Yes, I am certainly able to shed some light. Hollywood commissioned Dan Larson to construct 4 lutes for the "Robin Hood" movie, with Russell Crowe. The production team was very much into tiny, minute details. They wanted the Arnault lute design, but they had a different rosette from the original plans, and they sent Dan the Rose they wanted. They wanted the lutes to be very dark, grimy, non-glossy finished. So, Dan did the neck, fingerboard, pegbox out of rosewood, and the tops were a Spanish red cedar, VERY dark. They were unfinished. The company needed 2 real lutes, 2 prop lutes, in the event either one was damaged. After receiving the instruments, the team pre-grimed the instruments (after all, they were very rustic, played by people who lived out doors).
The lute(s) were played by Alan Doyle, who played the role of Alan-a-Dale. Alan Doyle is a friend of Russell Crowe, and a real musician, playing in a Canadian group, "The Great Big Sea". Alan performed,sang, and acted in the movie. While seeing these instruments in their construction phase, I can safely attest that all four lutes appeared identical in appearance, and two were real, two were props. The props were used with a strap, and they were slung over the shoulder of Alan as he rode his horse. The props were heavier constructed, a VERY think belly, reinforced with 1/2 inch plywood, were filled with Styrofoam, so they could not be easily crashed or crushed. They 2 "real" lutes were very nice, very playable, and sounded good. They wanted authentic appearing strings that look like gut , but did NOT want gut, as they were played outdoors. New nylgut had not been produced, so Dan took some white nylgut, and died the strings brown colored; interestingly enough, the dye penetrated through the entire string, not merely coating the surface) They did not want nylon, as the clear plastic would appear very out of character for the movie. The strings were brown, non-glossy. The movie business has come a long way from the days of Errol Flynn, with his flat cardboard lute used in a movie decades ago. ed At 10:27 AM 2/7/2013, Dan Winheld wrote: >I believe Dan Larson has built just such lutes for Cinema. As I >remember, they were much more "bullet proof" than a real lute, but >far, far superior to mere stage crap. Ed Martin can probably tell us more. > >Dan > >On 2/7/2013 4:18 AM, wayne cripps wrote: >>Hi - >> >> I regularly get requests from theatre people to rent a lute for >> a play. Are there regular theatre rental companies who would have >> prop lutes that a theatre company could rent? Something tough >> that looks like a lute to the audience? It seems like there must >> be a market for such a thing. >> >> Wayne >> >> >> >> >>To get on or off this list see list information at >>http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > Edward Martin 2817 East 2nd Street Duluth, Minnesota 55812 e-mail: [email protected] voice: (218) 728-1202 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1660298871&ref=name http://www.myspace.com/edslute http://magnatune.com/artists/edward_martin
