Adam Savage from tested here in my cave and in front of me is one of my favorite
kinds of packages to get oh there's a lot of packages that I covet and love
getting but this is one of the best because it's from our friends at prop
store they are about to have an auction that includes tons of armor from the
film the great wall by the incredible Chinese director Zhang EMU who directed
hero and House of Flying Daggers this film has tremendous amounts of art
direction that goes so deep it would actually kind of bend your mind
our friends at wet a workshop actually did over a thousand separate designs to
construct six thousand separate prop pieces for this film that were handled
and used and interacted with by over five hundred extras yeah when you're
talking about this film you're talking about a scale that is kind of
unimaginable however out of all that tremendous creativity and ingenuity and
beauty comes some incredible film props and in here is one that you and I will
get to witness for the first time together
love the possibilities these packages represent okay that seems like I'm gonna
go out on a limb and guess that that's a shield oh yay okay there's one piece oh
it's heavy
there's another oh it's like helmet now is that yep that's everything okay okay
we'll save the helmet for last because it's gonna be the coolest thing look at
these giant Ziploc baggies man it's set a world record sandwich okay that lives
there everything's wrapped in white linen
that's archival oh look at these I think these are yeah some kind of shin guard
gaiters yeah that's what those are okay place those like that oh oh oh I sense a
boot or two yep look at this that is entirely custom again for movies you
often see things that are like it looks custom but it's an off-the-shelf item
that they modified these don't look like that these look like they're entirely
custom which is impressive
Oh beautiful oh man look at this this is a jacket but
look at that beautiful whatever this is it's super soft but it
doesn't look soft it actually looks like almost like metal plates or studs even
but I can't even tell you they're like it's actually soft these textures are
fantastic I mean all of this meant to add visual tapestry to every scene Wow
gorgeous alright so that's a jacket and I think I
said no no no there's more in here oh goodness okay I think these are gonna
be pants I'm just gonna guess yep okay jacket and pants all right
I'm guessing that I correctly opened the undergarments and shoes and boots first
and now here that's a skirt oh my god sounds great looks great look at this
look at this triangular male and this is a looks like to me like a good god it's
practical and by that I mean it looks like a bunch of mm triangular pieces in
a tessellated array it's at the current term and then with wire holding it
together and it really is these are all separate pieces this isn't this is not
cast monolithically it is assembled like this these are also done the same way
each as a separate piece my mind is bending under the load of the
craftsmanship here Wow okay there's that and oh here comes the Oh
what a piece what
so that connects that to that oh this is all actually pretty clearly
straightforward as to how it goes these are the pauldrons and they're cast
in a resin and then finished and I mean just so here you can see this is
production used because this piece has been scratched up and you can see some
of the translucent white resin underneath but the moment you see the
white resident and then you start to be able to see just how many colors there
are in here this isn't just sprayed gold these are sprayed gold with a little bit
of red there's little bronze going on there's some black wash and some of the
small places there's like at least four or five colors going on and as I am
always fond of pointing out the more colors you add the more depth you get
we're gonna get dressed very soon oh
there are so many beautiful battle scenes in this film and they are really
particularly incredible when you see all the armor and you see all the different
factions in there are in there similar armors I mean they made hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of suits oh it's so pretty
oh look at that they don't oh there we go
I see so that did that this piece is worth calling out for a second not just
because if it's incredible execution but also because of its design and how it
fits into the overall frame of the picture zengi MU is famous for his use
of color of hyper vibrant color separating out ideas and themes and his
films each of the factions that are fighting in the Great Wall
have different color schemes and so it wasn't up to wet adjust to make 6000
shields they had to make shields in different categories to symbolize each
of the groups that would be using this is the tiger core and there would be
different shields for each of the others and we're going to cover those untested
as well but then the closer you get the more the detail rewards the careful eye
that you get to see that this was meant to be thrown and they are thrown in the
film so it's like a buzz saw but as you look up close you can see these battle
scars across this one of the things they were clear about on this film was that
they didn't want the extras holding cheap versions of what the hero actors
were holding and so everyone was given props and materials that had weight and
had the physical veracity to it so this is heavy
this is like I don't need to method act to feel like this is gonna protect me
and wet a workshop and all the other costume makers but what a workshop
specifically Richard Taylor talked to us about how he engineered different types
of urethane rubbers with different hardnesses depending upon what prop it
would be used for so this is a fairly rigid urethane which seems to have a
soft internal all of this is engineering and chemical problem-solving that
companies like what I have to do for a project like this even though the final
result looks like it's made out of metal it has to be soft so it doesn't start
hurting actors
oh just beautiful again I mean this mix of new materials like soft resins and
polyuria x' along with old materials like the leather and satin and the ways
in which this thing is bordered and it's just gorgeous stunning stunning work
okay yeah I think that's all the parts and
pieces let's get dressed all right ha ha like a glove
seriously these boots fit so well I could wear them around all day
these are the raps for my hands now they look like they're wrapped around but in
fact to save time they're simply sewn that way that is
really beautiful that's really let's lovely efficiency in
the filmmaking process right there one of the things that's really clear as
we're doing this together is actually how easy they made the process this is
on a film if you've got 500 extras to dress you don't want it to take an hour
per extra you want to be able to get everyone dressed in a fairly short order
so with a good costume team you know you want everyone to have their coffee and
then get ready to ready to film you got to pull a little harder a little harder
that's it right there good yeah awesome yep okay okay now normal definitely
needs your help for this yeah so that goes to there and then the buckle
from the fat set
it's actually quite comfortable I could spend all day in this it's actually not
bad at all right yeah yeah oh yeah here let me just okay I know my glasses are
on brand but this suit is like pushing them into my head so I'm gonna pull them
out there we go a rare ginger member of the tiger Corps
lesser-known background extra oh oh yeah here we go there we go here it is ladies
and gentlemen oh it feels good it looks good
what more did you ask from a piece of costume ah
the craftsmanship on this thing it's magnificent
these Greaves right here from up close they completely look as close as you
want to look like hammered brass carefully etched by craftspeople it is
in fact a hard rubber urethane carefully treated with multiple paints and vacuu
mentalization and metallic paint treatments and weathering and it's super
comfortable this whole suit doesn't weigh more than maybe 15 kilograms at
the most spread out across my body made mostly of rubber and leather moves well
I could see if I was outdoors on a hot day this could become unpleasant but it
is beautiful ah what an incredible addition to my
armor collection last thing I want to tell you is that the auction for suits
just like this one and a hundred and fifty other suits of armor is up right
now at prop store.com go get yourself one of these
you