Ask Adam Savage: The Importance of Practical Effects

During his Feb. 23, 2021 live stream, Adam answered this question from Tested member Break Build Repeat: "Back in September, Ridley Scott made mention of a possible new Alien movie. What key effects in the film do you think can't be replicated in any other way than practical effects?"
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[TheNism]

I want to see you and Corridor Digital do a project together. They are a CGI focused team who has a soft spot tor practical effects.

[erikkick]

I really appreciate your continuing work against gatekeeping in your craft, science and fandoms. It means a lot for all the curious people out here.

[Drakith]

Think one of the best examples of the benefit of practical effects is a Graham Norton Show bit when they had Sigourney Weaver on. They recreated the chestburster scene and had one of the guests who had never seen Alien playing Kane. Her reaction when it "goes off" is genuine terror.

[starchitin]

Not relevant to this video, but I was watching your build of the case for the Hellboy gun last week and it inspired me to do my first ever build this week: a wooden trunk. Thanks for getting me off the internet for a while, I learned a lot in the process and got a real sense of satisfaction that's been sorely needed after this year of hell.

[ThatBaritoneGuitarGuy]

With greenscreen/bluescreen, you have a director yelling "You're scared! You're scared! You're scared!" And all the actors need to pretend they ARE scared, of something which is not even there, something which is completely added in post-production.

With a practical set, the actors are reacting what is actually around them, and what is actually happening around them. There is no substitute for this. This has always been the best method, and it will always be the best method.

[Srvrdown]

Pre ordered one of your aprons for my dad!! Some of our best memories are of watching Mythbusters together then seeing how we could “safely” do some of the testing ourselves lol!!!

[Gorilla_Jones]

Another aspect of effects in general that nobody talks about is the fact that today your monster, main character creature, is just overexposed. What made Cloverfield, alien, aliens, and any other movie with some sort of creature is the fact that you leave something to the imagination of the viewer.

If you overexpose your "monster" you break it's mystery, and in my opinion you take away the imagination of your users who often times will fill in gaps and will come up with something much more scary in their minds than you can ever come up with.

[derthlaf]

I only want to tell you are my biggest childhood hero, and it is great that we can still watch your materials

[Games_and_Music]

2:30 Funny that you mention Space Trucker(s), i never heard you about that movie in particular, but now i think of it, there's lots and lots of practical FX in there, and now i'm kinda surprised that you don't have a square pig hidden somewhere!

[DrakeAurum]

When watching the Making Of for WandaVision, I was surprised at how much of Vision's look is CGI, and at how much of the flying is practical wire work.

[CasperDunning]

I was the director of FX for a Halloween tour in an over 100-year-old theatre. This meant that I had to come up with a new practical effect each year to add to the tour, at the end of the three-year run we had 5 effects throughout the centre (only operational double-deck theatre left in the world, double-deck=one theatre on top of another). We also had 7 fog machines going, including two that were modified to act more like a "dry ice" fogger (where the fog clings to the ground) instead of the chemical ones they were where the fog is heated and rises up.).
The fun practical effects we had, Pepper's Ghost (look it up, it's really cool, the haunted mansion uses this effect a lot), Ghostly Face, also known as a Haunted Painting (ours was way batter, as we had a live ghost that could interact with the guests). The effect we were working on for the last year of the tour was a haunted lantern, what was supposed to happen was the lantern would "float" across the theatre from one box to another. We worked on that thing right up to the last minute, it finally had to be scraped for that year as it just didn't want to work right.
And you can't have a haunted tour without ghosts, right? So we had 5 "ghosts" that could be confirmed haunted the centre (5 people that had been confirmed died while at the theatre), plus one may be (we needed a sixth ghost, and couldn't find anyone willing to die for the cause, so had to go with an unconfirmed story).
I wish the tours were still going, I've learned so much over the last 2 years (since watching prop building video's, some of those were Adam's).

[tempest_dawn]

I love your thoughts on how practical vs digital effects can influence the actors performance - I also really love the tech they used on the Mandelorian and expect that as that sort of thing gets better it's going to slowly become less of a distinction.

[themuffinfish]

John Carpenter's The Thing shows the absolute importance of practical effects
It has aged brilliantly

[sjsobota]

Met Roger Christian who did a lot of the practical effects on Alien, lives nearby in Toronto. His book Cinema Alchemist Designing Star Wars and Alien is an amazing account of his work on Star Wars A New Hope and Alien .

[jimmysgameclips]

I'm not an acting buff so the difference is more subtle to me but it's amazing when you notice it how different it is when an action/reaction is more genuine.

Also talking about the mandalorian, I was really surprised with the recently uploaded ILM video where they showed a scene that had one of those digital screens and I could not tell but now I realise to a camera, with a long enough focal lens, it's all flat so it works (right?)

[maan]

That's what i love about the Phantom Menace...dialogue apart, its sooo filled with practical effects and unlike the popular opinion I think it aged wonderfully.
The Trade Federation ship miniatures, the republic ship miniatures, the naboo miniature city, the Mos Espa miniature, the jedi temple miniature, they all look phenomenal! I wish we were back to the time s of mixing CGI with practical effects

[kiwiruna]

Having just watched TENET I love that the 747 into the Hanger was all practical. I read or heard somewhere it was cheaper to buy the 747 and aircraft hanger that to do it CG.

[glcol]

I think the led screen backgrounds for The Mandalorian will be a major player in future film. The actors see exactly what will show up on film and it's gorgeous for us too. And cheaper from what I understand.

[RockyCraftin]

Would you mind doing something about the volume? I’m curious on your expanded thoughts on it, I personally think it is really cool tech but would love to hear from someone with the experience you have