The Safe House - Expositions

MARSHALL: OK, so, uh, hi everybody. So this is just, you know, your basic feature story, right? You go online, type type type, there it is on your screen, and oh, no sir, I wasn't looking at any pictures, no, I'm just -- anyway -- it may look like just your everyday story, but what it really does is give you the scoop on how all the gear I give you guys on "Alias" is really made.

CUT TO: Sloane giving Marshall a bemused, get-on-with-it look.

Before Marshall (Kevin Weisman) hands any bit of high-tech gadgetry to his Sydney (Jennifer Garner) or any of the other SD-6 agents on "Alias," Chris Call and Chris Redmond have to build it. They're the prop masters on ABC's spy show, and they're responsible for anything that the actors pick up or use.

Their work covers things as simple as a lipstick to intricate pieces like a centuries-old clock -- pretty much whatever the show's creator, J.J. Abrams, and writers can dream up for Sydney and Co. to use.

"We have a relationship with the writers," says Call, a 20-year veteran of the business. "They conjure up these ideas and then come to us [asking] can we do it."

More often than not, their answer is "yes." They've designed a briefcase that turns into a rocket-powered luge and two creations -- the aforementioned clock and a music box -- of Milo Rambaldi, the show's Renaissance-era Italian scientist whose ahead-of-his-time works are pursued by SD-6, the CIA and several rogue groups.

Abrams insists that, for the most part, the spy gear be at least slightly tethered to reality, which is why the show has so often used cell phones as spy equipment.

"Part of the basis for that is that they're spies, and a cell phone is an innocuous item," Redmond says. "It's going to pass scrutiny if anyone's walking around with one."

Redmond and Call have worked together on a number of feature films and TV series, including "American Pie," "Apt Pupil" and The WB's "Popular." They say they get a kick of out working on "Alias" because, despite television's accelerated production schedule compared to that of movies, they're given a chance to offer substantive input on how a prop will look or how it will work.

"One reason we got hired and why they like is us we're able to bring stuff to the table," Call says. "There's a lot of room to be involved because it's a very complicated and busy show, and they're very open to people's input."

Once they're given an idea for a prop, Call and Redmond research what it should look like, whether it has moving parts and how they'll make those parts work. Once they have a design worked out, they send it to a company called Neotek to be manufactured.

"They're the real magicians behind all this," Call says of Neotek. "The writers dream it up, we fine-tune it, and they actually make it happen. Then I bring it to the set, and Chris fixes it."

"Fixing" usually means modifying a prop to fit a last-minute change made by the writers or the director. Call and Redmond had to improvise with the Rambaldi music box featured in this season's third episode.

"They wanted a delay mechanism built in, so that basically it would magically come to life without anyone touching it," Redmond says. The problem was, they didn't design the music box to do that. "So then you get into questions of do we use monofilament [fishing line], do we drill a hole in the bottom and put some kind of lever in it, or do we tell them to [freeze the film] and then start it."

Ultimately, Redmond says, they chose the latter option, achieving the effect through editing.

There are times, though not often, that nothing will work.

"One of the things we struggle with," Call says, "is the writers will conjure up an idea, and it doesn't really have a firm basis in ... ."

"Physics or reality," Redmond finishes.

"So we work with them and say, 'It can't do this, can we do this [instead]?'" Call says. "And there's a lot of movie magic as well."

Call says he's particularly proud of the Rambaldi devices he's worked on, but he's as much "in the dark" as the next person about what their significance is.

"I try not to think about it too much, because I know once I figure it out, they'll throw another twist my way," he says. "That's one of the beauties of the show -- it really keeps you on your feet."

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