news-record.com

BURLINGTON -- Sarah Costello picks a severed head up off a shelf.

“This guy, he’s really nice, isn’t he,” she says. “Real glass eyes. I think he was leftover from a horror movie.”

In one corner of her shop, she also has some tombstones bearing her name. On another shelf is a prosthetic leg — complete with shoe and sock. Nearby are a couple of hospital beds.

But mixed in with the morbid curiosities are antique toys, telephones, kitchenware and electronics, along with many other items that probably haven’t been used for their intended purposes in years but have had brief moments in the limelight.

“We have a strange collection,” says Costello, 46, a former instructor of film and video at Piedmont Community College. “To the untrained eye, it might look like a bunch of crap. But this is what pays our overhead.”

Costello and former student Sophia Moore run PropTarts in Alamance County. The 4-year-old business is one of several prop rental companies in North Carolina, including Carolina Props in High Point. But PropTarts also specializes in arranging the props on set and in building set pieces for films, commercials, trade shows and special events.

“It’s more than just bringing some plates and cups,” says Moore, 27, who is married to local filmmaker Matt Moore.

“A lot of places just supply props and not take care of it on set. They (the producers) would just have to hire a separate stylist. But we’re design-oriented from beginning to end.”

The women met in 2000 when Moore was taking classes at Piedmont Community College. Moore took a job several years later teaching wardrobe at the school. Among her duties was acquiring props for art department projects.

“Sarah and I, we started working together on the shows, and we’d always end up bringing home stuff,” she said. “And my garage was getting really full. And so we came up with an idea to justify us keeping all this stuff. We knew we could make could use of that, as well as Sarah’s excellent carpentry skills.”

The two went into business and now work out of Glencoe Mill Village, north of Burlington. A handpainted wooden sign points the way to their shop, which is tucked away in a brick warehouse among the historic textile mill structures on the banks of the Haw River.

Visitors are greeted by Sadie, a 14-year-old black Labrador, and Maya, an 8-month-old husky mix. Inside, walls, doors, windows and other set pieces in various stages of completion are scattered about.

The prop area resembles a junk shop. Dusty, wood-paneled console televisions sit on the floor. One shelf is filled with what appears to be a law library. Costello opens a cardboard box full of pint glasses.

“They used to make these out of sugar, candy glass. Now, they make them out of acrylic,” Costello says. “But you can drink out of it and smash someone over the head with it.”

Their wares come from personal collections and previous films, as well as thrift stores, flea markets and even Dumpster diving. Costello says the back of bars is great place to find used liquor bottles.

They also work with various antiques dealers to find specific items for a shoot.

One of their big worries, they say, is the so-called “toaster expert.”

“That’s the little old lady who spent her entire life collecting period toasters,” Costello says. “When you’re shooting a movie that’s supposed to take place in 1983, she’s the one who’s going to know that a particular toaster in a scene wasn’t issued until 1984, especially now that we’re working in high-def and you can see all the details.

“But there are Web sites for absolutely everything that someone may have a passion for. If it’s period toasters, you can find a Web site on period toasters.”

Sometimes the set pieces can look a little bit too real. For a Carolina bank commercial, Costello and Moore set up an ATM machine in Durham.

“We took it apart and built a housing for it,” Costello says. “And two customers actually came by, trying to take money out of it, not realizing it was fake.”

Among the projects Costello and Moore have worked on are independent films “Mississippi Damned,” “Eyeborgs” and “Fall Down Dead.” They are currently working on “One Good Man,” an independent Christian-themed film directed by Manny Edwards, about baseball and father-son relationships.

At an office in Winston-Salem this week, they were looking at plans for a jail set. They had planned on filming at a jail in Montgomery County but still need to construct a set for a warden’s office.

“We looked and couldn’t find an office there (at the Montgomery County jail) that worked for us,” Costello says. “We needed one with a window. We’re going to make one that also has one wall that will look like cement block. It’s a lot of effort, all because we need a window, but overall it’s probably still cheaper than trying to find something that works and renting it.”

They typically build the walls for their sets in pieces, paint them at their shop and put them together on site.

Recently, though, the film business has scaled back because of the economy. And during the past year, the women have been focused mainly on commercials, working on ads for “Guitar Hero: Metallica,” Furnitureland South and the North Carolina Education Lottery.
One that has been especially popular locally is Sheetz’s “Feel the Love” commercial, in which a portly man walks into the convenience store, mouthing “I love you” to the employees as a 1980s-style power ballad plays.

The shoot was fun, the women say. Not so fun, though, was procuring the blue Plymouth Duster used in the shoot.

Moore says she found the car by putting an ad on Craigslist. But the night of the shoot, the car’s owner, who lived near Fayetteville, ran into some problems.

“He broke down and then got a speeding ticket,” Costello says.
“And then his phone died, or something to that effect, and I’m calling and calling and calling, and I call his wife, and finally he makes it up here two or three hours late,” Moore says. “One little thing like that can ruin an entire day. It can cost hundreds of dollars for every hour that’s wasted.

“But the best part is, we get to see everything you’re not going to see on screen. So, I guess we get the full director’s cut.”

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 336-691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com