot of time. But we pulled it together and made it happen and it was GREAT! One for the books! People around here still talk about it! But more planning and research was needed. If someone had taken a few minutes and researched things like the weight of the hardboard and totaled it up they would have quickly realized it would not work before spending money buying a whole bunch of it. This is when building props is not fun! Avoiding errors like these is what I hope I can get across in this post.

I will step you through my thought process in planning a build. But before I do, I want to let you in on a secret. YOU CAN DO THIS! No matter what crazy design or thing your director wants, you can do it! But you need time. So start early. If you finish early that is great! Better to finish early than late.

Planning

The first thing to consider is how many parts are there to the build? You are only one person so pick the part you are going to construct and pass the rest on to other people. If you trying to plan, design and build many pieces you are better that I am. I can only do one thing at a time. And I always take the centerpiece. But this one thing will be built as best as I can make it! If each person that is part of the build process takes this same approach, you will make a memorable show for your kids!

Read the pages of all of the builds I have completed and posted here. The whole idea of posting these builds is to give you ideas on materials and techniques you may have not considered.

It is important to know what materials you will use while designing. Read the Prop Building Materials page before you start the design. Knowing what materials you will use while designing will speed up the process.

The key to avoiding struggles is planning. And I mean planning to the last detail. And to do that you need time. So the earlier you start planning the better the build will be. Your goal in the planning stage is for you to see the finished prop, on the field, IN YOUR HEAD. If you can see the finished prop in your head on the field with the band, you have completed the planning stage. So how do you do this? You have to get in the head of the director. They see it! Well sort of. LOL!!! Sometimes their thoughts are abstract, You need to grab this “sort of” image from their head and turn it into fully formed reality...in your head. This takes time. I usually walk around for a month bumping into things while I design in my head. The process goes like this. I work with the director passing back and forth email of pictures we have found on the internet until we find one that is sort of what he wants. At this point you have to decide what material you are going to use. (See the Prop Building Materials Page) Then I start working on it my head and pencil sketches of ideas of how to build the major parts. I am always asking myself “Can I make this simpler?” Remember the audience can not see detail of the prop from the stands so strip out detail and get the design down to it’s simplest form. Once you have that you have to figure out how to transport it. Will it fit in the vehicle used to transport it? Can you build it in pieces and assemble it at the venues? If not start over. This kind of thinking is just an afternoon out of the month for me. I may have something in my head that turns out to not work at all so I have to start over taking parts that may work and incorporating it into the next. The pagoda was built and rebuilt at least a dozen times in my head before I hit on a design that met all of the requirements. Oh!!! Requirements!!! You need to know this! OK... Once you have a design in your head...1. Put it in the truck. 2. Take it out of the truck and assemble it. 3. Roll it across the parking lot 5 miles uphill to the stadium. You veterans know what I mean!  4. Put it on the field in less than 2 minutes. 5. What does it do in the wind?. 6.  How do the kids interact with it? 7. Are there any edges that can trip a performer or snag a guard flag? 8. Get it off the field FAST without running over anyone! Yes there are a lot of things to consider. Yes plan on being frustrated. Yes you will eventually work it out. And yes this all takes time!

We start at the beginning of April working together to get the look the director wants on the field. I make a concept drawings and bounce ideas with the director to finalize the concept by the end of April and start drawing the plans on May 1st. This gives me a month to draw the plans and get the final approvals of the plan and budget and then make the material list. The last weekend of May I drag the director to Home Depot and buy the materials. We start building the first weekend in June and work every weekend until finished with the goal of rolling the finished props out on the last day of Band Camp in the middle of August for the very excited kids to perform on in front of the parents. I know you are saying “my build will not take that long”. Well maybe not but come back to this page in a year. I’ll bet it took you at least twice as long as you thought! LOL!!! Happens to me every year!

It is the same deal with Winterguard. Concept by Nov 15, Plans complete by Dec 15. Props complete by the first weekend in Jan. Winterguard props are usually much simpler! But not always!!! Plan accordingly!

As you can tell I generally work alone in the planning stage. I am comfortable with the design and materials needed to do the job. If you are not, then create a group to figure out the mechanical and structural details the prop. If you do this make sure that you choose people that really know fabrication and have the know how to get it done. Since you are the lead you know what you want, but maybe need an expert on how to do some particular thing. Solicit the band parents for subject experts and meet with them face to face. If they have a kid in the band you have a pretty good chance that they will say yes! Trades people are a good resource. Plumbers for PVC, welders and Heating and A/C people for metal fabrication and carpenters and home builders for wood and structural design help. Present them your vision and the materials you would like to use and let them help you make it happen. But make sure you can see the prop clearly in your head so you can describe it in detail to them. They will follow your lead.

Putting the Plan on Paper

Hand drawn sketches on graph paper are very acceptable but I have found that drawing in a 3d modeling program is a lot better!

My current favorite drawing tool is Sketchup. It is a FREE 3D drawing program and it works great! There are loads of tutorials on YouTube on how to use it. Just Google “Sketchup basic tutorial” in Youtube. There is a bit of a learning curve but if you practice you will get the hang of it. Get it here and practice, practice practice! There are vast numbers of ready made free components in the 3D Warehouse like wheels, people and  odds and ends. There are entire pre-made high school football stadiums so after you finish drawing your prop you can put it on the field and look at it from every angle! How cool is that! If you are just starting out you can use the stadium and draw in a basic outline of your prop on the field to get a sense of scale of the prop on the field.

As a tip using Sketchup I found it to be extremely useful to build your props by breaking the project into components. If you need to make a change it is much easier to change out a component than redrawing the whole thing. What I mean is if your prop consists of several pieces that fit together, draw each component individually and assemble the pieces in one finished drawing. That way if the director requests a change to a part of the prop you can change just that part and then replace it in the assembly drawing. This will also allow you to print out the components individually with the associated dimensions.Just Google “Making Sketchup Components” and watch the videos. The real advantage in modeling is actually seeing how the parts fit together. Or just as important, how they don’t fit. Working out fitment of components before building saves an enormous amount of time!

Field props need to be BIG!!! A football field is 360 feet wide and 160 feet deep! Add the width of the track and measure all the way back to the stadium seats and if your prop is at the far side line of the field the audience will be looking at it from over 200 feet away!  Keep this in mind in your design. I have seen bands put 6 foot tall props on the field and you literally could not tell what it was. Look at the video at the end of the 'Lighted Panel" page. The center section of this prop is 12 feet tall and 48 feet wide. Look how small it looks on the field. If working with a small budget, a large hand painted panel ( from a reclaimed billboard) of a city scene on a simple rolling frame would look much better on the field than a small 3 dimensional city scene made from plywood.

Other Considerations

Pro Tip: Large panels are susceptible to wind. Do NOT bother cutting slits, slots or holes in the panel. IT WILL NOT HELP! It will just make a mess of the look of the panel. If the wind is high don't put the prop on the field! Safety first. You can mitigate the effect of light breezes by making a wide and heavyish base and using parents to sit on the prop. If there is wind all of the bands will be affected equally and the judges will not hold it against you if you feel it is unsafe to use the props. Believe it or not , not using the props barely affects the scores so always err on the side of safety. Your band is scored on their marching and playing. Props have little effect. Which was kind of a disappointment to me when I found this out! LOL!

Marching props can have height restrictions depending on your circuit rules. Also review all of the venues with the director to make sure the design can actually get into the stadium. As an example the Georgia Dome access tunnels are 13 feet wide and 13.5 feet high. If you are a Band of America band you are limited in height to 12 feet and no child can be over 6 feet off the ground while on the prop. They can be unlimited length. Some circuits do not allow knobby (off road style) tires on the props. And no school will allow you to anchor a prop to the field with spikes you drive into the ground.

Winter props may need to be able to fit through a single 36" door opening. At some schools where we compete the props have to come through an emergency exit which is a single door. Some of these doors have a bar handle (you know the type that has a bar that goes across the door that you push to open the door) and some of these doors only open 90 degrees that really shrinks the opening. So to be safe I design the prop and/or the prop pieces to be no wider than 32 inches.  My guard performs at the Winter guard World Championships in Dayton, OH so all of the props need to fit into 1 or 2 baggage compartments of a charter bus where the dimensions generally are 38" tall X 48"wide and 7' deep. Understand your size limitations before you begin the design process!

Designing props is always a risk but if you are having fun it does not matter. Me...I like the challenge and you have to be willing to take a risk. Do your best and let the chips fall! Learn from your mistakes and do it again next year. I promise you will get better!

As the lead in designing and building you are a RARE bird!!! And you need to keep yourself happy! In saying this you need to remember this one important thing. Do NOT stress yourself out in this process!!! How do you do that? Get the help of others... Do not try to build this by yourself! Determine what skills you need and poll the parents. Solicit a core group of 3 or 4 people that you can count on to be there during the build process. Other parents will come and go based on the time they have available but there will be a few that love the build process and will be there no matter what. Find them!  And let them build it!!! Of course you help but let them do the heavy lifting. You are the coach and they are your team. You will be really needed at critical points in the build but let them get it done and trust they will be OK. It is way to easy to get overwhelmed. If you do that you will quit and a special person will be lost to the director. Do not let this happen!

Finally!

As designers we tend to be perfectionists. You will need to somewhat let go of this notion. Your prop will probably be hand built by a bunch of amateurs. I do not mean this as a derogatory term. I include myself as an amateur. I can not build a perfect prop!!! So always keep in mind the prop needs to look good FROM 100 FEET AWAY! So always shoot for perfection but only fix imperfections if it is glaring from 100 feet. You would be amazed how imperfect my props were. Now that I have told you this go take a GOOD LOOK at the pictures of the props I have helped build and laugh because you will start to see the imperfections!!! But I bet you didn't see them until I told you to look! Neither does the audience!!!

Let the director pick the color scheme for the props. Once the structure is complete bring them out and have them buy the paint or give you the exact colors to paint the prop. Do not assume you know!!! The art department at your school would be a great resource for the finishing of any prop. A great paint job by someone that really knows how to use color and texture can transform a mediocre prop into something special. Find these people and use them!

One last thing. After you and the band director agree on the design and budget and the basic materials are purchased do not engage them in the process anymore until the build of the structure is complete unless something happens that changes the functionality of the prop that will cause a re-write of the drill. The director during this time is COMPLETELY stressed out designing the show's music, drill and work. So just leave them alone. Bring them out once the prop is finished so if there are any minor adjustments needed they can be made before painting. You will be their hero if you do this! And good planning will make this possible.