66
SPOTLIGHT
by Jana F. Brown
here’s a moment in the trailer of the
Robert Redford movie
The Conspirator
when Mary Surratt, the lone female
charged in the assassination plot of
Abraham Lincoln, is led toward the gal-
lows, from which she was hanged in 1865.
It’s a pivotal moment in the film, and one
of which John Bankson ’81 is quite proud.
Bankson did not script the moment,
but in his specialized role on a set, he
comes to know the characters intimately.
A prime example is the clip of Mary Sur-
ratt’s long march toward her death, which
shows a hand opening a parasol in the
searing July heat.
“We put real period oil cloth on the
umbrella,” explains Bankson. “You can see
the warp in the fabric. It’s a detail I kept
pushing and one of which I am so proud.”
Bankson is all about the details. By
trade, he has to be. While his official title
is property master on the sets of the
dozens of film and television sets on
which he has worked, Bankson is really
the characters’ closest confidante and,
therefore, an actor’s best friend. It’s up
to him to know what type of glasses a
character would wear, his or her beverage
of choice, what objects would surround
this individual. “You have to look at every
character and ask: What is the backstory?
What pen does he use? What would he
wear? Is this a backpack guy or a brief-
case guy?” Bankson explains.
T
The anatomy of
scuba gear
for John eaves
version A with hoses
version A2 side view
version A with hoses
version A2 with visor
“My job is to create the physical envi-
ronment that the actors use and touch,”
adds Bankson, whose introduction to the
film industry came in 1985, when he was
hired as actor Dennis Hopper’s driver on
the set of the cult classic
Blue Velvet
. “If
you need a surface-to-air missile or a
turkey feather, or anything in between,
it’s my job to find it.”
Bankson left his life in North Carolina
for 13 years to set up shop in Los Angeles,
his home base for a number of projects.
In the recent film
Journey 2: The Mysteri-
ous Island
, Bankson worked to reproduce
Jules Verne’s weathered-looking note-
book, filling it with the author’s sche-
matics along with Leonardo da Vinci
drawings. He also fabricated 1880s dive
gear and a period harpoon for the movie’s
star, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
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