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All posts by Dan Jolin
GOING EXTINCT: The Effects of Jurassic Park l Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction – Los Angeles 2020
When Phil Tippett first saw the computer-animated T-rex stomping towards him in an Amblin screening room in 1991, he knew he was finished. Conjured on the sly by the team at ILM in their San Rafael facility, the fearsome creature moved with a lifelike smoothness that Tippett could only dream of achieving using the stop-motion animation techniques he’d honed over decades.
He turned to director Steven Spielberg, who’d hired him to create and animate the dinosaur miniatures for Jurassic Park, and said, “I think I’ve just become extinct.”
Fortune & Glory: The Staff of Ra Headpiece l Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction – Los Angeles 2020
The headpiece of the Staff of Ra is central to what is, without doubt, one of the most powerful and majestic scenes in modern cinema: the Map Room scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. As John Williams’ magnificent score swells and soars to roof-lifting, operatic heights, a sunbeam catches the headpiece’s central, amber bird’s eye and transforms into an ancient laser-beam, directing Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to the resting place of the titular relic.
The Vertigo Effect l Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction – Los Angeles 2020
This year, in Prop Store’s first Los Angeles-based Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction, we have a distinguished piece of movie-making history going up on the auction block, in the form of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vista Vision Motion Picture Camera. This camera, used not only on the production of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, but also by filmmaking legend Cecil B DeMille when filming The Ten Commandments, was a marvel of technology in its day, and helped the Master of Suspense produce an enduring Noir classic.
Evolving the Lightsaber l Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction – Los Angeles 2020
It’s hard to think of a movie weapon more iconic or impressive than the lightsaber. With its unearthly glow and that mesmerizing hum, it represented the perfect blend of Star Wars’ romantic fantasy and sci-fi elements: a sword, which could have been a samurai blade or King Arthur’s Excalibur, whose blade glowed and crackled like a magically frozen laser blast. To quote Jedi Master Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness), it was “Not as clumsy or random as a blaster. An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age.”
ON THE STREETS – The History of Marvel’s The Defenders
For their groundbreaking crossover miniseries, Marvel’s The Defenders, the creative team behind Marvel’s street-level heroes pulled together characters, worlds, and story elements from four separate series to craft a team-up event like nothing Marvel Television had ever attempted. But there were many steps behind the scenes, and decades worth of stories in the pages of Marvel Comics, that had to happen before the Defenders could be brought to life on film.
Crowning Achievement
Just over 20 years ago, Prop Store started out as a one-man band, run by founder Stephen Lane from his home office in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. In 1998, driven by his love of cinema and memorabilia collection, Lane realised there was a huge potential market in movie props: items often seen as waste by film studios, which usually would end up in a skip, but which he saw as valuable artefacts, coveted by collectors like him the world over. His first Prop Store sale was to an American collector (who still shops at Prop Store today, 22 years later), who bought a crew jacket for £393.
POSTER BOY | Jock
Mondo artist Jock talks us through five of his most impressive posters, all of which are part of the Prop Store Movie Poster Auction on March 26.
Featured Lots | Cinema Poster Live Auction March 2020
This year’s Cinema Poster Live Auction has over 300 posters, including an amazing selection of posters and original artwork from the collections of well-known comic-art artist Jock, Academy Award®-winning special effects cinematographer, Richard Edlund, former Lucasfilm Executive and Assistant Director Howard Kazanjian, and so much more!
So, sit back, relax, and get up-close and personal with some of our featured lots from the auction…
Q&A | In conversation with celebrated Mondo Poster Artist Jock
Jock Q&A – In conversation with celebrated Mondo poster artist Jock
ROCKET MAN: Ballad of a Rocket-Firing Boba Fett
Ask any toy collector which treasure they’d most like to own, and the chances are they’d all tell you the same thing: a rocket-firing Boba Fett.
The laconic intergalactic bounty hunter is widely regarded as the Star Wars saga’s coolest character, with his Spaghetti Western-style, jetpack armour and that iconic, narrow-slit helmet visor, which suggested a cruelty and merciless precision far beyond the Empire’s clumsy stormtroopers. But this isn’t why he’s so sought after in action-figure form. At least, not entirely.
SPRINGFIELD CALLING: Storyboarding The Simpsons
“In this world nothing can be said to be certain,” so the saying goes, “except death, taxes and the renewal of The Simpsons.” Well, that might as well be how the saying goes.
COWBOY STORIES: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Auction
The Coen brothers are always full of surprises. One moment they’re remaking Ealing comedy classic The Ladykillers, the next they’re adapting Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. Over the years, they’ve made a baby-kidnap caper (Raising Arizona), reimagined Homer’s Odyssey as a Depression-era chain-gang musical (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), and delighted in repeatedly casting George Clooney as increasingly stupid men. But their latest movie was arguably their biggest surprise yet. Mainly because everyone initially thought it was going to be a TV series.
SHADOWS IN HELL’S KITCHEN: The Villains of Marvel’s Jessica Jones
Across three seasons of the groundbreaking series Marvel’s Jessica Jones, the eponymous damaged heroine had to face some true demons, from a mind-controlling creep, to a full-on serial killer, to her own mom. In their own way, each of these antagonists reflects how showrunner Melissa Rosenberg and her team brought Jessica from the more heightened world of the comic book page to hard-hitting reality, dealing with serious themes while doling out crimefighting entertainment.
The Toys Are Back In Town
Toy collecting, it seems, has never been more popular. If TV shows like Netflix’s The Toys That Made Us or the Discovery Channel’s Toy Hunter are anything to go by, the power of nostalgia has driven more people than ever before to seek out playthings from their childhood, whether for the sheer gratification of their personal passion, or as a potential investment…
ALIAS INVESTIGATIONS – The History of Marvel’s Jessica Jones
Marvel’s Jessica Jones was a watershed moment in Super Hero entertainment. We’d seen comic book characters tackle real-world issues before, but from its first season debut in 2015, the gritty, edgy Marvel show dug its nails deep into every piece of “reality” that could be approximated around its super-powered star.
Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction 2019 | FEATURED LOTS
This year, Prop Store is launching its biggest-ever Entertainment and Memorabilia Live Auction, with no fewer than 900 cinematic and TV artefacts going under the hammer on 30 September and 1 October. That is a colossal treasure hoard, impressive enough to make even Smaug the Mighty jealous.
Stormtrooper | The Evolution Of A Helmet
When we first ever saw them bursting through the breach, laser rifles blazing, at the opening of Star Wars, the Imperial Stormtroopers made a huge impression, leaving an indelible mark on popular culture.
10 Things You Need To Know about the Jurassic Park Series
With so many dino-licious items among Prop Store’s Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction lots this year, we decided to delve into a quarter-century of Jurassic Park movies.
Alien Lifeforms | An Interview with SFX Legend Roger Dicken
In this year’s 2019 Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction, we’ve had the amazing opportunity to get up close and personal with one of movie history’s greatest creatures – The Facehugger.
Villain Weapons | TOOLS OF THE TRADE
When it comes to manufacturing scares, the horror genre has many tools in its box. Some of which are literal tools.
SETTING THE HIGH TABLE: The John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum Auction
John Wick tells the tale of a retired hit man that is forced back into the underground world of assassins when he embarks on a merciless rampage to hunt down his adversaries. With the skill and ruthlessness that made him an underworld legend, John Wick fights to overcome the world’s top hit men and women in a stylish tale of revenge and redemption.
Batman Villains | The Very Unusual Suspects
With such a trove of Batman-related items in Prop Store’s EMLA this year, we round up our favourite Gotham City villains, as seen on the big screen…
POP ART: The Vox Lux Auction
Vox Lux proved a unique challenge for costume designer Keri Langerman.
The REAL World of Warcraft
By Dan Jolin
I spent 10 years in Azeroth. The world of Massively Multiplayer Online role-playing game World of Warcraft was immense, compelling, exciting and a great way to spend a long evening — whether that was hitting dungeons with your friends, exploring its lush jungles or barren wastes, or just hanging out down the inn in Stormwind’s Old District chatting with your guild buddies.
The Magic Of Mondo
How a Texas-based T-shirt company brought exciting new life to the poster-collecting hobby…
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