hey guys adam savage here in my cave answering some questions from tested patrons uh specifically
about my uh shop infrastructure uh and working habits um an end of the trail outdoors and arts
tested patron end of the trail outdoors and arts all in one word uh wants to know
they say i recently started making cosplay items again after almost 10 years i never
know exactly how i'm going to design something i just pull out materials and start making however
you always seem to have a game plan of the exact material you're going to use before you begin
is this part of your pre-planning or does this come naturally to you after years of experience
working with materials um end of the trail at jordson arts it's a great question uh it it is a
it is a little of both it is a little it is a little bit that i do a lot of pre-planning in
my head before starting a build that's definitely true i also have years of experience of all sorts
of different materials and i do a fair bit of pulling everything out and looking at it and
figuring out where to go from there in fact that's the most common way i work
the commonality between all three of those methodologies is that i do a lot of like
i do a lot of iterative construction in my head before i br before i begin um if i didn't do that
if i didn't do that before i begin sometimes i'm doing it during the tedious parts of a build but
there's certainly plenty of times let's see here there's plenty of times that i'll come
in and be like i'll put some stuff down on the table and i'll be like and i'll just look at it
for a while think maybe i i don't know how do i and frankly i don't film those moments a lot
and part of it is because if i turn on the camera
it might run for an hour while i'm just staring at the workbench and that that
that's not what i'm looking for in this kind of storytelling so i do a lot of that kind of pre
sort of looking at stuff and feeling the weight of it off camera it's sort of an efficiency for
you know being able to get stuff in the camera that the editors can utilize um and that
look within your question is this assumption i feel like
and it's an assumption about one way maybe being better than the other
you say i never know exactly how i'm going to design something i just pull
out materials and start making i argue that i do much of the same thing just with experience
i can do some of that iteration in here instead of out here and that refines my process a little bit
but there's still plenty of builds to kick my ass entirely from a mental standpoint until i
actually put the materials in front of me where i can't parse at all how this build should go
until i'm already halfway through it or i'm halfway through it and it
changes and i realize i need to do a totally separate kind of story um
so i my answer to your question to your official question is i do a bunch of pre-planning i do as
much as i feel like i need to so that when i push record on the camera i'm rolling on
something and the audience gets to see something interesting happen um but i also fly by the seat
of my freaking pants a huge amount of the time and i don't have a value judgment as to one of those
whoops i don't have a value judgment as to one of those methods being better
or more productive than the other and i would exhort you not to either
the real question to ask is are you happy with the product if you're happy with the product but
there's parts of the process that you feel could go smoother well that's a worthy line of inquiry
um i'm just always wary about the comparing about the comparing mind
like is that person's experience better than mine are they doing more that i should be doing
all of those shoulds and look comparing mind is a real state of mind and it's it's one that is
very very culturally prevalent it's very american the comparing mind how are they
doing in relation to me how am i doing in relation to them and it's a very toxic mindset
i know people that get depressed when they see movies with great screenplays because they write
screenplays and a good one depresses them i that i don't understand at all i like not to say that
that's a bad way to respond because it's not it's just the way that they respond but like
we all can only do the thing that's in front of us bill hicks had this great
thing that he said years and years ago um hold on just a second i'll call this up um
what bill hicks said was a paraphrase of the more yourself you are the less competition you have
and he said this a friend of mine is a comedian wrote this to me he said i
think he said it to inspire comedians to dig deeper to stand out in a crowded field um
yeah that bill hicks was saying that like don't worry about people steering
stealing your material if your material is deeply personal they can't steal it
and he i think one of the ways he phrased it is you you are the master interpreter of your
experience no one else can interpret your experience so if someone steals your joke
they've stolen your joke but they haven't stolen you they're still not you telling that joke that's
still something unique you bring to it now i am not a comedian so i don't mean to like
express that i have some stance on joke stealing or how one should feel about it because i do not
at all being a comedian is one of the hardest arts i think there is i think of comedy and magic as
the two art forms in which there are actual stakes yeah um and i think comedy is hard enough that
it's it's comedy is hard enough that it is the reason that comedians make such amazing actors
so so crazy frequently but uh i i drift away just be careful about the comparing mine that's all i
really want to say end of the trail outdoors and arts just be careful of the comparing mind your
experience is the only one you have access to this is something i need to tell myself just as
much as i need to tell you thank you guys so much for these awesome questions i just love
this forum tested patrons your questions remain awesome if you'd like to become a tested patron
info is in the comments below stay safe you guys and i will see you next time