Systainers Behind the Scenes of Project Hail Mary

Film Production, Systainer Stack, Mobile Workshop, Anthracite Systainer, Light Grey Systainer, Systainer³ Organizer M, Systainer³ Sortainer, Systainer³ Combi, Systainer³ M 337, Systainer³ M 187

A film prop shop is a workshop with no fixed address. The crew is handed an empty building, turns it into a mold room, a paint room and a model shop, builds a movie’s worth of hardware, and then packs it all up for the next job.

Screenshot from Adam Savage Visits Project Hail Mary’s Props Department! by Adam Savage’s Tested.

Adam Savage’s Tested went behind the scenes of Project Hail Mary, and in the props department tour Steve, who runs the prop shop, describes exactly that life:

So we go from job to job depending on where we are in the world. You name it, we do it under one roof.

Adam’s reply is the one every shop-on-wheels owner will recognize:

I build everything in my shop on wheels just because I like the idea of being mobile, but I’m amazed that you actually are mobile.

What is behind Nico

Systainers are the background workers of the prop shop. In the mold room, mold maker Nico Zarcone walks Adam through clear silicone box molds for a production that needed, in his words, “hundreds” of them. Behind him are two stacks of Anthracite systainers. They are probably his personal stacks, as he has labeled them with his name.

Reading the stacks from the top:

Systainer³ Organizers with the lids up, working as open parts trays at bench height
A Systainer³ M 337 and a Systainer³ Combi for the bulkier kit
Systainer³ Sortainers at the bottom, every drawer labeled

The frame cuts off before the floor, so whether they ride on a SYS-RB Cart is a guess. For a shop that moves with every film, it would make sense.

And under the bench

Screenshot from How Rocky’s Models Were Made for Project Hail Mary by Adam Savage’s Tested.

In the second video, art director Tim Browning shows how the alien Rocky’s handmade models were developed. In the background, on the lower shelf of a shop-built bench, sits a pair of Light Grey Systainer³ M 187s.

Both videos are worth the watch for the prop making alone. Spotting the systainers is a bonus.

One system. For everything. For everyone.
Systainer USA.