good place to get cheap props for animal house parody

[Marty Hudzik]

I have been thrown into a last minute production for a large corporation that is having a giant sales meeting in January. They typically have a theme and this year it is a "back to school" or "college" theme. They often kick off the show with a short movie (5-10 minutes max) and this year they want to use animal house as the film. This means we are working with with them to write a short script taking the funniest moments of animal house and making them fit their company. They are good at making fun of themselves and this always kicks off the 2-3 days training with a hoot.

The problem is I have been told to start gathering up props that would work in this environment. Fraternity looking props and stuff like that. I have always been the DP or the camera-man/editor. I have no knowledge of where to go for these items. We are probably going to start shooting January 2nd. So, with the holidays, I have to find some stuff quick. I am also going to be assisting on writing the scripts and producing/filiming/directing/editing most of it by myself. It is a lot to take on in a short time as I usually have worked with 2-3 other creative types with experience in all these areas and we usually split the load.

In addition this company has worked with a production company in the area in the past that has a full-time staff and studio and creative consultants plus more. They cost a lot more than what my firm is charging them but we still want to deliver a quality video for them.


Any ideas on where to find props? Any ideas on what props would work? Sorry to just throw this out there, but I have a ton of other stuff to do too and was hoping for some useful insight.

Thanks all.
Marty

[Michael Wisniewski]

How about any Goodwill, Thrift, Army Supply, or Halloween store? Golf clubs, laurels, white bed sheets, army helmets, uniforms etc.