At Vancouver’s ProShow, when a piece of audio equipment becomes outdated or no longer works, it simply switches shelves and takes on a whole new role in set decoration and props.

The company’s primary business is audio equipment rental and services, and while props rental is a small part of what they do, company president Tim Lewis sees it as an interesting little side line.

Lewis has been in the audio business for a number of years, but when Sylvester Stallone arrived in town to shoot Rambo: First Blood and the production rented audio gear from a local company to use as props, Lewis identified a new niche in the business.

While many of the props Lewis rents out are no longer useful other than to dress up a set, he will also provide decorators with fully functioning audio equipment.

Lewis says a number of productions have come to him looking for equipment to decorate police audio forensic lab sets, including one they put together to the ‘point of spoof’ for Wrongfully Accused starring Leslie Nielsen. The lab consisted of a massive, ‘completely over the top’ custom-built audio lab that fired 20 reel-to-reel machines at the same time.

When Dudley Do-Right was shooting in Vancouver, the production rented a bunch of outdoor fiberglass speaker horns, which Lewis allowed them to paint gold. Standing sets from The X-Files and Millennium are adorned with gear from ProShow. And when the director of Disturbing Behavior saw a Polaroid with the wall of bins containing the shop’s accessories in the background, he decided he wanted the entire wall for his shoot.

‘They got a truck and loaded up our whole wall of accessories,’ says Lewis. ‘We are accommodating to the film business; they’ve got the money to back up their weird requests and they are good clients.’

According to Lewis, the key to being successful in the set decoration side of his business is to be flexible, allowing set decorators to come into his shop and run rampant, take pictures and rent virtually whatever they want. And while the decorators’ main concern is getting the right look, the crew at ProShow provides the technical advice so the combination of equipment makes sense.

In an effort to further accommodate the film industry, Lewis is in the midst of putting together a color catalogue of the different gear available to the film industry.