Prop Master Joshua Bramer Is On Sides of The Internet You Haven't Even Heard Of

For property master Joshua Bramer, every film or television project requires learning a new trade… or two or three. The critically-acclaimed guild member exists as a sort of cinematic puppeteer, pulling the strings offscreen to ensure that all physical objects on screen appear true to life. “I handle everything that an actor physically touches with their hands,” Bramer often says when explaining his job to the general public. In the case of the last season of “Euphoria,” “everything” included DEA-approved narcotics to taxidermy snakes and OnlyFans paraphernalia. “Ninety percent of the time [my job] feels like fun and ten percent feels like work,” Bramer says. 

Bramer discovered his love for the film industry while helping out around the set of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” in and around his hometown of Ossowo, Michigan. “I was just handing out water bottles and sorting through a million Legos to make a kids' room, but it was so magical,” Bramer says. At the time, Hollywood existed to Bramer as a sort of mythical movie oasis, so seeing California license plates fill the streets of his hometown felt surreal. Fast forward 20 years later and he has now worked on the likes of "Don't Worry Darling” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” accumulating a trailer full of treasures along the way.

After graduating from the Los Angeles Film School and working as an art department PA, Bramer was funneled into the production design path and “the rest is history.” In the beginning, Bramer started working on low-budget projects, adopting a ‘just say yes’ philosophy. “I always wanted to keep working and even if I didn't know how to [make a prop], I still tried,” Bramer says. “I felt like somebody was going to pull my mask off and be like, ‘Aha, we knew you were an imposter,’ but it never happened.” 

Bramer's TikTok page houses behind-the-scenes footage from the prop master’s projects, including Maddy Perez’s birthday party in “Euphoria” season two and the infamous hotdog hands in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The account has garnered over 10 million likes by providing viewers a peek behind the curtain of their favorite movie magic tricks. One of the most common inquiries in his comment section is “how can I get your job,” a question to which Bramer has no real answer. “It was go and take the path that leads into the dark forest or go down the sunny path,” Bramer says when describing his career trajectory post-college, “I chose the dark path and didn't know where I was going. It was scary, but I'm very glad I chose that path.” 

The most important aspect of Bramer’s job is troubleshooting unprecedented tasks, like packaging fake fentanyl in condoms or manufacturing IRS documents. The type of stuff you wouldn’t want in your Google search history. On the set of “Everything Everywhere All at Once”—a project brimming with 237 oddball props—Bramer recalls the thrill of impromptu prop development. One of the prop master’s greatest achievements on the film ended up being his last-minute prop: a giant cosplay gun for Jobu. “I put a pin in [developing] that cosplay weapon at some point and I totally forgot about it,” Bramer says. “And then [the Daniels] were like, ‘Josh, do you have that cosplay weapon that we talked about in prep?’ and I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll go grab it. It's in my office,’ Bramer recalls. Back in the office, there was no such gun, only fake ax handles, cardboard, and a mounting sense of doom. “My assistant Rafael was like, ‘You're overthinking this right now.’ So he goes to Target, buys like six squirt guns, and starts dismantling them and then putting them together to make one giant long gun,” Bramer says. “It looked so good and we ended up giving it to our on-set paint person who painted it black and silver to make it look tarnished and then I added a couple of blinking LEDs on it,” Bramer says. Still wet, Bramer brought the gun to set and it made the final cut. 

When it came to the infamous fentanyl balloons in the pilot of “Euphoria” season three, Bramer went heavy into the “research” phase of R&D, consulting a retired DEA agent Bill Bodner to get the optics as accurate as possible. “As soon as I found a reference photo that I loved, I'd show it to Bill and [he’d] be like, ‘Yeah, we've seen a lot of those.’” Bramer says. To achieve the look of the fentanyl mozzarella balls that made it on screen, Bramer wrapped condoms around half-flour half-air dry foam clay servings, creating a prototype of the drug that could sink and float in water using a mung fruit thickener in lieu of KY jelly. 

“I get to learn a new trade or skill [for] almost every single job I do… "It's almost like its own school,” Bramer says. “I think that's why we're called property masters, because we have to master every prop.”