MythBuster Adam Savage's Colossal Failures

for a TV the world is thinking thank you for coming to maker's faire. here's adam savage. how are you guys doing? hi. can everyone hear me in the back now all right how many how many tweeps are here twitter people AW I love it that's great ok so I gave a warning that I was gonna come here and talk about failure and I've been thinking about this talk for a few weeks I haven't done that at all I'm I'm I'm pretty much know how I'm going to begin it and I'm pretty much know how I'm going to end it the whole middle part I'm winging we say on the show and I came up with this phrase failure is always an option and we put it on our hats and we talked about it in a very serious way that a lot of people think of science as this thing that well the thing a bit like Saturday morning cartoons like the scientists sets up his experiment and then says darn my experiment was a failure or my experiment was a success the more we like to talk about on the show is that science is a work like that there's not a failure or success because of scientists is no preconceived notion of how they want the extremity turnout they just want data so as long as the term reveals data it's a good experiment and we take very seriously we tell stories that we do on Mythbusters about how things work that's not the kind of failure I wanted to talk about a lot of people will tell you that failure is really important way that we learn on I don't know and I don't know if I've ever heard really good juicy disturbing stories about how much people have failed that's what I would tell you about I'm in my life in my history I have screwed up the innumerable amounts of times just actually I've been down I've been teaching myself some magic tricks lately I've been teaching this awesome cards and some coin coin magic and just yesterday I work two nights ago I was practising the stricken my hotel room in Angels camp in yesterday I took the trek out to make it right to it for my producer and I'd mess it up and I felt awful but like I was twelve years old so I'm still going to the whole process spring up all the time but a wonderfully a couple of grand stories about it after I left working for Jamie high demand read about nineteen ninety six ninety seven I would work for toy company called primordial that made the building toys too and I spent about a year working for them but I was making anything there and actually was the turning point for me because they realize that managing this department a party for a toy company which seemed like such a perfect fit for me to an involved enough making all the makings for me to stay fascinated by it so I gave notice I found a replacement and I quit and then I started calling industrial light Magic I called them probably twice a week for four months I had a lot of friends working up there I just kept on hammering with every contact I had and eventually I got tired and it was like going to happen it really was about how life is pictured ever since I was twelve years old and saw Star Wars I decided I wanted to work on special effects movies and amazingly I was working on Star Wars and I think is is that getting up there was still amazing because I had already run myself through these trenches of working in commercials working on really tight deadline to when I got there I was ready I was working with these people who are my heroes who incredible wealth of knowledge that all these people had and there was a tremendous amount of sharing of knowledge was a lovely lovely place to work and as a freelancer and that's really what you are when you work in a commercial or special effects film industry you're always a freelancer there are no permanent jobs which means that you are always wondering what's next but he going to do what he's going to do what's that you know you might have worked for three weeks we got lucky on that ship a keynote next month's rent as well so in the freelance mindset you're always trying to line up extra jobs in Thailand they called and she jobs government jobs created jobs and one of the really nice benefits of spending time up with a desolate magic was all the sudden as a freelancer when people heard that I were to Thailand they just hired just given me money to do stuff as I work to the weather was good enough for them to the BBC resume the BBC website in the interview we saw the sign ups like I was cool and I think the Sabine somewhere in late nineteen ninety nine I got a call from my friend and he said they get this job that everyone else is said to still have turned down it was very lucrative was working for a department store I'm doing a window display at the new ballpark was opening and they wanted the window display that was at a baseball the patched up in over a fence repeatedly for weeks and I thought I thought it through and he said he said it was like a Monday when he called me the one that is installed on that Saturday and eight I mean you know you you know you call up bass lines the Rushdie is double and I knew that if this department stores looking for someone to build this mechanical device into their window in this mode of time that you know this is gonna be very lucrative so I started talking with them about what they want and I started actually do some research on my own and think about how I was going to do it I figured you know this actually could be pretty simple you know maybe I just put a pension wishing on the ground of the pitchers in baseball up and over the school fence I catch it I reciprocated back to the eye to the pitching machine and I just keep on going up on I get a job out how it will first I just did it how why would you know I said Wells to take me probably six days of work I'm in a compressed that in tough five days seven until this hurt a bit surprised some in the Dublin it still didn't feel actually so there's two ways to get jobs one ways to get it done your hourly rate and then there's actually we debated on them nope the freelancers like that with the market will bear and when the department store need something on Saturday and elders don't want the money on the table especially as a freelancer so I added another thirty percent of the day and now this felt like a really big fat cat job that was going to both enjoy and you know get a new laptop out so I started doing it and I started down the path of going to the space to inspect and what they showed me was actually the space was buried diabolical in terms of installing into the reason for that was only seven inches high it was six feet wide and the space itself was seven feet high by Texas based ball almost all desperately and then did it once it went down behind I had this seven inch high this stage that I had to let the ball ran down on so I went to the harbor store night I set this up in my shop and I got some PVC too I got down post and I got a lot of spandex make this big basket back behind the baseball fan so that when the ball went hiking with both stop and the deal would find its way down now they're treated using those the sculptures in the airport swear that the balls reciprocate down the tracks all of that there's a reason that they used to wires to transfer a ball down the line that I didn't know you'd think that I might do the same thing but it doesn't what happens when you start to run the ball down around height is that instead of just rolling St down if it's a thing or something he can build this little oscillation which makes it not wanna roll down the Pike in any kind of time that makes sense to you or is actually useful but figured that was probably saw the ball so maybe I just use one baseball that is reciprocated shoots every email every few minutes I went to the elected big five sporting goods the Buckeyes relatively professional level pitching machines which were around there about three hundred bucks apiece and all the one in three of these things so I set up I've set up three of them and I went to Granger and I I manage to find all this lovely stuff creature has these lovely little tighter relays in which you can set the time that something gets it and set the time it sends unlike tools that allow the diesel arrows worked beautifully I type well did a little oval track to guide the ball towards the baseball pitching machine with a final last year and shoved it into the pitching machine at the last minute pop in over the fence my first that this was magnificent work work ten times in a row fifteen times in a row twenty times in a row twenty fifth time the small and light the song not over the fence and I thought that's why so I started going back in investigating why was doing that one was I was having trouble getting the the tasteless reciprocate correctly because they were taking too long to get down then the internets be this actual problem was having its overriding the three pigs machines in the same circuit and one when the train on the pitching machine from grabbing the ball and throwing it was such that the other two machines would slow down only like ten rpm but that was enough to actually change the trajectory of the ball again I thought maybe I can time these that they don't always go to seem time it right doing this at some point we'll this is also a member when when when when the home Depot is open twenty four hours a day I would I was I I didn't sleep from Wednesday morning until Saturday when I started installing sink into the department's for Windows I was one of the worst all nighters double all nighters I've never pulled and I was at home Depot at like two am four am seven am if days on end um I finally managed to get all of the stuff down to the department store Pickering and I'm gonna make this work by hook or by carcass that's what gotten worse with the street hell I work and just like magic I'll be able to make this work and I start installing a bit like seven am on Saturday morning and at four pm I said to him everything with ice are running an air compressor into the back of the PTC the local balls down under the states to get there when I get their trip that defends little higher than they told me I don't have as much space that actually got this market I'm kind of got a hit um later I found out well I explained that the minute of it at four o'clock on Saturday after his ruling ruling ruling he'll try to work out and might I point out that this two pockets for treats everyone who works there isn't contractors like thieves but you have your bags searched going in and leaving even someone who's installing stuff in their windows that feels great on I am over this is the other part bright bright idea to start so I had his point eight month old twins and Maya mother was coming into town that afternoon and so was my sister and I hadn't seen my wife or my twins at that point is this I've just been working around the clock I figure it's okay loves reading ability of the tube is four o'clock rolls around my bus arrived here provides pick them up my nose is all happening in like this job isn't working like giving me a fortune to do this and I've never been in this position but it's not going to happen on and they come to really say what how's it going to miss it it's not gonna work and they were like why and I say this is something to work in the city what are you gonna do about it now I have gone through all these things in my head I thought through a whole bunch of different permutations and I said well first I thought about what I'd say to this question which was in the next half hour under the present due to plants to alternative plants you will choose one and I will deliver it by tomorrow morning at eight am and they said ok so it's good that sounds good now I'm starting to think about how much of this money I'm willing to give back because I haven't delivered on this job and I'm starting to think I have actually earned a certain amount of this money on the other cute just like Boston massacre to it but guilt by all rights if we ask for a punch back I'm going to give them a bunch that but that plan B that the week that we do we work out is that the players are not going to be a bomb attached to a piece of mana filament which is just something meals reciprocate snowballs to be slowly moving up and then coming back down slowly moving up and coming back to a much more straightforward rate I go back home oh and so there's my wife wrangling the eight month old twins and my mom's in town sitting at the table the glass of wine says on it so hard for Adam heading to work so hard she says this to her daughter already doing the twins and my sister says you know Adam's wife is working with it with my monthly calendar but he's doing real work yes in the August break she was here last year so with all the stress I've managed to deliver to them the plan B and I am thinking I mean I just feel hopeful I've never been in this position of not being able to deliver something really scoring and I can be like well at any rate so I did manage to build reciprocating week I get it installed their head of all displaying comes into town takes a look at and says this window is great those calls on the strings to my delight and they come to me in the state has no sleep the whole really nice to get OT what the techno or two we just gotta send it to your house and I'm thinking you can ask me I'm ready to give you back half I'm ready to give you back with three quarters and they didn't ask for know this sounds like a doctor working for this on which you can look at it like that but I wanna point out that one of the things I got out of this the next tour is much worse what I think the guy that this was that I probably should've taken note that the very first thing Bennett said to me which was his job that everyone else to turn down on later I learned that there are actually some really interesting aerodynamics of skiers moving through here at slower speeds could actually pass a certain speed their trajectory can be plotted than predicted really accurately but below a certain speed it becomes really a rock so not only did I have the problem of the rpm to the pitching machine slowing down to deal with but also the fact that because they were being considered very very low speed these victories were having his boss had to go over that fence it one every thirty seconds for six weeks so even if I got at one time out if I lost one ball out of five hundred the machine would be empty by the end of the day none of these things with things that I have really thought through as soon as significant problems when I started this job um but there is a much bigger struck back and in the early part of my career um I went to New York University in nineteen eighty five actually spend six months in the drama program and then I trot down it's kind of a family chip on the shoulder um I I thought I was falling in my dad's footsteps by not going to college I was not for the same reasons and I I'd meet many of the friends I still have many my best friends I've made them there in those six months and most of them went and white film school so I spent the week huge portion of their five years he lived in New York getting tons of years that's NYU film education by working on all of their films and my very best friend even more alert ahead of this wonderful tsp Masters senior thesis film called gargoyle in common with all the special effects and we had all these events years to film them in hell he's abandoned Peters and buildings in Times Square in Manhattan this is grandmother was a shield all the male part Peterson the towns we have endless amounts of real estate to film in and it was really amazing time and again I was at this point where I had just finished our turkey was really big film for him I was sixteen night shoots all in a row crew was sleeping all the same dormitory and I felt like I felt like this is something I really could do I ever tried not to speak before the cure was like I could do this and my friend Gabby the back then in our crowd you know when you like eighteen nineteen the cut and run with sleek everybody it's very removable thing ever was and it usually ends up going out with everybody else at some point in the many years guys traveling around together and I had this very special a stupid cabbie who was a film student as well Gabby is a really really close friends almost romantic but not quite that it was a very very like important emotional connection we had and she said she'd been asked to produce this kid's senior thesis film it saved up all summer he liked worked all summer long and lived with his parents unlike Peoria in order to raise the money to make this film and he wanted to be he wanted to film about an ATM machine that talks about a guy with a back to pack and she asked me if I was willing to our trek that they only have this budget eight hundred and fifty dollars to our trek and I thought at that time a particular seem like a massive amount of money to do something like this on so I hide I said absolutely I can do this the dark alone Goblin I can do yourself what's going to take but we gotta find a space that we can build this ATM machine in it turned out with friend Dave's house out in Brooklyn was perfect yet this room that nobody used in this big house on the only problem was that the carpeted floors and we'd ever seen any tea on the carpeted floors but no worries because these and they make piece of sticky floor tiles that we can just write down so I typed the floor tile and carpet I walked out for a couple minutes to kill the backup I can feel the residue I thought that spring has covered the floor with the sticky floor tiles I will build the ATM machine on top of that and I had no experience building sets for flats except that sets in flats and I had seen being built when I was in high school so high I'd win got a bunch of one by three inch pie in the budget and is a staple gun and I began to make and this last week made the feeder in a meeting of two to wall in the wall in this ATM machine and then he came time to go right ahead and paint so I was actually a base coat it and then they said they have a couple guys in a while I was working on the ATM machine part and this is again they have a situation where the thing I thought was going to be simple Trinity a lot more complicated the ATM machine which can fall in obesity they had some cake of one of their friends with the computer who could make the team ATM machine interface the all I had to make this glass fronted the computer to go up behind a note card reader for the year for this thing for the car going Dixie really simple like this said except that I can I spent like sixty up sleeping attempting to make this ATM machine working at the point at which we got onto the set in Brooklyn and I'm going back and forth to set in Brooklyn which is like twelve blocks from the nearest subway station so every time I'm going to hire circuit get when I'm walking twelve blocks past is always skier practising the saxophone some were locals very weird and romantic I'm getting to the set working alone coming back to my place in Midtown and trying to work on the CTMH even then it turns out like that I'm using starts crazy and cracking and I've got a scrape it off and start again and then the plexiglass which is the last eight dollars I spent this piece of plexiglass cracks but figured no worries to take him fishing maybe to get her to find a topic that the practice should be there or something like that and I keep on going to keep on going to finally show up on Friday afternoon the crew is showing up there to film all weekend long and the sex but don't know like where that where the hell is the satellite was almost also has problems running around trying to take care of everything I should point out that in these jobs I didn't ask for anybody's help that's another problem I'm running around and I didn't know for the village sixty hours so I'm every bit as coaches you could imagine I'd be the frazzled I'm sweaty I feel terrible I feel really bad happened in this situation began I'm not spinning too much time feeling bad because well it's time to get the job done I'm trying to teach him the scene in which there's other things that need to be dealt with I haven't spoken to other people about these people is to interface with the flats themselves look terrible they spent all this time the pop up in Brooklyn in the water and they got folds in them which don't look very wall like at all at one point this crew member says to me do you know what you're doing and I thought that maybe line from Raiders of the lost Ark with the appropriate here and I said I don't know I'm making this up to go on and it was clear that Mike Jones missed its mark as he put his hand on my shoulder and said go home we no longer need your help here and I went home and my eyes I thought I felt that I felt really bad um and I'm Monday morning I went to pick up point two lbs from the house featuring the shot all weekend long you if there was no doubt on Sunday I think that they didn't want me there I was wrong by the way and they were so angry that I wasn't there tell you how angry they were I went and got like schools and where my tool box was was a note that said we have your tools yet now I called the Addy and again remember I said Gabby and I were very close I called dad being dad he said I noticed is the audits on not to use the curses but to get busy with the key to put it into the meat I trusted you I trusted you did to live for this thing and you spend eight hundred and fifty dollars money that this tiny working in a convenience store like four dollars an hour he spend his hard earned money I want you to come here right now account for every fucking penny that you spend I currently don't see it and if there was I kidding actually chills them but to say this she said in the worst thing I've ever heard someone say to me to say that there was any way you could convince me that you were not worth being friends with you've done and I'm a guy hung up the phone a Nicole a great dad and I too started crying in the fall on my designs I've never felt worse in my whole life plus a friend I mean it and scope of jobs lost friend and I could honestly care member what he said I hope I don't remember anything like that said except ever with the sound was very soothing and I do remember one of the concepts that he said the point was there's nothing you can do except on up to it and apologize hands note that you know you don't kid yourself into this situation again that's all you can do you cannot fix it he cannot make it right then you might not be able to recover this friendship so I went to I went to get down and out astonishingly managed to account for every penny in the budget I had all the receipts I don't like to this day I don't know how that works the giving the level of like the chapel train I had no idea how I counted for every penny but I can and then have the set up the crew is in the room next door and they'd like to speak with you not the team is going to be like this and I'm thinking this could be like animal House for the guy opens the doors with Hutchison in the face in the kitchen when he's down and the way I feel that would be a relief the way I feel I'm thinking as I'm opening this door this is what I want to see how bad I feel I want these guys to beat the crap out of me for how awful I feel instead I open the door on the room that is and I'm not exaggerating at all is a dark room with me like the entire group twenty guys surrounding the perimeter of the room in tears and fears of terror the middle of the room and there is a spotlight on the chair and obviously this goes through my head well at least now it makes a good story and so I go to my blog I sit down in the chair has not already know ok and the director pulls out his pad of paper and he starts going through this list of everything that I screwed up I mean he's really taken the time piece by piece moment by moment to have spiked asked to list out everything I said I would do that didn't get to and from everything that you couldn't pay me to model I should have demonstrated to a meeting we should have had two from college to make and each list item he demonstrates a crew member from the perimeter of the remotest yet at that really piss me off too they're they're they're they're they're acting in their and their two cents to add insult to injury when they were loaded down I was all the way across town having a date and they found out like it seemed like I was so happily are of course I was just writing for my problem was writing for my troubles attempting to us watch them with a woman which is a bad idea agents most of the time anyway Debbie they spent about forty five minutes taking me through this chore of of what I had time and in a way it was incredibly too far it was it allowed me to really take it in and allowed me to actually when they finish face it you have anything you wanna say and I said honestly what can I say I knew I didn't dare is not so there's nothing that humans are absolutely hundred percent right I get done this a terrible thing I cannot fix it I cannot make it right I can't get you back your money to give you back to film and I'm deeply deeply profoundly sorry that I've done this to you and I know that that means that that in and of itself also means nothing and for that too I'm so sorry I'm like three metal also sorry I didn't say it like that on them now what I get out of that well I did so about a year later my friend Mia who's an editor in Hollywood she called me up and said that the storyboard artist Gary pronounce or toward us in Hollywood was going to direct his first short film and is looking for an art director sin is death balsam iron he's a wonderful artist and I went had a meeting with him he showed me this beautiful Ikea for film and it's wonderful said he wanted to build a kid who gets so angry his room leaves the building he lives in action shots itself through the wall and I said this looks like a lovely thing to build but I couldn't take this job on the loan and I looked at this look of shock besides this I can keep I think Mia had represented the ism addicted to this job and as I can I could take this job I couldn't take responsibility for this job soley I'd meet someone someone to work with me on it he said well ok people to look for someone else now I lost the job had a headache say how I got my job my life but it turned out very differently I felt very good in that meeting lead in the job go knowing what I know about my knee resistance to ask for help I think there was a situation which has presented as something that was more than I could chew and I'd turned it down and that forever feel good about that decision but so these things these two failures they are deeply important parts my character there's not a job that I do that I don't think back to something that happened on each of those two chops when I feel like I've stirred something up and I mean it's happened on the show dozens and dozens of times hmm I'd like that feeling I feel goes right back to that feeling I fill in guy told me that I was no longer her friend I feel bad that sometimes bad about messing things up that's also what makes me what I do that that's a really important part and if I had not gone down those paths to screw up I would not be enjoying the lights and I'm enjoying I had to screw up those jobs those were frightened for me to do on I thought this analogy everyone with kids knows that you give the kid a roll and they're going to break it to give them a Belgian again a push up against it and has a lovely way of describing the key remember where I read it that said kids are just trying to figure out the shape of the world the pics of them like a blind person in a room they're just going up against the wall to wall is the pantry except for that the trying to figure out the shape of the world but dang it into the boundaries to present which is why kids that don't get people's get so freaked out the world's doesn't have the shape to it I believe this I think actually that the kind of failures that we end up doing professionally as adults are just like that I mean for me it's not the shape of the world but figuring out the shape of my intuition it's the shape of my ability to think for the worse case scenario to figure out exactly how I'm going to circumvent it it's the problems I don't know we're going to occur but I can smell them in the distance because because of certain flavor that I paid attention to before one a really messed something up so what I wanted to share with this was not just to say I failed more than I succeeded in so you know don't be afraid to go ahead and tried things that you might screw up that I wanted to point out by telling this unvarnished these these two jobs were a hundred percent my fault I couldn't ask for help I can have the resources that didn't have the knowledge and worst of all I felt really really powerful in my knowledge of what I was doing I thought I've got this wire and mail every time I have ever thought I've got this why I was delivered APA APA plate of crow to me on and so I finished I think my late with this analogy I think of I was thinking of the road analogy the Sikkim also failure can see this kind of shape your intuition what a success keep you well its excesses this success success is moving forward see its successes people to build on what you've done and continue to do it in and move forward so if I think of successes road I think of failure is the car you're driving this fits the car though I'm driving at least it's it's it's it's the vehicle by which I move forward it's those incremental steps because you're only going to cure no one ever goes just in one you never let me just to write one direction you're always you're always getting knocked back you're always getting that often cite are always trying to re find your parents and that super super important super vital hmm unable to properly communicate thank you the no if he does what it is the presence of the audience would be happy too it would be me good became we've got a big pain that will pull you off the stage when it's your time we've got a bunch of time for class you're up for that I am very blessed take lessons from the audience on anything and everything who fails more than a sixties you're all real maker who's got a question dying in a job down there this year you tell the minister also told him I have the slightest idea a good week for one of those diapers were not given up the job easy though you go after whatever hundred and seventy hours of programming the number might be on the spree job of being in the US UW Minister well what's that getting into the myth Buster this business last year yes but the eggs with a different spin on it I have always been a major my father was a painter use an artist and I was very much encouraged to make things from early stage in fact on by the time I was ten or eleven I had unfettered access to the charge account that the local hardware store in town now hike and abuse that privilege I'm a little we spent like twenty or thirty bucks a week that hardware store was like my training ground and to this day I just wasn't nervous or is looking at the wall and thinking about what I'm going over to let you know from sight unseen so that led to lead to three years of very many different types of readers graphic design animation I tried absolutely everything I have very little focus for a long long time until I found the theater industry in the theater industry is great for people with talent but not much focus as you can try everything you want there Cedar is amazing here is the one art form that will survive the apocalypse in that it like that yet Michelle I surrender to the front so he was a leader I fell into the film industry and from the film industry when they were casting for Mythbusters they were looking for people who work in special effects as they were looking for people with a broad range of skills which whether it's computer generated or actual people in special effects tend to be poly mass that means they tend to want to absorb information about everything they can see that it makes a really good at understanding the big picture it also recently been animating you know these low rates crashing into buildings and stuff like that because they're thinking about all the systems going on at once and the rest is history along with what your favorite channel my favorite summer show do it changes constantly has anyone seen swimming and Sarah you that's moving answer there was solid ice that was my toes my story I I labored over that story for but six months before we shot on I was going to do it and the problem is when you start to look into with star ok so the myth is that swimming answer is just awesome in water because the decreasing year for momentum is offset by increased push to get off the thicker material but of course we know has to be a stressful know it can swim fast in the hunt ok so what is that once home I started to call up around I found out that the three year title for people whose interest is viscosity ultraviolet since then I called the national policy or policies just society and talk to their president and he immediately I would say that he was yelling at me but he was very viscosity is not constant you think of viscosity is like something like this like this this table has a short e harness or know what happened this cost is that like to discuss these depending on all sorts of different factors like how fast the material is moving the temperature might change this cost you something hundreds of percentage points across a temperature span so trying to figure out we knew that in the narrative of the episode we wanted to demonstrate a syrup that was equivalent to swimming in water which we knew that some researchers have done in the Midwest which was a double thickness but it did with DVD from the water that we knew we wanted to go to an overdone threshold of like super super to pee and everyday we wanted to hit this middle ground and all three of well the first one we knew the other two were wild ass guess it's based on just a lot a lot of conversation but that's one of the favorite parts of the job is calling around talking to the experts having them tell you they don't know the kiddie the figure but maybe if they import of what they would say fifteen hundred times viscosity and think about that day so with the other guy said in the new order four thousand counts of drug arm and hope that it works and when it does it feels really good so stunning it serves as my new favorite episode it's plenty you can the explosives were mean hot water heaters the two those things it is so sad this morning we've got a new shooting location were now using it frequently key to the landfill how to tell tomorrow because they can kind of give us whatever we want to got these big tour as they like they could make great they can do whatever we need that not all strictly equipment so you know that we get the hot water heaters the first time for a single storey house and with a lot of emails from people saying that they have lived in two story houses so what about that so we built a two story house set out to run him we we attempted to shoot a hot water heater through the hotel it was all that I will tell you that even felt like a quarter mile away my friends John and his kids were watching said right felt in the justice I'd never get tired of watching as things go on it's actually not technically an explosion it's actually like being a conflagration it's as if you notice in the first time week I asked if he does that little red house was built with the window with hot water heater destroys that house the windows not broken which tells me I don't think that there's a shockwave there it's just a Polish it's just pressures so it's technically an explosion although it did happen to you no one would deny you that it exploded healing during Jamie on my first week of the idea of flight testing mitts on the show that did it it's an interesting at Genesis of the show because as originally conceived it's not our idea by the way used to Jamie and I were hired to help the beginning but the result Constitution was very different than it does now they actually were going to have three hosts and think they can find two guys interesting enough to host a show so there their plan was that the high chair we go around the country interviewing people about Mets her that she call up her boys in sentences going to rebuild experiments to test the PCs that she was hearing and apparently when they start double really change the structure of the show they they they alternate me realize that we might be able to actually do this and so the way the show took shape are out of our interest level in our the varied degrees of our ignorance I grew out of that decision to let us run with it I sense a question over their sets with a microphone struggling well I did bring your asses out how you can get a special thanks to Sri Aman Peter technician and a film student am really trying to get the industry now just wondering how you make that safely into special effects what it's funny because I'm a bit in a really strange way home I have tried to work in special effects several times in my early twenty s I went to places in New York on Eli while it's on your wallet is an amazing special effects artist to get the early Peter Gabriel then made a clay videos I work for Peter for a couple of months but the pay was so crappy it was so crappy that he didn't like nineteen you knew you were getting taken advantage of it was like fifty hours a day like you showed up at seven and worked until we told you to be it was appalling and I I I worked there for couple of weeks and then I stop working if they couldn't deal on and there was a place called Brooklyn model works I work for them actually I was interviewed with them and they called me up and said we'd like to hire you but it's like to fifteen hours of sleep really good and they said will you say you work for free those like oh well really as bad it's over to them for a week and then I didn't go back on it turned out that even though I really wanted to work in special effects I was uncompromising about the stink of the discipline that thing which was I can't work in places where people are are really un happy and I'm not learning anything so for the longest time I had every job for either an hour for a year and if it was if I went into place you know pizza who go to work as a waiter I'd spend an hour meeting people and the like and I would never go back this meant that I had to sponge a lot of weight off my parents to my twenties but I go to college so I figured they'd made out on but I kept on falling so I kept on following this axiom of jobs that I found really interesting and each one but to the next one each thing I was too late to the next thing I was that women who get to sit for so happen that the first job that was available was working as a carpenter the torch to its performance works down in the basement and McAllister Hastings law school building and that was an incredible training ground because it was everybody doing everything in technology on from everything from stone tools to digital three D projectors and I got to play a part in all of that that every time another thing that ever was which is like I was and I have been uncompromising about that workplace environments but have also been hearing he didn't see what I want and when I see one I liked you want something I ask for it's pretty straightforward a lot of people who work for me don't do it I've had a light ferret out with them what they want out of the situation when I worked at Industrial light Magic the first thing I wanted to know was to build suspicious around here why build a spaceship and Larry hands my wonderful guardian angel the first guy worked enough that I lent you what's up with John Stevenson and Duncan and they're still good friends of mine and I learned a lot from working with those guys so each time I saw an opportunity I really went for it and I made short that I was able to try to partake of that opportunity what was your most spectacular failure ever on the show on the show it actually happens we I just got back from eight am yesterday from the Carson City rock products quarry when we were calling cards off of cliffs it but it's a very teary eyed forgiving location it's it was ninety five yesterday which was kind of vacation compared to the twenty two thousand foot fall on the twenty two thousand the fall which is the myth that the world or to volunteer fell twenty two thousand feet but into a train station that was exploding as he hit in the the the the shockwave actually cushioned his fall so we built this big train station a week at the spider house of of of of high speed explosives in the recap this balloon with a dummy on it to drop on the cable this is a lot like the break was all my design but it was a hundred is the key with about three years ago it was uh hundred and fifteen degrees in the shade ants brutally brutally brutally hot and so dry that we were actually let the film after ten thirty in the morning because the fire risk was too high so we were showing up on set it free in the morning and working by the headlights of our cars in order to get this explosion that happened by like nine pm so we can talk about for an hour afterwards and on the day of the final experiment umm did it the order of operations with that the balloon had to get filled the Blues weather was again filled up enough to lift Buster and then roster who was tethered to the ground to be lifted up to see we had a guy cables on the weather balloons for when is was very windy so we had a monster of a guy people don't first buildings all these different wines and when you're expecting something in your transferring the weight of something from let's say a stake in the ground to a balloon in the air the transition I don't know is the most dangerous point in the operation because I can perceive how much force it would be like the little piece of parachute cord keeping Buster tethered to the ground and when I did all hell broke loose the UN two of the guys holding the guy wires to row prisoner hand for the guide wire whipping through their hands Mr Shaw north and then fell back down again luckily not on me the weather balloon to the weather was great we only have three more in the world in all the assorted walk all the weather balloons that were available to us by Federal Express from anywhere in the United States and so here it was off Friday we've already been working all weekend hundred and fifteen degree heat and in this very moment that this happens I realize that we're all gonna have to come back the next day and that I felt really really really really awful and my my my I call it my wife and she said the ability to get it right most of the time but you can take solace in the fact that almost every other time at the end of the week that last shot the sun's going down you guys actually get so if you miss it occasionally taking you can rest in the fact that you know you get at most the time it's not like you were ladies so you know chill out and I didn't we got the shot the next and it was still awful and hot but we know where's the merrier I nap rock at Baxter you I had the upper it felt like this make me nuts what was that drivers are you where's your bra her store well with the sticky well was it like shark skin or tacky or what was it kind of sticky so steep that whatever project was that it is working the store in San Francisco what are your favorite sources in San Francisco for this material won't you the salsa drivers hard to find them I love center I love me my center hardware the love those guys you really know what they're doing and I've been crunching the frequent tap plastics although their prices tend to upset me I love that Douglas in Sturgis which is unbelievable that we had such a resource in our city the cast materials that have been buying from them for twenty years on what else scrap as everyone knows crap the senses to unified school District reclamation place where futility materials this is work goes on to that I did so I went there as a sculptor is an early makers have to still I went to the scrap every weekend and is right around the corner from one of our shops and I still don't easily I actually own on twenty years ago exploratory him they had a magnetite separate which you can take some of the sand from Ocean Beach and part of the top and turn the dial it was separated out regular stand and the magnetic be the magnetite and I was in scrap about probably about ten years ago and it was there those like is this is an exploratory we saw the label they like and as the public is that the people of scrap wood away they talked amongst themselves the key backman like it's fifty dollars and had honestly at that point to them all the time I can I have like sixty dollars in my bank account details and I still have in storage I it's one my favorite aunt extract is amazing here I've got a question what's your favorite tool so hard hmm it's hard to keep a sharp knife at Rangers I don't have one of my dog right now which is shocking um I love them and a sharp knife or two things that are never more than an arm's length away from me except for right now which is take is an anomaly um there is a tool called a port event which is a portable band saw in Milwaukee has seen fit to make one battery power and that portable band saw it's it's expensive there about four hundred dollars that man I'd use it so much the crude jokes that some them to make much with it I use it for everything because it's totally silent and it will cut through anything I mean you can probably get a car boot off with this it's incredible and it's moose nice and slow it's nice precise cuts in its totally quiet I love that what the astounding McKew experimented on the most challenging it's hard to say I mean they all present the challenges that were confronted with their lot more than just friends figure out how to with the challenges I was headed tell the story so often the ones your most challenging are actually some of the more boring with because we're trying to figure out like that is something that like this to mean the producers to me that provide probably a good two thirds of the mature looking to pick me up we get ideas from our producers in one place that we would do a household objects show the religion that is outlined in sight oh come on that all women he's is yet to be perceived as the stupid funny was that it can relate to something funny with weakened to a whole hour on the tape help me get to USC's an autopsy and is like really and see because have you seen the show on so then we did a full hour of duct tape that carry predatory did something unbelievable decade and Jamie night we did three kind of amazing things with activity including we may suppose that's all true to say about it so it worked or not believe it or boats very funny on I've seen the cap number one in the context was an image and the context of trying to recreate the Jane Doe experiment and have the car left off with a rocket engine exploded catch softly into sister adults than men so you've been on the receiving end of people's incredibly that failures and curious how you handle that now because year and situation now where you can tie up there and yet are working for you doing these things already so what does it with all the it was a big disappointment she'll car take off was very big disappointment in fact I was one of the more difficult from a production standpoint the last thing we wanted to do right and was filled with more of a TV show we had spent weeks thinking through all the possible things can go wrong with getting this car like that to a ramp with the budget that we had which was tiny the location was difficult trying the cable car trying to deliver the remote control to cable release drag the car all of these different systems in every last one of them worked every last one of the things that we plan works the way we planned it to work except the one thing that we didn't have control over and honestly actually I took real salsa that I was really pleased with Iran so in the end I was like am I re worked too bad about those excluding the kids it actually makes this more it makes more cautious if you know there's some we got in and coming up where Jamie wants to watch the awful card seventy miles an hour safely he wants to launch himself but I was picturing I can't say the context was picturing myself being set into a mechanism that would watch me off the cart seventy miles an hour and this pretty much holding two people I would trust with the release and one that loves me and the other Wednesday the fact is when push comes to study though we drive each other not seem to get really pissed off each other every single day um whenever we leave things in other people's hands it's a variable we don't know what we know that when each other has controlled the thing we were doing we know that it's going to work the way we think it's each no sound heights my ex worksheets sound I very nice you really like that explosion a lot of beers are the robots party age Eugene Eagle at Bear Lake and I hate these eighty eight innings and satisfyingly that read I'm still on I use and on and each adding water to your rescue what's up with that and that's great you if you're a regular watcher of the show I am given to hyperbole I probably means that I say everything is brilliant everything's amazing everythings the most fun I've ever had everything is awesome and I really do feel like that at that moment but upon reflection when you ask me to choose my favorite and I go back overnight because it is plain explosions for us are kind of like fine wine it's right which each one's got a flavor like the Etsy shops that the deep throaty rumble on the back to back in already begun with sneakers that one may your blog back toward the shockwave was really nifty wow that was real you know so when I go back to all of those types of explosions and most the time I have to say working with Dr explosives is more terrifying than not because they're like explosives and the only solace you can take on working with them is that if something happens you will notice I've sat on a duffel bag full of three hundred thousand cast boosters in Telluride throwing them out of the helicopter window to start Appalachians then again I yell and I thought unreasonable requests so the hot water heater I think is not only my favorite because I love the throaty rumble of the hot water heater but it's also one that I have total control over and what I feel very safe doing it's like it note parameter those things it's very difficult to find things that failed reliably and hot water heaters are one of them you read make magazine I get absolutely everything magazine every every issue I I'd love it I wish it was around when I was a kid you know it Adam and I remember when it wasn't cool to be a maker it was on that long ago it wasn't cool to be and electronics was cool to be in the computers that now we know it's the coolest thing in the world we all come together just peek out on it in love it and know the closest thing that we had to rebuy magazine CRC as column and by no no he get this great column already built hardware her home brew projects in the Pentagon running out of computers is what the software and that's what's so great about this with hardware with your favorite projects in May I won't I love the elite Easter Elise it's one of the simple its most elegant little little bits of delicious techno vandalism that's just great um I love them and let the magnet Stephen actually let the hardware hacking because you know it's one thing that there was this point as everything was becoming more and more chances you for saying we'll know it's going to be taken apart the tee pees in the morning dew and doing stuff to him and we're past that people are re program the boards of their computer I've actually I'm working on a project break now and someone may have to help me with this I've got a stereo in my car but I have an old land cruiser and its heart trouble adjusting stairs so I bought a remote control for the stereo but what I won this week mailbox for the road toll so I pulled out of the Port of Tyne to wire right to the board so that I control my stereo and that's to be something that would've done had I not been reading me to see yours anybody willing to help them out on that he's done a project here Adam can you join us over here and sign some autographs absolute absolutely thanks so much prayer we thank you so much see you next year