Making Props Look Old

"Why are those bowls sitting outside in the snow?"

Don't think that you're the first person to ask that question... They are there because... well, they're being distressed.

Our feature film, Under Jakob's Ladder, is set in the Soviet Union in 1941. Which means we need to get props and set pieces that look like they belong to that time period. In other words, they need to look well-used. (It's not like Jakob and his pals had Walmart on every corner.)

We recently picked up these wooden bowls. Problem; they look a little too new! So, how to make a new item look old?

Let them sit out in the rain... lie under a blanket of snow... be weathered by the sun...

Then comes a rasp and file and all sorts of grades of sandpaper.

After all this distressing, these bowls will soon look like the real thing...