Movie prop creator reveals the secrets behind the magic of cinema with mind-blowing TikTok videos

If you’ve ever been intrigued by the world of cinema and all things movie production, there’s a prop guru on TikTok that you need to follow right away.

Scott Reeder, who goes by @scottpropandroll on the platform, is a motion picture and television prop master based in Austin, Texas, whose main job is to create realistic props for television and film sets.

Reeder divulged many tricks of the trade on his page, giving movie fans insight into how props and visual effects can look so authentic.

In one video, in particular, he breaks down the process of “silent pool balls,” which he created for a bar scene. He says that he created the balls so that extras in the scene’s background can play “pool” without the audio mixer going “BALListic,” which will drown out the dialogue of the main actors.

He also states that the balls are hand-painted foam racquetballs with a gloss coating that doesn’t make any “racquet.”

“Now I’m gonna be watching and listening for this is anything I watch,” someone said.

“This is so cool to me because they don’t want the sound, but post-production, they put the sound back in for background. It’s so cool :)),” wrote another.

Recently, Reeder posted another video showing how he makes Sili-Glass or “rubber glass” which is a silicon mixture that is spread out on a cooking sheet for an hour before it’s ready for use. He states that actors can roll around on it all they want.

However, trying to put the pieces of the rubber glass together would be “a pane”, he quipped.

Through various puns and mind-blowing revelations, he sheds light on to viewers, and it makes sense why he has 1.2 million followers on his TikTok and over 104,000 followers on his Instagram.

When speaking to Indy100, Reeder revealed that he got started in the art of prop making when he was a 19-year-old intern for a movie that was being filmed close to his university.

“I learned how all film departments operated and quickly found that the prop department fit my personality. I found joy in searching for the perfect prop for a scene, or if the item doesn’t exist, making it. The best part is that every project is a different challenge,” he said.

When asked what encouraged him to start posting on the social media platform, he said that his daughter showed him how to operate it.

“While work was halted for the entire film industry, I started posting dad jokes in May of 2020. I built a respectable following of 85,000 people with the jokes,” he said.

But then, when he returned to work on the set of the Amazon Original series Panic in August 2020, his co-worker thought it would be a good idea to talk about props because it can be interesting.

“I posted a video describing breakaway bottles and it was well-received. Shortly after that I posted a video about silent props and it went viral with tens of millions of views across platforms,” he said.

Reeder also has other fascinating videos such as fake cakes made from round styrofoam and lightweight spackling and a dash of flowers and hacks to solve a Rubix cube which he cites as “a cool trick when the actor doesn’t have time to master the cube legitimately.”

He has worked on the sets of crime drama series Walker as well as films such as Pitch Perfect, where he was once involved in the highly talked about vomit scene, which V8 Splash and apple sauce achieved.

He also notes other ways to make throw-up scenes realistic using vanilla Slimfast and oatmeal in The Ringer with stunt performerJohnny Knoxville as well as Ensure and chunks of bread in the Friday Night Lights television show.

Continuing to delve into the world of the prop master, we may be encouraged to try these out for ourselves if we’re feeling creative.

For giggles, witty one-liners and insight into how show props are created, visit Reeder’s TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube