About Us

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Joseph Fisher is a retired Detective and 25 year veteran of the New York City Police Department.  During his career with the NYPD, he worked on patrol in the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan as well as working with members of the NYPD Movie and Television Unit. He served as an instructor for the Police Academy's Management Training Unit, providing in service Tactical Training for Supervisors and also wrote and instructed seminar based training. During his time as an instructor he was tasked with taking current events and relevant court decisions and turning them in to scripts for scenario based training scenarios as well as building sets and props for these training courses. 

During his time with the NYPD he was appointed to Police Commissioner William Bratton's Reengineering  Taskforce where he served on several committees overseeing changes in procedures, uniforms and equipment, tactics and patrol operations. He spent several years on special assignment assigned as an interagency liaison and operations coordinator in a department operations and incident management center.  Fisher retired as a Detective from the NYPD's Transportation Bureau in 2020 after 25 years of distinguished service with multiple awards, citations and service ribbons. 

His dedication to duty, service, safety and education remain a driving force in his safety-focused work on set. 

Joseph got a taste of the film industry at a young age when he appeared at the age of 7 in a scene with Mother Theresa in a documentary film. In his teens he revisited film making assisting several of his friends with their personal productions and projects. 

He took a job with Block Buster Video where he explored many of the classics through all of the genres and expanded his knowledge of film, techniques and behind the scenes processes while attending college.
After college and while working with the NYPD, he assisted in writing and producing several training films during his time as an instructor. This is where he began designing, building and customizing props and set pieces to be used during in-service training. These skills followed him into his military service, where he was tasked with creating replicas of real world bombs, missiles, mortars and other devices to be used during unit training for the entire base population and during training exercises throughout the country. 

Working with a tight time frame, no budget and extremely limited resources taught him how to think outside of the box and create authentic looking props from scraps and left over supplies "donated" by other units and shops. He applied the skills he mastered as a teen building and kit-bashing models in to props that are still being utilized by his old units more than 25 to 35 years later.

In 2014, his first job entering the industry as a future professional was an unpaid job as a  Props and Weapons (PA) Production Assistant. Shortly after this first film he began Cop Prop Rentals of NY to provide uniforms and police equipment to a few small films and low budget tv pilots at the request of a friend. Within the first three years working in the industry, he saw that his skills and knowledge were a perfect fit as he could provide authentic props. costumes and technical advice on set to the directors and actors on screen portraying some of NY's Finest. His easy going approach to making REEL look REAL was the basis that CPRNY was built on. With over a decade in the industry, Joe has worked in several departments on and off set including Driving PA, Prop PA, Prop Master, Art Department Assistant, Set Medic, Stunt Performer, Stunt Coordinator, Technical Advisor, Trainer, Consultant, Weapons Wrangler, and Armorer.

 In the decade since its origin, CPRNY has grown from a single rolling case of gear to a full warehouse and fabrication studio, serving everything from student films to international film studios working with over 250 films and shows to date.

In recent years as a NYS Accredited Instructor and USAF & DOD Certified Trainer, Fisher's focus returned to teaching and promoting safety on set. In addition to his work on set and in the shop, he has teamed up with other prop masters and armorers in the film community and industry to enhance safety processes and techniques on set with prop firearms. This passion for safety on set has evolved to teaching at PA Bootcamps and working with Hollywood Prop Master and Shooting Expert Dutch Merrick as an adjunct instructor for the Prop Gun Set Safety workshop. In addition to teaching, Fisher has appeared in over 75 media interviews in more than seven countries for newspapers, radio, television and other entertainment segments following the tragic series of events on the RUST film set. 

With over 30 years of professional firearms training, experience and knowledge, he is the perfect trainer to work with talent on and off the set to bring their comfort, abilities, skill level and safe handling practices when you need them to be the "Finest on film".

IMDB Profile: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8038830/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk

SAFETY ON SET IS NO ACCIDENT!