Where Do Movies Get Their Vintage Electronics? Watch This Video to Find Out
Here’s a pretty cool video about where the vintage electronics come from in the movies and shows we watch. I did props for some plays at my local community theatre when I was a teenager, and I would spend hours going into the basement under the theatre via a rickety old sliding ladder that wasn’t very conducive to carrying things, where I would rustle through the dusty boxes of pretend food, candlesticks, telephones, baskets, and anything else you could think of to build a realistic looking scene for a play. I imagine the prop houses for movies and television are on a much more organized, and massive scale. This video shows one such place, but this one is dedicated only to electronics.
All the radios, televisions, telephones, computers, VCRs, cameras, and gaming systems you see on screen come from a place just like this, if not this one itself. This is the LES Ecology Center in Brooklyn, and it houses over 2000 items that have been collected and donated over the years. The re-use technicians know their stuff, as they are able to hear just the year a show or movie is taking place, and are able to equip them with exactly the technology that was around then. They’ve provided pieces for many projects, including SNL, The Americans, Orange is the New Black, and many more. Watch the video below and marvel at the technology you remember from your grandparents house.