How many items do you guys have in
your roster of objects?
On our main site NewRuleFX.cm we’ve got over 200 items for sale, and
we’re adding new items to that site every week. However, we have molds,
tooling and resources to make hundreds more. Of course a large part of our
business is making custom props to the specification of the production.
The majority of the products that we sell are fabricated at our shop in Van
Nuys. I’m very lucky in that much of my time during the week nowadays is
devoted to inventing and creating new products to release.
In the shop it seems you have to possess a
myriad of skills, math, art, woodworking, metal
working, etc. How did you develop all of these
abilities?
Just say yes. When a customer calls and asks if you can build a particular
product and you have no idea how to do it, just say yes, then get to work
researching, experimenting and mostly failing until you have the desired
result. This process has led my staff and I down some very interesting
paths, and has helped us to develop many skills and invest in lots of unique
tools and equipment. Learning how to do new things is in my DNA and I
truly love learning a new technique or process to accomplish a project. The
readily available magnitude of information on almost everything on the
Internet has really helped in that regard.
How important is the process of trial and
error in your work?
With our custom work it’s a vital part of the process. Though we usually
start from a known jumping off point based on something that we’ve done
in the past that might be similar, there’s a great deal of guesswork that
goes into the process. If we’re making a prop out of foam rubber for
example, there’s a good chance that we might overfill it, and when the
foam expands the mold will pop open and foam goes everywhere. It’s so
commonplace, it’s just considered part of the process. My favorite Randy
Pausch quote often recited around the shop is, “Experience is what you get,
when you don’t get what you want.”
Puto
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THE CONE - ISSUE #9 - SPRING 2016