105 - Prop Master Scott Reeder

What The Hell Is Michael Jamin Talking About?

On this week's episode we have Scott Reeder who is a Prop Master for film and TV. Some of the projects he has worked on have been "Pitch Perfect", "American Crime", "Walker" and many many more. Tune in as he talks about how he comes up with ideas for props that are needed for filming as well as going viral on Tiktok and how he deals with it.

Show Notes

Scott Reeder on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottpropandroll/

Scott Reeder on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1048397/

Scott Reeder on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottpropandroll

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Autogenerated Transcript

Scott Reeder:

Well, part of it, I felt like a little bit of imposter syndrome. Like, well, what? I don't really deserve these accolades because I'm just doing, I'm just not doing anything that great. I didn't think, and I was like, well, how can I keep this up? I'm going to run out of stuff to talk about.

Michael Jamin:

Yes,

Scott Reeder:

But I've been able to just, I just keep going. I've always come up with, so you're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.

Michael Jamin:

Okay. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome to the Michael Jamin Jam. Today I'm jamming with Mr. Scott Reeder, and who the hell is he? I'll tell you who he is. This guy is a prop master on a bunch of movies and TV shows, and I don't know him personally, but I've been following him for a very long time, and he's actually also a talker. So Scott, I'm so inspired by what you do, and I'm opening up my podcast. I'm spending the next couple of sessions talking to, I usually talk about screenwriters and I interview TV writers and people like that, but I also want to open up to people who are doing interesting creative things and social media, and you are for sure one of them. So thank you for coming on my show, dude.

Scott Reeder:

Oh, thanks for having me.

Michael Jamin:

I'm excited. I'm excited too, because I've worked obviously with a lot of prop masters and you post a lot on social media, and honestly, I don't know, 99% of what you do. I'm like, oh, that's how they do it. I have no idea you guys are magicians, because to be truthful, I'm not supposed to notice what you guys do. That's the whole point. When you bring a prop on set, I'm not supposed to see if it's a gag or a gimmick or anything. It's supposed to look real. So I just said, oh, that must be real, and you expose on your TikTok channel how all this is done. It is absolutely fascinating. Everything you put out,

Scott Reeder:

Well, it could be a scene in a burger joint with a guy taking one bite out of a burger, and I would've to have like 30 hamburgers. So it's those little things no one thinks about,

Michael Jamin:

But there's also a crossover a lot of people don't think about is what you do, what set decoration does. There's a whole, okay, for example, if you have a scene and the horse is on set and a horse takes a dump, that set deck, or is that props

Scott Reeder:

Nowadays? I believe the animal Wrangler would probably do it.

Michael Jamin:

There's arguing over set over who's going to do that, right?

Scott Reeder:

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. There's always, well, I mean, not always arguing, but what I try to do is when I do my breakdown of a script is make contact with everyone involved with every gag or every scene and make sure, okay, am I doing this or you? And that's typically what I say it up to them and say, do you want me to do this? I'm totally cool with doing it, and that's the way I'm not coming off. I'm trying to

Michael Jamin:

It

Scott Reeder:

Off. Right,

Michael Jamin:

Not keep your head, but now, how did you get in? Because you've done, I should run through some of your credits. I'll just go through a you pitch. Perfect. Walker, Texas Ranger, machete, machete, machete. You've some great, the list goes on and on. How did you get into this and why?

Scott Reeder:

Well, I always wanted to work in media and communications of some sort. Oh, gosh. I'll try to keep it brief. I was going to the University of North Texas in 19 88, 89, and there happened to be a movie filming in town. It was called Daddy's Dying, who's got the will written by a playwright named Dale Shores,

Starred Beau Bridges, Beverly DeAngelo, and I found out that there were filming at a hospital. I just showed up. But yeah, I just started picking up trash on set and working as the lowest rung non-paid production assistant. It was 1989, so it was a long time ago, and then I, it's all about networking. It's all about getting your foot in the door. Then I interned at a film at the North Texas Film Commission, which was great because we'd get scripts from producers they wanted, and I got to read 'em early on in the process. I was the guy that would go out and take pictures of, it could be a prison or restaurants, just locations to try to draw producers into our neck of the woods.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting.

Scott Reeder:

Yeah, so that's how I kind of got my start.

Michael Jamin:

So tell me, when you start doing props and you have to make whatever puke or you have come up with all sorts of inventive ways, especially with food, to make something look so it doesn't melt or it doesn't go bad, or you did something with a stick of butter yesterday, you had fake butter, so it doesn't melt onset. How do you come up with this? How do you're like a magician? How do you come up with these, basically you're an inventor. How do you invent all these things to make it look like butter or whatever?

Scott Reeder:

Well, we break down the script. We come up with, we get with every episode, we will have, as you know, you have directors meeting and typically the writers are involved on that and all the concept, and then I know what they're expecting of me, and I'll go from there and I'll just call around. I've got a lot of connections, a lot of friends that if I haven't jumped that particular hurdle, I have friends that have. So that's just kind of how,

Michael Jamin:

Really, okay, so it's word of mouth. How do you, that's it. Then

Scott Reeder:

If I were in LA I would be hiring a food stylist,

Michael Jamin:

But

Scott Reeder:

There's not enough. There may, there are some commercial food stylists in Dallas. I'm in Austin. There really aren't many people here for that. So we have to really up our food game as prop master, an assistant prop master and prop assistant.

Michael Jamin:

Then how do you, because we were talking earlier, you're based out of Austin, and I was like, I just assumed. So all your work is basically local and you get enough work locally?

Scott Reeder:

I work locally when I can.

Michael Jamin:

Is that most of the time though, isn't

Scott Reeder:

It? But occasionally I'll have to travel

Michael Jamin:

Occasionally, right?

Scott Reeder:

Yeah. I did Nosferatu for AMC in Rhode Island, and so when things get slow here in town, I'll travel on. I did a movie in Mississippi in 2019.

Michael Jamin:

And how do you get most of your work? You don't have an agent getting you work, do you?

Scott Reeder:

No. Word of mouth. It's just relationships I've built with producers and word of mouth.

Michael Jamin:

So how does that work basically when it's like, how do you know when it's time to, oh, there's nothing going on in Austin. Do you give it a couple of weeks, a couple of months? What do you do

Scott Reeder:

Typically? Hopefully I have a job lined up and we try to play on a few months ahead. If not, it's just wait around. Now what I do, Michael, is I'll fill in as art director on commercials.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, really? Okay.

Scott Reeder:

So actually I'm lined up for one starting next week, and I haven't been that fortunate with commercials through the strike because when the actors went on strike, even though companies can still make commercials, they're holding back on their campaigns right now.

Michael Jamin:

Why is that, do you think?

Scott Reeder:

I don't know, but there's, there's definitely been a slowdown. Interesting. Now, part of that could be the Texas heat. I don't know, but it's definitely slower than normal. But yes, I would try to line jobs up at a time. I'll call around, let some people know that I'm available, but a lot of people know me will say, oh, Scott shows ending soon. I'll give him a call. That sort of thing. It's a very small community.

Michael Jamin:

I bet. Do you prefer to work in TV or film?

Scott Reeder:

My bread and has been television. I like both. If I go through a full season of television and I have enough time between seasons or it's a picture wrap of a show, I like filling in with features.

Michael Jamin:

What is the difference for you between the two?

Scott Reeder:

It's a big difference. It doesn't move nearly as fast.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Scott Reeder:

Because

Michael Jamin:

You're not doing as many pages a day.

Scott Reeder:

Correct. You might do two or three pages a day.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Scott Reeder:

It's just a whole different animal really. If I'm doing a television show, I'm not on set as much in Perpetual Prep. I'm always working on the next script, and if it's a feature, I will prepped it ahead of time and on set, and I'm more hands-on at camera and whatnot, how many, which I like that part of it.

Michael Jamin:

People don't realize that when a prop is required on set, you'll have backups and backups for the backups. That's the worst thing that has happened. If something goes wrong, the one gets yelled at.

Scott Reeder:

Oh, correct. Yes. We always try to have multiples. Now there are those items that are one of a kind, and you just got to cross your fingers, pray and let everyone know, Hey, this is the, oh, don't play with this. Between takes. It's the only one we got, but that's rare. We typically have multiples of everything.

Michael Jamin:

How many multiples is enough, do you think?

Scott Reeder:

Yeah, it just depends on the scene. I like to have at least bare minimum two. If it's an item that's involved in a stunt, you'll want to have four. Food scenes are crazy because it's hard to determine, because a lot of times the actor might improvise and eat a lot more than you think.

Michael Jamin:

So

Scott Reeder:

I always go overboard on food scenes.

Michael Jamin:

But they give you a budget. I mean, they also say they don't want you to waste. How do you know they don't want you to come up with too much? Because then they're paying for that.

Scott Reeder:

Yeah. Well, the first couple, if we're talking about television, the first couple episodes or when you kind of feel it out, you'll buy heavier.

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

Then my assistant will call and say, Hey, you got way too much last time. Dial it back, this particular director. And we get to where we know how the directors work. You'll have one director that'll do six takes another director two, and moving on. So you get to where you understand the personalities of everybody and how they work and how they operate. Well, this particular person, the last food scene they went through a lot. So we'll get a lot.

Michael Jamin:

Now, do you prefer low budget or high budget, or does that not make a difference to you?

Scott Reeder:

Well, I prefer a bigger budget,

Michael Jamin:

Really,

Scott Reeder:

To be honest. Yeah, it's a lot of times if you're working on a no budget feature or a really ultra basic cable show, I'm not going to name names, but they, they literally give you pennies and you're trying, it's just so much harder when you could just go buy something than have to scrounge it or limit your amount of takes because of the budget or limited amount of props you have for a take.

Michael Jamin:

Now here in LA there's tons of prop houses. I mean, what do you do when you're shooting in an area that doesn't have houses? Does Austin have any good prop houses?

Scott Reeder:

What you do is you open up a prop house. That's what I did 20 years ago. I opened up a little prop shop. It's not near the scale of the Los Angeles prop houses,

Michael Jamin:

But

Scott Reeder:

I have a little bit of everything. It's kind of

Michael Jamin:

The newest art. That's amazing. So it's just a warehouse and you rent out to other prop masters, not just yourself, but to other productions?

Scott Reeder:

Correct.

Michael Jamin:

Wow. And

Scott Reeder:

I actually rent all over the country. I just had a bunch of stuff come back from the Kevin Costner movie that was shooting in Utah.

Michael Jamin:

There's one prop house that's going out of business in la. They're having a fire sale, and I'm like, go get rid of that. That stuff is important.

Scott Reeder:

Well, hopefully one of the other, either history for hire or independent studio services or hand prop room will go in and get some of that stuff.

Michael Jamin:

And so do you specialize your prop specialize in something? No,

Scott Reeder:

Not really. I have a little bit of everything. I've got occupational props, a little bit of old West, some period stuff. I've got police gear, lots of military. I try to keep things that you can't find at Walmart, basically.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Or

Scott Reeder:

Else the sub decorator will just go to Walmart, typically. So I specialize in harder to find things.

Michael Jamin:

Is that something, do most prop or many prop masters have their own prop houses, or is that something just your

Scott Reeder:

Not really. No. I was just the first to open one here. I think a lot of people will have prop trucks that they'll keep their kit on, and they'll have a general assemblage of props that they'll stock props that they'll bring to every, and they'll leave a portion of their truck empty for the hero props that they'll bring on some. I'm sure some have storage rooms, storage facilities, somewhere

Michael Jamin:

Where

Scott Reeder:

They store things.

Michael Jamin:

Well, this explains to me, it seems like a very entrepreneurial in spirit, which explains to me, or maybe it doesn't, but how you started on this TikTok journey that you've been on, because this is very interesting what you do.

Scott Reeder:

Well, it's totally accidental. During the early days of the pandemic, my daughter was scrolling on TikTok. She was 17 at the time, and she's laughing at some videos. So I'm like, what you laughing at? That sort of thing. So I downloaded it and I saw some people attempting to tell dad jokes, and I'm thinking, well, I can do that,

Michael Jamin:

And you can, you're good at it.

Scott Reeder:

And with some that I'd written or taking really old jokes and adding punchlines to 'em, it was just fun. It was a fun hobby during that time where there was no, where the whole industry was shut down. And I got back on the Amazon show that I was on called Panic, and one of my assistants, I can't remember which one it was, but they said, Hey man, what we do is interesting. What if you work in some prop stuff?

Michael Jamin:

It

Scott Reeder:

Might be interesting. So I was very careful because you want to be careful not to interfere with any NDA you may have signed. So I just kept things up in the lockup. I didn't go out on set. I just started, here's a breakaway beer bottle, this is what it's made out of, and this is how we safely break it. Boom.

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

That's how it started, just breaking crap on my head, and it just went from there. Of course, the one that took off was silent props, which was pool balls. And I had, of course, I thought everybody did this, but apparently not.

Michael Jamin:

No,

Scott Reeder:

I wasn't aware of that. Prop masters.

Michael Jamin:

Go on. Yeah.

Scott Reeder:

Well, they were painted.

Michael Jamin:

Right. I'll explain just people listening. So when you have a scene on a pool table in the background, you don't want to hear the clinking of the balls, so you don't use pool balls. Instead, you use

Scott Reeder:

Go ahead. Painted racket balls.

Michael Jamin:

Painted racket balls, and they're about the same size.

Scott Reeder:

Exactly. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

And is this something that all prop Masters know, or did you just figure this out?

Scott Reeder:

Well, it was accidental back way back on necessary roughness. The original back early nineties football movie, we had a bar scene, and for stunts, we painted racket. We had a football player landing on a pool table. Right. So we had all these painted racket balls, but well, we realized, oh, they don't make noise, so that's helpful too. So that's kind of how it started. It was, yeah, because stump prop,

Michael Jamin:

People don't realize when you shoot a movie or a TV show, you don't want noise in the background. So you'll later impose put in that noise, the set is quiet, and then you wind up putting in the noise. For some reason, it seems so silly, but that's how it works.

Scott Reeder:

The sound mixer, Michael, I don't know if you probably know this, but if we're filming in a kitchen,

Michael Jamin:

Or

Scott Reeder:

Especially in an industrial kitchen in a restaurant, I don't know how the people on the bear do it, because you got to go in and unplug everything. You got to unplug anything that has a compressor,

Michael Jamin:

Right. It might

Scott Reeder:

Make noise

Michael Jamin:

Or,

Scott Reeder:

Which has boned me a few times because I have stuff stored in a refrigerator and the sound mixer is like, oh, we got to unplug that. And I'm like, yeah, yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Right. So now you've got to bring a backup fridge.

Scott Reeder:

But everything shoes, the sound mixer has what they call mold scan and they'll put it on the bottom of people's shoes. Yeah. What else? There's all kinds of stuff. I spoiled the crew of the show that I've been working on because once they saw my videos, they were like, well, well, do you have silent pinging pong balls? And I'm like, well, I can figure it out.

Michael Jamin:

Alright, so what's silent ping pong call made out of?

Scott Reeder:

I just found foam balls on Amazon and painted them,

Michael Jamin:

But it

Scott Reeder:

Was that simple. I just measured them.

Michael Jamin:

But the paint has to, it has to have a sheen. It can't just look crappy. It really has to look real.

Scott Reeder:

Yeah. Well, pinging pong balls are kind of more satin. They're not glossy,

Michael Jamin:

So

Scott Reeder:

You just do just a satin gloss on 'em once you put your paint on. And yeah, they turned out pretty good.

Michael Jamin:

That's amazing.

Scott Reeder:

But yeah, the first video I did we're talking, it was 2020. I had garnered about a hundred thousand followers on TikTok, strictly on dad jokes.

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

Then I did this one video with the silent pool balls and the silent grocery bags, because grocery bags are a big deal. You know how noisy paper grocery bags are, and I came up with this joke as I was filming and I was like, should I do this joke? It was at the end of it, I took the pool balls and put 'em in the paper sack and said, and now the sound man is not annoyed with my ball sack.

Michael Jamin:

That

Scott Reeder:

Was the joke. And I filmed it and I'm like, should I leave the joke in? I was really torn. I was like, yeah, I'll leave the joke. And I signed off my phone. I got in my car, I had about a 30 minute drive home, and I stopped at a convenience store and looked at my phone and it was already up to, I mean, we're talking in half an hour. It had like 20,000 likes,

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

It was insane. That one went up. That one got over 12 million views.

Michael Jamin:

That's really a lot. And did it make you nervous when it first happened?

Scott Reeder:

Oh yes.

Michael Jamin:

Okay. Let's talk about why.

Scott Reeder:

Well, the thing is I'm, I've never been social media savvy. I've never been that dialed into it. I did have an Instagram account, but I maybe had a hundred followers

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

Somebody at work said, Hey, hey, Scott, when are you going to post on Instagram? I was like, well, I don't know. My hands are full with TikTok. And they were like, well, dude, how did you get so many followers? And I looked at Instagram and it was at like 10,000.

Michael Jamin:

I was

Scott Reeder:

Like, oh, geez. So I've been kind of forced into branching out to other platforms when I've already kind of got my hands full because all this, I'd say 75% of my content has been done while I'm also pulling a 12 hour day on a TV show. So it's a lot.

Michael Jamin:

People don't realize it's a lot because, but there's a lot to talk about here. I'm very interested because first of all, you have something like 1.7, I think million followers on TikTok, which is huge. And this is only how many, two or three years you're doing this?

Scott Reeder:

May of 2000, may of 2020 is when I started, but I started slow

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

Then got into, then I guess it would be, I'd say July of 2020 is where I really started picking up. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

But why did it make you nervous when you started going viral?

Scott Reeder:

Well, part of it, I felt like a little bit of imposter syndrome. Well, I don't really deserve these accolades because I'm just doing justm, not doing anything that great. I didn't think, and I was like, well, how can I keep this up? I'm going to run out of stuff to talk about, but I've been able to just, I just keep going. I always come up with something.

Michael Jamin:

Right. What's the agreement you made with yourself? How many times a week do you post?

Scott Reeder:

I try to post at least four times a week.

Michael Jamin:

Okay.

Scott Reeder:

I can't knock. I wish I'm one of those I can't get. Early on, I was doing two a day, but it was just

Michael Jamin:

Burning

Scott Reeder:

Me out, and I'm also trying to do stuff for YouTube and whatnot. So it's just

Michael Jamin:

Separate different content for YouTube?

Scott Reeder:

No, it's the same, but I'm trying to get, I'm filtering. I'm trying to work on some long form as well. But yeah, then YouTube. But like I said, I always feel like I get forced into other platforms. I found out in early 2021, there was a YouTube page. They had 90,000 subscribers. It was called the Prop Master. It was my profile picture and 40 of my videos.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, you're kidding. What'd you do?

Scott Reeder:

I went and I did copyright claim on every, I stayed up all night, copyright claiming every video. How did you

Michael Jamin:

Prove it?

Scott Reeder:

I sent links to my account because for that, they were just taking them off of TikTok, so I sent links to my TikTok. I sent direct links so they could easily see the date it's dated.

Michael Jamin:

I cut you off. Were you about to say you hired a lawyer?

Scott Reeder:

I hired a lawyer just in case, but luckily the person ceased and desist. They immediately pulled all the videos down, changed the name of the channel, how Find though Away did, what's that?

Michael Jamin:

I'm sorry, I cut you off. They walked away with what?

Scott Reeder:

They walked away with all the subscribers. There's no way to get those subscribers back, which really pissed me off.

Michael Jamin:

What was the name of the page though? Were they using your name?

Scott Reeder:

No, they weren't. It was just called the Prop Master, but it was my profile picture

Michael Jamin:

Off of

Scott Reeder:

TikTok and it was all my videos. And

Michael Jamin:

How did you find them? Discover them.

Scott Reeder:

You know something? There's another creator named Garden Marcus. He's a gardener on TikTok, and his manager reached out to me and said, Hey, this person has been made a fake account on YouTube. So they reached out to me to warn me. They said, it looks like this guy's doing your content too.

Michael Jamin:

Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com and now back to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?

This happens to me all the time, not on YouTube, but you must have 'em too. You have fake accounts with your profile picture. They spell your name wrong with one letter, and they're just trying to scam people. I guess. I'm not sure what the point is.

Scott Reeder:

I don't know. But yeah, I bet there's six or eight on TikTok. It happened to me again just about, I found out about it three weeks ago on Facebook. I never have had I've, like I said, I've always had my hands full with Instagram and TikTok and YouTube, and I always keep saying, well, I'm going to eventually branch out. I had made a Facebook, a Scott Prop roll Facebook page and posted some videos back in 2022. I didn't, but I didn't get any views, so I gave up on it and then I found out I looked and this, I just happened upon it. I just did a search to see if there were any fake accounts on Facebook, and sure enough, this person made a Facebook page, said, Scott Prop and Roll spelled exactly the same. They've got 69 now, now 70,000 followers. So I always take that as a challenge. I'm like, okay, well boom, I'm going to start posting my videos. And of course then you get a little let down because they don't get any views then. But it's the same thing as with YouTube. Same exact thing with the algorithm. It's like you post about 20 videos and you got nothing, and a few weeks later, things start kicking in.

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

So I've played massive catch up. I haven't quite caught up with the fake me, but I'm close to the fake Me is at 70,000. I just hit 60,000. But are

Michael Jamin:

You going to try to take down the fake account on Facebook?

Scott Reeder:

I did. I reported it, and they came back with, we can't take down fan pages, so I've just got to keep at it.

Michael Jamin:

But it's not a fan page though.

Scott Reeder:

No, it's not. It's definitely not. People don't realize how frustrating this is Michael. My mom was following the fake.

Michael Jamin:

True. Now, people don't realize the amount of work that goes into this. The night before, I've had to post five times a week the night before. I'm like, oh, crap. What am I going to talk about tomorrow? Do you get the same thing? How much thought goes into the night before?

Scott Reeder:

Well, I just have a list anytime I get an idea, because I'm real bad about not writing stuff down, but I've gotten a lot better, especially with doing content, is I just keep a running list and the night before I'll look at that list and if I haven't already fleshed it out already, and then I'll

Michael Jamin:

Come up with, the thing is, your content is very family friendly. What you do is very interesting. Like I said, it's like watching a magician, and yet I can't imagine why someone would troll you, and yet I'm certain people troll you because people are jerks or do they not?

Scott Reeder:

I've been really lucky it hasn't been that bad. Yeah, there've been the occasional, and typically it's like if someone gets mad at me about something, which I really don't give people much reason to be mad at

Michael Jamin:

Me.

Scott Reeder:

The first thing that they said is they call me old man, and it's like whatever's like, okay, now what? I'm an old man on TikTok that probably has more followers than you, is what I'm thinking in my head, but I never say

Michael Jamin:

It. Right. So you don't respond in any way to these people?

Scott Reeder:

I do not. I do not. I watched way too many people respond. There are some accounts out there that are more kind of vlog and they eat that up that gives them content.

Michael Jamin:

It's

Scott Reeder:

Like if someone says something snarky to 'em, they jump on it and they'll make six different videos about a guy that talked bad to him. That's just not my style.

Michael Jamin:

Engage with, you must have super fans too. Do you engage with them?

Scott Reeder:

Yeah, I try to.

Michael Jamin:

Okay. Yeah. You like a little, so every comment or some comments, because it can be overwhelming. You have a huge following.

Scott Reeder:

Well, I will keep my eyeballs on the comments on a video for a few days, but yeah, you can't keep up with it.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Scott Reeder:

Once it's been posted over a week.

Michael Jamin:

Okay, but you

Scott Reeder:

Do try to

Michael Jamin:

Respond. See, that's something I'm troubled with is then I'm spending way too much time on the app. The problem is, and I appreciate all the kind comments, but I'm like, how much time am I going to spend on this thing?

Scott Reeder:

Now?

Michael Jamin:

Are you monetizing any of this?

Scott Reeder:

I've recently been trying with the TikTok beta. Have you done creativity beta?

Michael Jamin:

So what is that?

Scott Reeder:

That's been the best thing. It's the most profitable because TikTok, I was on the, since 2020 on the creator was the standard creator plan,

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

It's more like if you do a 61 second or more video, the payoff is almost like a YouTube long form. It's really good.

Michael Jamin:

So you are actually okay, because I haven't done it yet, and I thought they may actually decrease my reach if they have to pay you. I thought my mind is they might punish you.

Scott Reeder:

To be honest, my reach went up on the longer videos.

Michael Jamin:

How long do you usually go?

Scott Reeder:

What's that?

Michael Jamin:

When you say longer? Longer than what, like three minutes or four minutes? What do you

Scott Reeder:

No, I do 61 seconds.

Michael Jamin:

That's long to you is 61 seconds.

Scott Reeder:

Well, yeah. I mean that's long to them. As you do over 60 seconds,

Michael Jamin:

It's

Scott Reeder:

A whole different payment structure. It ranges anywhere from 70 cents per thousand to a dollar, 16 per thousand views. Just that adds up.

Michael Jamin:

It adds up. Right. So you're not doing this for the money, but it's nice to get the money.

Scott Reeder:

Correct,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Scott Reeder:

Especially during a strike.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, for sure. Okay, so it's significant, but now, was there a moment though when you just wanted to stop or quit or?

Scott Reeder:

Well, there are times where I feel burnout, that's for sure.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Scott Reeder:

But I've always just kept grinding.

Michael Jamin:

What have been some surprising advantages that have come from this that you would not have guessed

Scott Reeder:

Michael? Number one, I want to say you've had the best questions out of any podcasts I've been on.

Michael Jamin:

Really?

Scott Reeder:

You really do. You really

Michael Jamin:

Enjoy

Scott Reeder:

This? So really the coolest thing to come out of it is, okay, I hate to do this. I got to go back a little bit. I was worried when I first started doing these videos that other masters in Los Angeles would think, who does this guy think he is telling them how we do our job?

Michael Jamin:

Yes.

Scott Reeder:

So I was worried. So I was kind of waiting to see if there was going to be any backlash. Well, I got a call from a prop master named Peter Clark, and he said, Hey man, I just want to let you know I've been watching your videos and I'm learning from your videos, and I really want to tell you I appreciate what you're doing. I kept, this

Michael Jamin:

Is a word respected prop master that you looked up to.

Scott Reeder:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

Wow. Go on. Yeah, go on. I cut you off. So I'm sorry.

Scott Reeder:

I had so many questions, and then I got other calls stating the same thing. Then next thing, I was invited to be a founding member of the Property Master's Guild, which it's similar to, it's not a labor union, it's similar to the Art Director's Guild or the Set Decorators Association, something like that. But there had never been one. And I came in before we opened the doors to the Guild. Here I am a guy in Texas on a founding group of prop masters. And it was,

Michael Jamin:

Isn't that amazing?

Scott Reeder:

It was truly a pinnacle of my career, really being just the biggest honor is having other prop masters that I've been idolizing for years. I just went to in July. So because of the rider's strike, all the prop trucks were parked at Independent Studio services, which is the biggest prop house in la. And so I flew out for the, we were going to have a tailgate party, and every prop master, if you were a prop master and you were in la, you were at this party. And we had prop masters coming in from Canada all over the place. And it was the funnest event. It was just absolutely amazing. But I've got to meet the guy that prop mastered Patton was there, all these retired prop masters were there. The guy that was Dennis Parrish, who was also the founder of one of the big prop houses, bill Petrada, who did Starship Troopers. Well, movie's going way back. But yeah,

Michael Jamin:

You must've been a little bit of a celebrity there must. Everyone recognized you.

Scott Reeder:

It was a little weird, but I felt I was gotten used.

Michael Jamin:

Got used to that. And so you were worried at first of being judged. And then of course that's not, I mean, that's just a lesson in and of itself. Everyone's worried about being judged about being an imposter, and now that's not what happened. But to be fair, you were staying in your lane. This is what you know, and you're talking about what you know. And so it is kind of like this unfounded fear. You didn't need to be worried, but tell me about what happens to you because it's a little bit the same thing when I'm walking on strike at the picket line at the writer's strike, I get recognized. Where else else would I get recognized? If not on a picket line on the rider's strike, that's where I would. So it is a little what happens to you when people, but you have a huge following. You must get recognized outside of these circles as well. Maybe at the supermarket, wherever

Scott Reeder:

I have, I haven't gotten used to it. I mean, it doesn't happen all the time, but occasionally.

Michael Jamin:

And then what's your way of handling this?

Scott Reeder:

Well, typically they just say, Hey, can I get a selfie? And I'll take a picture with them, and that's it. Thanks for watching my videos right's

Michael Jamin:

Funny. It's really crazy. Yeah, it's a trip. Because yeah, you're in their lives every day. They see you every day, and you're somebody special to them, and you are. You're making them laugh in 61 second increments so that you can get your payout. Now, I know when I watch your videos that I will never see one that's 59 seconds because

Scott Reeder:

You're true. Not anymore.

Michael Jamin:

You'll stretch that to 61 to get your payday.

Scott Reeder:

I will. I went back and I posted an old video that I'd done that I thought, I bet there's probably a lot of my followers that haven't seen it. And it was 59, it was 59 seconds. I went back and I always do my head turn. Now I always do my head turn at the end. I'll say my stupid joke, and then I'll ponder it. So I just slow mode my head turn.

Michael Jamin:

How much time will you spend on a post? I have a rule that How much time will you spend on a post producing a post?

Scott Reeder:

I don't time it. And they're all different because some of them, I'm doing commentary because I've done well, kind of dueting videos that I find on Instagram, typically other filmmaking videos, because I branched out a little bit to where if I see that there's no one's doing videos, discussing a poor man's process show, they'll show it, but they won't tell the audience what's going on. So they're limiting their audience, right? Like, oh, well, this is strictly for filmmakers,

Michael Jamin:

But

Scott Reeder:

When I started, I'm like, well, what they're doing here is this and this. So the prop man is over here shaking the car, and then the gaffer is spinning a light. And I just say, what all is happening in this shot?

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

Those videos have done well.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure.

Scott Reeder:

Same with stunt people. You know what I've had to worry with though, is the dangerous content violation. Because even if you're showing a clip

Michael Jamin:

Of

Scott Reeder:

A stunt from a, it could be die hard. It actually happened to me on Die Hard

Michael Jamin:

When

Scott Reeder:

I was talking about rubber glass, that that's what they walk on. And it got a sensitive content page slapped on top of it, which totally, it just pulls you off the FYP. It's just like you might as well not have even posted it.

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

So I've got to be real careful about, because even in their community guidelines, they have added in there, even fictional violence. Interesting. So if it's a movie clip, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

See, the problem with what I have to do to go viral, I have to piss people off, which I'm not comfortable doing. You have see something controversial, but you don't really have to worry about, I think you just go viral when something's truly interesting that blows people away. The secrets that you reveal. Well,

Scott Reeder:

Like I said, I'm doing that because I did a joke, it was mainly a dad joke, but I incorporated, it was about a rubber cinder block where I show that the cinder block is rubber. And I said, we use these to keep the actors from getting hurt. And I threw it at my assistant and it hits him in the head,

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

Then the camera goes to me. I'm just doing it all like this with my hand. And then off camera, he just nails me with it. At the end, after I tell the horrible punchline to the joke, he nails me with it. And I put in this, I folded in, which I like. I love doing, I'm an amateur Foley guy. I love taking the props that I have and trying to make sounds to him. Just loony tune stuff over the top. But

Michael Jamin:

In the app, it's actually hard to do that in the app. You're talking about editing sounds in the app? No.

Scott Reeder:

Yeah. I rarely edit in the app.

Michael Jamin:

Where do you edit? What do you use?

Scott Reeder:

I just use in shop. It's an app that I found that way. I'm not dealing with watermarks, and I'll just kind,

Michael Jamin:

It's called in shop.

Scott Reeder:

Yeah, I-N-S-H-O-T in shop.

Michael Jamin:

I'll write this down.

Scott Reeder:

And I think I pay maybe 99 bucks a year, but it's been worth it. Every penny and its tools are easier for me anyway. So to do, because when you do a vocal, well, it says voiceover, but you record your sound, you can move it around a lot easier.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, because a real, and then you add, when you upload it to TikTok, then you add the big captions. Is that how you or you add Well,

Scott Reeder:

Sometimes off the, I'll put 'em in. The ones in InShot kind of match the ones TikTok has.

Michael Jamin:

Maybe not,

Scott Reeder:

But it's worth giving it a shot. How funny. But that's just what I've been comfortable with.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. And you don't use because there's cap cup, you, you don't like that?

Scott Reeder:

I haven't.

Michael Jamin:

You haven't tried it?

Scott Reeder:

I haven't really tried it that much.

Michael Jamin:

See, I'm interested in whatever's the easiest. That's why I've been using shooting and TikTok and then uploading the Instagram only. It's just laziness. It's just like the less I can do, the better. But maybe your way might be better. Might be easier. I might have to look into this.

Scott Reeder:

It's worth trying. It's a pretty easy to navigate. That's why I did it was because it was easier. It was easier to navigate, I thought, than TikTok. But yeah, I just haven't gotten into cap cut.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Oh, interesting. So I'm learning something today. And so has this helped you professionally? I mean, it's nice to be recognized by your peers, but is it getting you work?

Scott Reeder:

Not really, because I've kind of been on the same gig. It's like when the strike's over, I've got a series. I've got a season four of

The show that I was working on. And so yeah, I mean, it's been, the coolest thing is showing people, and it's really a lot of kids out there. My audience is 18 to 34, probably similar to your audience. I think we probably have a lot of the same age range. It's people learning, oh wow, I didn't know that profession existed. And ooh, this is a possibility for me. Showing them that it's out there and everyone wants to know, well, how do I get in the business? And I know you get that question probably 10 times more than I get it. And you just got to be tenacious and proactive. And if there are no films shooting where you live and you want to be on a film crew, you move to somewhere that makes movies and TV shows. And it doesn't have to be just LA anymore. It could be Atlanta, it could be la Atlanta, Vancouver, North Carolina, new Orleans or New Mexico has a pretty good, you could make a living.

Michael Jamin:

Now we talked about a little bit about imposter syndrome, but was there a moment, even when, for me, in the beginning it was like, who am I? Isn't this AP just for teenage girls who might even

Scott Reeder:

Be talking,

Michael Jamin:

Who cares about me? How did you feel that way? And are you over that?

Scott Reeder:

Yeah, I think I'm kind of over it. You get to where it really thickens your skin a bit. You get to where, because some people are, like you said, there are those trolls that it doesn't matter who you are, they're going to go after. I did have one scary situation where have you dealt with any kind of stalker situations?

Michael Jamin:

No. And I hope I never do. What was your story? What

Scott Reeder:

Would you do? Well, I'm trying to be vague about it, but there was a guy got ahold of my cell phone number and was just blowing it up and then texting, leaving long messages, and I didn't call back because he didn't sound something wasn't right. And these text messages that I got worried me and I went so far as to go into, luckily with the show I was working on, I was friends with the HR lady and said, Hey, what do you, I was like, Hey, I know you've got to deal with that. Some of the actors

Michael Jamin:

Have

Scott Reeder:

This happen. What do you do?

Michael Jamin:

What'd she tell you?

Scott Reeder:

And I just really, it was almost like dealing with a troll in the sense that it got to the point where there were profane messages left because of my not responding.

Michael Jamin:

Yes.

Scott Reeder:

But eventually it ended, eventually it ended. It went on for a year, a year and a half.

Michael Jamin:

Oh my. But you didn't take any, first of all, why didn't you block them?

Scott Reeder:

I did. And they called back from a different number every time. Every time they called, it was a different number.

Michael Jamin:

And eventually they just got bored. You're saying?

Scott Reeder:

I'm hoping.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, just a nightmare.

Scott Reeder:

It really was. It was. I mean, we're talking calls at 11:00 AM 11:00 PM 2:00 AM

Michael Jamin:

What does your family think about all this?

Scott Reeder:

Well, that kind of stuff. I tried to not really worry them too much that it was happening. I mean, my wife, I told, but no, the family's great. They, they're loving it.

Michael Jamin:

They get kick it. Your kids are not embarrassed that dad's doing this. I think it's cool. They think

Scott Reeder:

It's cool. No, my son eats it up. He is 12, almost 13. And this is kind of a funny, I accidentally made him a meme. I'll tell you what, three years ago, I didn't know what the word mean meant. So that's how backward I'm, so I did a video again with the rubber cinder block saying I was making a joke that when you're a prop master, you can't p prank your kids anymore because they're desensitized to any impending doom. And so I said, Hey, Watson, my son's going by on a scooter, and it was all staged.

Michael Jamin:

And I

Scott Reeder:

Had him go by on the scooter. I say, Hey, Watson, cinder block. And I throw the cinder block and he doesn't even flinch. He just keeps moving. It bounces off of him. Right? Well, a year later, someone and the video did okay. It was pretty well received, but I wouldn't say super viral or anything, but someone took that three second snippet of me saying, Hey, Watson cinder block. And they froze it right before the cinder block hits it and it blew up. I mean, right now, if you were to type in, Hey, Watson, it'll probably finish your sentence and say Cinder block, and you'll see hundreds of videos. And then people did like fan videos. I bet there are 15 different animations of it. And there's a game in Roblox called Item Asylum. And one of the most deadly weapons in item asylum is the cinder block.

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

When you throw it, it's my voice saying, Hey, Watson, cinder block. Never got a penny for it. But I think it's funny. That's a trip. My son was very proud.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, that's

Scott Reeder:

A trick. Yeah. And then every YouTuber, I'm talking, the top YouTubers were like Wilbur Soot and Jimmy here. And a lot of these big gamer YouTubers were, there was the trend where they were doing the, you laugh, you lose videos. And that meme was in every, you laugh, you lose video

Michael Jamin:

Out

Scott Reeder:

There.

Michael Jamin:

Now you mentioned that you've done a lot of, I guess, podcast interviews. Who's reaching out to you to try to have you on their, and why? What's that about?

Scott Reeder:

Well, I've done, a lot of times it's other talkers starting podcasts. I did film festival. I did a film festival podcast last week. Prop, the Prop Masters Guild has a podcast. I did that one, but I did, Erin, what's her name? Erin McGough is her name. And she's a documentary filmmaker.

Michael Jamin:

I

Scott Reeder:

Can't remember the name of her podcast, but she's got one. I don't know. I've done quite a few now. I'm trying to remember 'em all. There have been just general podcasters out there that are just kind of general all purpose. They just go on topical things. I will say this, you know what I avoided was when rust happened, I got a ton of costs.

Michael Jamin:

I bet

Scott Reeder:

I got a ton of costs. And I kind of talked it over with my friend who's a line producer and was like, man, I don't know if I feel comfortable taking these calls. A prop master, not an armor. However, we are the ones a lot of times that hire the armors. And I was like, so basically I turned down every interview because I didn't really want to get defined by that.

Michael Jamin:

You didn't want to wait, I would think. Okay, so you didn't want to wade into the controversy and you didn't want to, what else? I mean, obviously it was a tragedy.

Scott Reeder:

Yes. I just didn't want to capitalize on it.

Michael Jamin:

You didn't want to capitalize on it. Right. That's what it was.

Scott Reeder:

Plus tie yourself to that. So if you're on CN and every major network talking about it, then you got to get connected to that. And I really didn't want to be connected to it in any way. I did one, I did a TikTok, like a three minute one talking about a couple days after it, because so many of my followers were like, come on, Scott, you got to weigh in. So I weighed in on my TikTok and YouTube and just said, well, look, I waited until the sheriff's department had put out a statement to where we kind knew what they say the events were, because the first couple days they kind of kept it hush hush. And so I read the sheriff's statement and then based what I said on that was what the protocols were, these are what the protocols that we use, and they worked. They're good protocols. That's how we've kept people safe for many years. But they breached every protocol. They broke every rule

Michael Jamin:

In the book, my

Scott Reeder:

Personal opinion. And I just said, these are the protocols that we use and this is how they performed their duties. And this is, of course, resulting in,

Michael Jamin:

Never worked on a show, worked on a show. As far as I know, I've never worked on a show with weapons, with blanks. But we did do a show where we had a dummy gun. It was a rubber gun. And I remember having to talk with the ad saying, no, let's do a safety meeting. I want to make sure people know it's a fake gun and still treat it as if it's a real gun. But I don't want anybody being scared. Let's just talk about it Anyway, I don't know. I'm overly nervous

Scott Reeder:

For sure. We always try to do safety meetings on that, even if we're using an airsoft

Michael Jamin:

Or

Scott Reeder:

A rubber gun. But I've worked with, that's the whole thing, conventional blade fire. If you're working on a lot of action films, I've been around it for the last 30 years. I don't personally like to armor, to be an armor. I prefer prop master, and I'll always bring an armor on. So no, so I'm not losing focus,

Michael Jamin:

But it's certainly a different license. You have to have to be an armorer

Scott Reeder:

In LA there,

Michael Jamin:

But

Scott Reeder:

There aren't a ton outside of la. It's just, it varies state to state.

Michael Jamin:

Right. And I can

Scott Reeder:

See, so producers really have to do their due diligence and making sure that they really check the resume and do reference checks on the person they're going to hire. That's so important with that position.

Michael Jamin:

Well, for sure. But as with the stunt board, anybody like that, anyone where someone can get hurt for sure. And so I can see you actually not wanting to be, I guess, the face of that controversy. Is that what it was?

Scott Reeder:

Oh, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah.

Scott Reeder:

And I knew that there were other people that could weigh in a lot, be more informative than I could because I'm not a, not an armor room. And there are other people better suited for that. To me, there are several prop houses out of Los Angeles that have wonderful weapons departments. And if you think about it, I think I got it from New York Times. I think the number's this since 1990, I think it's 43 deaths have occurred on film sets in the us. And this isn't because there are a lot of other ones, but if you go worldwide, but the two of them were, well, Brandon Lee was one,

Michael Jamin:

Helina,

Scott Reeder:

Hutchins was other. Those are the only two firearms related, I mean, film sets are dangerous, especially if you're on an action show where there's a lot of vehicles. Most of those deaths were equipment related or from falls, people falling off of rigging motorcycle car, but not always stunt men. A lot of them were camera operators

Michael Jamin:

That

Scott Reeder:

Got killed because they're mounted on those insert vehicles too. The camera department, they put themselves out there and put themselves in dangerous situations just as much as the stunt guys on occasion. So I have a lot of respect for all of 'em. But because it's firearms and it was a star that it's just, it really put us all prop and armor are folks under the magnifying

Michael Jamin:

Lens. Yeah, right. That's interesting.

Scott Reeder:

So you just hope that it promotes positive change. If something's going to come out of it, that's what it'll be. It's just people more aware and because of that, hopefully it kept the worst accident from happening that would've happened. Right?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. People also don't realize, because listen, I'm not on set a lot. I'm usually in the office writing, but when I'm on set, I'm like, oh my God, the crew, they work so hard. They work so hard for so long. And then at the end of the day, if you don't go over, let's say, sometimes you go over and then if you're out in the middle of the nowhere, you have to drive home or wherever you're driving to. And then you go home and you unwind, try to unwind for a second, fall asleep as fast as you can because you got to go back to work the next day. It's exhausting. It's a hard, it's not an easy life. The crew works hard.

Scott Reeder:

No, but that's where segue into Union standard policies before it was nine hour turnaround, which means from the time they call wrap or no, I think it's from the time that you shut your truck, when you actually physically leave, when you physically leave the base camp or the

Michael Jamin:

Set,

Scott Reeder:

And then you're supposed to get nine hours, nine hours isn't much nothing. Especially if you've got a 45 minute or an

Michael Jamin:

Hour

Scott Reeder:

Drive home.

Michael Jamin:

Right.

Scott Reeder:

So now I believe it's, I think it's pretty much a 10 hour turnaround across the board.

Michael Jamin:

But even that, it's like, but people don't understand. So you race home after your exhausted day and then whatever, brush your teeth or whatever, and you hope to fall asleep as fast as you can because you don't have enough. You can't waste time. And you don't know. It could be happening. Your day could end at three in the morning. You don't know what your day ends. You could have, it's true. It mean splits.

Scott Reeder:

What's rough is working on Robert Rodriguez stuff, troublemakers here in Austin, their studio, and I worked on a show called Planet Terror,

Michael Jamin:

And

Scott Reeder:

This was before Machete, but that movie was a hundred percent night shoot.

Michael Jamin:

I mean

Scott Reeder:

Every bit of it to where I might've turned that

Michael Jamin:

Down.

Scott Reeder:

Three months of working from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM and a lot of those locations being remote, an hour plus drive.

Michael Jamin:

And you knew that going in though, and you still wanted to do it.

Scott Reeder:

Yeah, I'm older and wiser now. Michael,

Michael Jamin:

You might not have done it now, right? I'm not sure I'd want to take on it. It's a hard job working, being, yeah, the graveyards too.

Scott Reeder:

And the horror movies. Horror movies are tough.

Michael Jamin:

That's a good point

Scott Reeder:

On prop people, because typically they're very proppy. There's going to be a lot of weapons,

Michael Jamin:

Lot of, and it's going to be dark,

Scott Reeder:

And it's going to be dark,

Michael Jamin:

Which

Scott Reeder:

Is a lot harder to move around and get. It's easier to hide from camera, but that's about it.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, that's about it. Wow. Scott, this is such an interesting conversation. I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I learned a lot. I want to tell everybody where they can follow you. So all your social media handles the same. Scott prop and

Scott Reeder:

Roll, Scott prop and roll. Yeah, that's TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

Michael Jamin:

Facebook and YouTube. But you said YouTube. Did you say YouTube and YouTube.

Scott Reeder:

Oh yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Okay. Go follow. It's such an interesting behind the scenes peak at, I don't know about the magic that goes and all the practical, which is so interesting. The practical, not the in-camera special effects, but the practical props and stuff. Wonderful. You have such an engaging channel, and thank you so much for putting it all out there. You're a great watch on TikTok and Instagram, so thank you again, Scott. What a pleasure

Scott Reeder:

Having you. Well, I enjoy following you. I enjoy everything you do as well.

Michael Jamin:

Thank you, man. What a pleasure. Nice talking to you. All right, buddy. Thanks so much.

So now we all know what the hell Michael Jamin is talking about. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for my free monthly webinars @michaeljamin.com/webinar. And if you found this podcast helpful or entertaining, please share it with a friend and consider leaving us a five star review on iTunes that really, really helps. For more of this, whatever the hell this is, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. And you can follow Phil Hudson on social media @ PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane and music was composed by Anthony Rizzo. And remember, you can have excuses or you can have a creative life, but you can't have both. See you next week.

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