'Mythbusters': On A Healthy Fear Of Propane And The State Of Special Effects

In the second half of my discussion with Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage of Mythbusters (part one is here), we talked about danger, a bridge design that didn't quite work out, and what two guys who have worked extensively in special effects think about 3D movies and whether real stuff will be displaced by CG work. The two-hour special celebrating the show's top 25 moments airs tonight on Discovery at 9:00 p.m.

Are there myths that you've done that you're still haunted by, because you feel like maybe you didn't quite find the right way to test it, that maybe you're still thinking about?

Adam: There are a few — the one that stands out the most for me is "Breakstep Bridge." [This was a myth about marching soldiers destroying a bridge by hitting the precise harmonic that would cause it to collapse, leading to signs at bridges requiring that groups break stride.] "Breakstep Bridge" is just … the engineering of bridges is one of the crowning achievements of modern civilization. And trying to build one that will break, in scale, when you induce a fatal harmonic … it's actually an even bigger engineering challenge, and one that we weren't up to. And I really feel like in the demonstration of fatal harmonics that harm large structures like that, we just really didn't quite deliver on that one.

I think that was one where watching the construction of the marching guys [a line of attached pairs of boots with helmets on them, that stomped back and forth rhythmically] was interesting, whether or not it tested what you were going for.

Jamie: Yeah, the little guys, who were helmets with feet on them, were my particular touch, and that's the only redeeming thing, I think, about that particular episode is just visually, that's one of the setups where people see that, and it's like "What the hell is going on here?" [You can see a screencap of the helmet-boots guys, sitting on the model bridge, here.]

Can you think of any that have changed your own habits? Certainly you've done ones with practical applications, like keeping the windows down versus keeping the A/C on in the car, stuff like that. Have you applied any of this stuff to your own life?

Adam: I think we're both better drivers now than we were when we first started doing the show. We've gotten enough training doing all sorts of stunt driving.

Jamie: As well as due to the fact that we're intimately familiar with what happens when a moving object traveling at speed comes to an abrupt stop. We know up close what traveling down the highway at 60 miles an hour means. I'm fond of pointing out that a lot of people would go stand on a cliff edge with a mile drop-off and be terrified, and yet they hop into their car on a daily basis … and the potential for death is about the same.

Adam: I will also say that one of the things that the show has done for me, it's given me a tremendous respect and fear of flammable gases. The explosive power in things like low-lying gases like propane, or gasoline fumes, when brought into combination with air under the right circumstances, is really terrifying. And it's one of the things I did not expect I would find so scary.

 

I was actually going to ask — when you see the one now with the explosion where you make the "Am I missing an eyebrow?" comment [in which a chamber full of gas fumes blew up very close to Adam while they were testing whether a cell phone could blow up a gas station] — it sort of seems like maybe that wouldn't happen now.

Adam: You're very possibly right. That really was one of the very first episodes we shot in the beginning of 2003, in season 1, and it illustrates one of the first lessons we got in safety, which is: In safety, you're always wondering, "What happens if X happens?" If this happens, if the car goes out of control, if this guy gets angry. What are the things that could affect, if they happen — when in fact, one of the most dangerous circumstances is, "What if nothing happens?" What if you set something up to blow up and you push the button and it doesn't blow up? That is often one of the most dangerous circumstances you can walk into. And the losing-an-eyebrow is a perfect example of that. We kept on not getting the result we were looking for until we were totally cavalier, and the thing blew up while I was standing next to it.

Jamie: We also have become aware, and it's a little maxim that we have, is, it's not about the stuff that you know is going to happen that might be bad that you need to worry about. It's the stuff that you don't know. And how do you anticipate that? We often go through the whole situation, like, we need to be over here, because this is going to blow up, and something's going to fly this way or this way, and then you don't think about that … you're standing right next to — you just stored the whole arsenal of explosives right next to your feet, or whatever it is. If we go into situations with that kind of thing — what are we not thinking about, what are we not expecting — those are the things that will kill you.

Adam: You know, my father was a painter, and one of the things he would do while he was painting a painting was he'd look at it normally, then he'd turn it upside-down and he'd look at it upside-down to see if the composition was still working. And then he'd look at it in a mirror to see if the composition was still working. We do kind of the same thing here. When we're gearing up to do something that's dangerous, we look at it from every possible angle, every possible position, and think about every last thing that could go wrong, and are constantly finding new things to possibly protect against.

It seemed like the potential for head injuries from the giant waterslide came as maybe a little bit of a surprise.

Adam: Once we had gone from halfway up, and we realized that we were landing on our feet, that became much less of a concern. And that was the reason we wanted to creep up on it. We didn't want to do a belly flop at 40 miles an hour, because that absolutely could be a very, very dangerous situation.

Jamie: Yeah, according to the tables, we were traveling 30 miles an hour, and 30 miles an hour, having your head hit water is potential brain injury. So it was a real concern.

Since you both come out of what I would consider the "cool stuff" industry, I wanted to ask you where you stand on 3D movies.

[chuckles]

Adam: Well, if it's a good story, I don't mind what format it's in.

Jamie: I would say that I would enjoy certain kinds of … some of the movies. I mean, I watched Avatar, I liked it, it was immersive. But I have to say that there's a certain kind of flatness with that, and with most of the digitally created movies that I've seen. When we're working on real props and things for movies and doing what we call practical special effects, it's a different sort of a thing that happens in the creative process when your own blood is smeared over your tools that you're working with, than something that happens when you're sitting at a keyboard. And it really does affect the end result.

I think we both tend to look at any of those things, whether it's 3D, or a digital effect, as just another tool, and if you go into it saying that this is the only way to do it, you can end up using a hammer for something that really should be done with a screwdriver. I would say that I enjoy things like the 3D movies … with certain reservations, as long as — it has to hold up as a complete and valid composition by itself.

Adam: It's got to be a good story. Blade Runner isn't great because it's shot in CinemaScope. It's great because … it's Blade Runner. Lawrence Of Arabia is whatever huge widescreen … it's like all of these innovations aren't going to make me go to the movies on their own.

When I look at things like the robot that shoots 7Up cans [used in the commercial above, and built by Jamie], it sort of raises the question of whether people would still build that, or whether they'd just animate everything.

Adam: Well, look, there's a lot being done in CG right now. But two of the best directors going right now, Peter Jackson and Jon Favreau, are both huge proponents of practical effects wherever they can put them in their movies, because they know how much veracity … and how well they tell the story. And those are both directors who have used the absolute state of the art cutting-edge computer graphics, as well as fantastic practical effects. So I think there's always going to be a proper place for both.