I was approached by a film maker to design and make both Props and costume pieces for a student film, the project was loosely based on Gotham by Gaslight, a graphic novel set in the Victorian era in which Batman tracks down and apprehends Jack the Ripper. I had read the novel before and was a fan of the concept so this was a really fun project to work on.
The first piece I began to build was my design for a camera used by batman in a murder investigation scene. My Prop concepts were based around the idea that Batman would have had to make these items himself by adapting existing objects.
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Therefore I decided to build this prop by 'kitbashing' pieces together. I bought an old antique autographic kodak folding camera, It had the same shape as my design and was close to the time frame the film is set so made a good period accurate base to start with.
To create the flash bulb I bought an oven bulb of a similar shape and size to my design and used an old brass nut as a bulb fitting. A hole was drilled through the top panel of the camera and the nut was bolted to the panel.
The bulb matched the thread of the nut which was a lucky coincidence for found parts, however the head of the bolt took up a lot of the space that the bulb needed to be able to sit in the nut. The bulb was ground down to fit in the smaller space, the bulb was never going to be a working piece so this didn't matter, the flash would be added in post production. The bulb no longer had enough thread to sit securely in the nut so it was epoxied into place to make sure it didn't unscrew and fall out when being handled.
To make the metal loops to hold the wiring on the top of the camera I used small pieces of thick copper wire, these were bent into loops with a pair of pliers and cut to the same size as each other.
To attach them to the top plate of the camera I used blobs of hot glue, the pieces were then removed from the camera plate and painted to look like solder.
I then used super glue to reattach them to the camera.
The next pieces to be added to the top of the camera were the sockets that the wiring would be attached to. I found some small brass Meccano pieces that were a good size for the space I had to work with. However the pieces I bought were brand new and extremely shiny which didn't match the grubby worn look of the rest of the camera. There are a number of ways to age brass however most use harsh chemicals such as ammonia and peroxide, I found a few techniques that used vinegar so I gave those a try instead. The first technique was to mix two table spoons of salt with a jar of vinegar and leave the brass pieces to sit in the mixture for a few minutes. The pieces were then taken out of the solution, gently dried off and placed in the oven at 230 degrees and baked for 5 minutes. This method however did nothing to the pieces.
The next I tried was to heat the brass pieces with a heat gun and then spray layers of vinegar onto the hot pieces. Again this yielded no result. I should mention at this point that the pieces were scrubbed in acetone beforehand to remove any clear lacquer or protective finish that may stop the process from working.
The third method I tried was to suspend the pieces in a jar of vinegar and then seal the jar, allowing the fumes from the vinegar to age the surface. This was left overnight and in the morning...
Success!
The pieces were now a close match to the old brass nut and were epoxied in place.
I found replica Victorian braided cable online which was perfect for what I needed, the wiring was threaded through the copper loops and then epoxied into place in the two brass collar pieces. I had a machined steel dial that was originally a spare part for a metal compass I have, fit perfect!
The next pieces to be added to the top of the camera were the sockets that the wiring would be attached to. I found some small brass Meccano pieces that were a good size for the space I had to work with. However the pieces I bought were brand new and extremely shiny which didn't match the grubby worn look of the rest of the camera. There are a number of ways to age brass however most use harsh chemicals such as ammonia and peroxide, I found a few techniques that used vinegar so I gave those a try instead. The first technique was to mix two table spoons of salt with a jar of vinegar and leave the brass pieces to sit in the mixture for a few minutes. The pieces were then taken out of the solution, gently dried off and placed in the oven at 230 degrees and baked for 5 minutes. This method however did nothing to the pieces.
The next I tried was to heat the brass pieces with a heat gun and then spray layers of vinegar onto the hot pieces. Again this yielded no result. I should mention at this point that the pieces were scrubbed in acetone beforehand to remove any clear lacquer or protective finish that may stop the process from working.
The third method I tried was to suspend the pieces in a jar of vinegar and then seal the jar, allowing the fumes from the vinegar to age the surface. This was left overnight and in the morning...
Success!
The pieces were now a close match to the old brass nut and were epoxied in place.
I found replica Victorian braided cable online which was perfect for what I needed, the wiring was threaded through the copper loops and then epoxied into place in the two brass collar pieces. I had a machined steel dial that was originally a spare part for a metal compass I have, fit perfect!
The next piece I worked on was the camera face plate, I needed to make the recess around the lens flush with the rest of the metal plate. This was to make a nice flat surface to attach the new lens details to. I first had to cut away the metal ring around the lens and filed it flush with the brass plate it was attached to.
The centre was bevelled to match the concave shape around the original camera lens.
The face plate was painted gloss black again and weathered around the edges using 1200 grit sandpaper to give it more of a softly worn look rather than scraped against a brick wall.
I found a steampunk gadget ring online that was perfect for the magnifying lenses on the front of the camera design, the compass was painted over to look more like a bolt head.
The bottom of the gadget ring has the all too familiar made in china text stamped across it and this panel faces the front when the piece is folded up so it needed covering. A simple leather panel was glued to the metal plate which tied the piece in better with the leather grip on the casing.
Four small brackets were made to fit over the fake bolts that are moulded into the frame of the lens, they were filled in the back and sanded flush to increase the surface area on the back of the frame to give me more material to epoxy together.
The outer metal casing of the camera was going to be wrapped in leather, but first the detail pieces attached to the back of the casing were removed to give the back a flush surface. The circular detail on the back had a patent number and year stamped into it which was later than the film is set, so to reuse the piece I filled all of the the lettering with spot putty and sanded it flush.
The casing was wrapped in a thin leatherette as all of the real leather pieces I had were too thick, but this material had a fairly realistic finish so I opted to use it anyway. The back detail piece was painted and then worn around the edges using 1200 grit sandpaper to give it a used look to match the rest of the camera.
To finish the back I epoxied a small brass bat motif over the rivets and recessed area on the circular piece.
All the finished piece were slotted back together and screwed into place, all finished and ready to go!
