Welcome to a new section of Bladezone called 'Lost and Found'. It will be a series of periodic articles tracking down the elusive Blade Runner prop. I'll be trying to discover long lost props and related objects.
In the past two years I have been trying to find any Blade Runner screen-used props. As you can imagine, finding things used in a not-so-successful, twenty-year old film has not been easy. Since the early days of my hunting I wanted to share all the ups and downs of these searches. Infrequently, props from Blade Runner do appear in auction catalogs such as 'Christies' and 'Profiles in History', but for the most part, it seems these bits are simply LOST.
For me it has turned into an obsession. Since my research has turned up the knowledge that most of the props from Blade Runner were destroyed, I have become excited about finding things that escaped the fire, (please see my interview with Gene Winfield).
In the future, this column can be used as reference and a kind of archive. Please feel free to contribute to this periodic column. This is your website too, so get out there and find stuff. The column should be interactive, in that you can share your experience with a certain Blade Runner prop, or your discovery of a prop. If you have a true story about a prop please feel free to contact me.
The search for props in general is difficult. It's worse than a needle in a haystack because you know the needle does exists and it's in the haystack. In some cases we do not know that the prop even exists. The task of the search must be that of a fanatic, because along the way it is mostly arduous and thankless. On the surface it might seem quite easy, make a telephone call, buy the prop for nothing, then sell it for a huge profit. What few people realize is that friendships and trusts must be formed and earned. It's a lengthy journey. In some cases, large sums of money must be spent to acquire something that a minute ago was junk. To some prop-makers and special effects people this prop is all they have to show for the untold hours they spent to create a scene. So trying to pry these things away from them can be difficult.
So with this knowledge, perhaps the short stories in this column might better educate the film fan as well as the prop-collector as to what happens behind the scenes to make the discovery of a particular item important. I most cases, it is the only prop of it's kind.
Every few weeks I hope to have uncovered another Blade Runner prop. See this week's installment below. Come back often and see what we have discovered."
Gary Willoughby
Lost and Found Menu |
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27 Apr 2003 |
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25 Feb 2002 |
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17 Feb 2002 |
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30 Jan 2002 |
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13 Sep 2001 |
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13 Aug 2001 |
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31 May 2001 |
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12 Apr 2001 |
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