Brad Elliott

This article is about the propmaster. You may be looking for the puppeteer.

Brad Elliott was the property master for the Obi-Wan Kenobi television series. Elliott and his team worked on several props for the series, including Inquisitor lightsabers, Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber, wupiupi coins, a power hammer, a thermal detonator, spice canisters, Tala Durith's holster, and a scomp link for the cargo transport shuttle.

Biography[]

Brad Elliott first saw Star Wars when he was six years old and he walked out of the movie theater in awe.^[2] Elliott was the propmaster for the Obi-Wan Kenobi television series.^[3] For preparation, he rewatched all of the movies that took place before Obi-Wan Kenobi to acquire a deeper understanding of the aesthetic that the series would be evolving from. This helped reframe his interpretation of legacy props such as Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber. Elliott used the resources provided by^[2] Lucasfilm creative executive^[3] Pablo Hidalgo and he constantly referred to the works of Ralph McQuarrie for inspiration. He relied heavily on the same techniques the prop builders used in Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. His team used pieces from the 1920s through the 1960s to ensure that the props felt like they belonged in Star Wars. Elliott and his team were led by executive producer and director Deborah Chow.^[2]

In an early meeting with Chow and Dave Filoni to discuss translating the animated Inquisitor lightsabers into realistic props, Filoni advised the propmaster to imagine the live-action came first, and the animated material was an exaggerated version of that. This allowed Elliott to keep the form factor of the props established in animation and to bring them in line with props made for human hands. All four Inquisitor lightsabers were shifted to accommodate the actors portraying the roles, including Rupert Friend and Sung Kang. Elliott and his team were careful to minimize the more fragile looking parts of the animated designs and they made sure that the size of the rings and handles would fit their intended character.^[2] Elliott said that Kenobi's lightsaber was the trickiest thing for his team to figure out because the lightsaber from Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith differed in many details from the lightsaber seen in A New Hope.^[3]

During creation of wupiupi props, Elliott's team only had one image for reference from Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace, which showed that the coin is slightly larger than an American half dollar. Deborah Chow worried that the size was too large for swift hand-to-hand transactions, so the coins were scaled down slightly with the same art as the first design. Elliott and Pablo Hidalgo discussed the coins' look and their proper conversion rate with truguts and credits. This allowed the two to figure out the cost of some common goods in Star Wars and a minimum wage for the whale-carving station that Obi-Wan Kenobi worked at. It was decided that a full shift paid one trugut and three wupiupi.^[3] The team made at least four prop coins which were made to look very detailed.^[4]

The script described NED-B's hammer as a power hammer. Elliott wasn't sure what that meant, so he took design inspiration from the guards on Jabba the Hutt's skiff. He added a similar looking power unit and some rigid tubing to suggest that it creates extra impact with a power assist. The thermal detonator used by Tala Durith took inspiration from the one held by Leia Organa in Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. Elliott bought a Master Replicas thermal detonator and then dismantled it. The propmaster's team rewired the electronics to behave the way Chow wanted it to work in the series. Elliott found that using real merchandise was more efficient than having to resculpt, remold, and repaint something new. The spice canisters were crafted in the same shape and style as Jabba the Hutt's hookah pipe. Elliott said that the idea was that there is a pressurized canister that vents the spice when a button is pushed.^[5]

The propmakers were assigned with designing a holster that could fit young Leia Organa and the adult Tala Durith. Elliott found this to be challenging because of the actors' height differences and it had to hold Lola, Organa's droid, and Durith's blaster. Durith's holster was designed as a drop holster. For Organa, the team took the drop portion off of the gun belt and it fit her perfectly. To fill the space needed to accommodate Lola, a Han Solo-style scope was added to Durith's blaster. Elliott said it was very satisfying when the holster ended up working. In the series' script, the cargo transport shuttle was described as an automated transport, so Elliott decided it was illogical to have a launch key designed for humans. The team decided to use a rigged scomp link computer interface device that had its own circuit board to simulate what an astromech droid would use to start the transport's launch sequence and program the route.^[5]

Filmography[]

Year	Title	Series	Contribution(s)
2022	"Part I"	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Property Master^[1]
2022	"Part II"	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Property Master^[6]
2022	"Part III"	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Property Master^[7]
2022	"Part IV"	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Property Master^[8]
2022	"Part V"	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Property Master^[9]
2022	"Part VI"	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Property Master^[10]