Atlanta prop house becomes vital part of multiple Georgia productions
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - An iconic movie prop is often one of the first things that comes to mind when referencing a particular film. Without them, some productions would fall flat.
LCW Props in Atlanta has become a go-to shop for filmmakers in the area since 2016.
Luke Zoeller, vice president of LCW Props, says the company was birthed 25 years ago in California as a recycling business.
“We would just acquire props and things that turned into props,” Zoeller said. “Soon enough, movie studios started coming by asking to rent that stuff and we became a prop house.”
After shipping props back and forth for years to the Hollywood of the South, Zoeller said he noticed a need to expand.
“It just became a situation where we felt we could have a brick-and-mortar place here and just centralize everything here for the East Coast,” he said.
In Atlanta, you’ll find most prop houses are known for housing furniture, weapons, rocks and some larger movable items not directly built into the set. LCW decided to take a different approach in the industry.
“We have a lot of working robotic type stuff, big stuff that lights and blinks and moves,” Zoeller said.
From server racks to high-tech labs, these props take anywhere from a few days to a month to build.
For Georgia-made films like Marvel Studios’ “Avengers: Endgame” and shows like Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and “Ozark,” the production designer and set decorator stops by LCW’s 60,000-square-foot warehouse to make a vision come to life.
“They build the set from props here, work with their own departments, then that’s how the sets get created,” Zoeller said. “We get asked to build something that definitely doesn’t exist — a large martini glasses where models can sit in, just about anything you can imagine.”
Assembly Atlanta, owned by Atlanta News First’s parent company Gray Television, will soon open nearly 350,000 square feet of sound stage space. With infrastructure growing to support the Peach State’s thriving film industry, Zoeller says LCW isn’t going anywhere.
“You have coastal, mountains, you have forests and inner city,” Zoeller said. “You can shoot just about any background in Georgia.”
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