Adam Savage Learns Sci-Fi Space Helmet Secrets! 

And repeated for a set of (I think) 4 (if they reused suits for different actors) is mindblowing.

I wonder if they were mumbling "Liberate me!" the whole time. ;-)

Indeed, designing the circuit and pathway the board design in 48 Hrs is a big ask let alone building and problem solving

You could barely turn the PCBs around that fast. Possibly they had suitable boards already, which would explain why there's eight processors, because they needed to light that many LEDs and that was just the most expedient approach. I don't think they designed custom boards and had them made in two days. I'll say it's just barely possible but only barely.

@@uploaddownload5595 I'm calling shenanigans too. Maybe they had a general purpose board design or something, but I sincerely doubt they spun that from scratch in two days. It's barely possible. It looks to me like they have the bar graphs soldered across two sides of the board.

Must've been a really dedicated team.

Yeah, I love it when he says, all these years later, that he's still impressed. You bloody well should be, sir! That's phenomenal! ^_^

When you're a pro, things like these become like breathing. We got an expert for a job once, and she got us through the job in 14 hours straight. We had been fumbling around in ignorance for nearly a week before we became aware that someone could help us, and we had the local gov's help, so it's not like we were trying to get in from the start. Experts make the world go round, they take the time to become excellent where others can't afford it, sometimes at great risk on their own, because not everyone appreciates the work they do, so sometimes work security can be tricky.

It was 48 hours to do the electronics that control the bars, not to do the full helmets. And the fact that they used 8 microcontrollers suggests they just uses development boards with the LEDs connected directly to the pins (no multiplexing), via a resistor. Pretty simple circuit; it probably took them longer to fine-tune the code to make the bars look nice (i.e., animate at the right speed, with the right amount of variation, etc.).

Mmmmm...ham

With 40 new sound stages being created, the UK will have more studio space than Hollywood. Many classic productions have been made here.

The Art and Film industry has always been big in the UK. Hollywood had the funds and drowned it out... however that's changing, lots of development and funding has been reinserted into the industry in the UK and it has a massive appeal to American producers and actors. Even big companies in Hollywood itself (US Production Houses) are building large studio lots here... Meaning they are planning to invest and take part in a competitive business rivalry (Which is a good thing, it means they will fight each other to be the "best" and most popular... generating better working conditions, value, opportunities and more. It also means they see a boom happening here in the UK).

i would have laughed into the phone, then hung up and laughed the rest of the day

When I worked briefly at Thingergy in 2019, all those parts were tossed on a shelf and shoved into a corner. Then, when VVDFX rented space for ST stuff, I think those parts found their way off the shelves and into boxes. The gal that was working on the undersuit left the company soon after I did (as did a large percentage of employees). The scuttlebutt around the shop was that after a certain individual was removed from the Tested brand, there was no real drive to continue working on it. Considering how stuff was treated in that shop, I wouldn't be surprised if it all got thrown in the dumpster years ago out of spite.

Tested replied to me about it a while back. No details as to why, but a solid "No." I believe it is dead.

@@joshua.snyder Rumor at the shop (from people that left before I started) was that a certain individual may have been let go from Tested because he wouldn't stop doing things like insulting sponsors on his social media.

@@2000jago As far as I've noticed, the only explanation members have ever received is that Frank got too busy with his company.

@@Thomas_Esson That's an interesting explanation, as there was very little going on when I started there in Feb 2019. We basically just kept "organizing" the shop for multiple weeks. It's probably a more digestible explanation than the rumored truth.

How do you feel about lighted helmet interiors? This makes me crazy. It would be the dumbest idea ever irl.

@@BerzerkaDurk it bugs me, because that would totally destroy the vision of anyone using that helmet, but I can understand why they do it from a filmmaking perspective. Same thing goes for full helmets so people can talk under water- usually with a lit up helmet also. It's dumb, but forgiveable. At least it's better than dubbing in dialogue for someone using a actual respirator- that drives me up the wall.

@@Scudboy17 ha. yeah, I understand why they do it. it just bugs me from a purely utilitarian point of view.

19:30 or so

I suppose it would depend on interference on site and the distances

Apparently pyro guys get really anal about wireless stuff.

The next iteration will be a smartphone or tablet app.

@@marcusnichols5595 Dang, a shame about the hardware/os and wireless protocol flaws.

I remember 40k when Sla'anesh minis had boobs.

Whoat?! Datt keeps datt booorin Warptravalin intaresstin'!😉

Even horizon is great. Start as a normal Sci-Fi movie, but then T-Rex eat Sam and.... I might have mixed up something.

I was thinking of him as well when i saw Simon fiddling around with the controllers. It reminded me of something, and then i remembered the Star Trek Captain's chair that they did.

What's more amazing is how some of those shops can fool production into paying thousands of dollars for what is just something they bought on Etsy and repainted. True story.

@@thomasbecker9676 This might work in under 10% of the cases I can tell you from my own experience. Normally, big productions have very specific ideas for "hero props" that are hard to meet with stuff you can buy

@@thomasbecker9676 - If it works and lets them get the movie done, they're not "fooling" anyone. They're hired to provide a product (and support for that product during shooting). If they do that, they get paid what's in their contract. Nothing says they have to make every single element from scratch.

@@RFC3514 No, but let me ask you if you think all that surplus budget goes to employees or into unscrupulous peoples' pockets.

@@pyrolabsberlin Mando just wanted crap in the background; they didn't care.

For a while I thought Event Horizon had one of my favorite space suits, only to discover that I'd mixed up the Armageddon suits! I love the lighting work on these EH helmets, but overall, I prefer the Armageddon ones. My compliments! BTW, I recently acquired an Armageddon visor from Mr. Gilman, and I noticed in your comment on Adam's video with that suit that you referred to it as a vacuform. Would you mind confirming if those were vacuformed vs. blown acrylic? No pressure, but anything further you're willing to share about the making of those would be fantastic. I'd especially be curious to hear about the early attempt to make them out of polycarbonate as recalled by Bryan Dott.

@@Thomas_Esson Sorry, the visors were actually shaped by a different vendor, and the terms vacuform vs blown were used interchangeably, we didn't do either process in house so nobody really cared. All we cared about was getting them as optically perfect as possible, Chris's attention to detail was/is insane, it wasn't so much about the talent being able to see, it was about the camera not distorting the talent's faces. One other little story I remember is the 'fingers' those little metal tabs that 'held' the visor's in place, I made every last one, every hero every stunt helmet. I shaped a few hundred of those damn things. They came to me as sheets of photo etched magnesium. I separated them on the bandsaw, then profiled them on the disk sander. I was able to quickly make a set of jigs to get each profile exactly the same, using only scraps and some paint mixing sticks. One thing Chris is famous for, is looking at how someone is doing something and yelling and screaming about how they were doing it wrong. But I was raised by a mechanical engineer, who did a lot of work at home, I watched the asshole spend weeks making jigs for stuff that would have only taken hours to do one by one. I know when and where to make a jig. The worse I ever got from Chris was, 'try X...' and X was always better. The problem. Magnesium is a laxative. I was wearing a respirator, but it turns out, it is absorbed through the skin... I have a couple of the raw fingers in a box somewhere. On another note. The Deep Impact Belts and my immunity to temperature. The belts for the Deep Impact suits were also the pick points. They were were the flying rigs were attached to the actors. Every part was plasma cut and welded together by a 'Certified Welder' We called him 'Bob' he was a friend of another Global Employee, who shall remain nameless, for the sake of the Statute of Limitations. Bob's welds were hideous. I had to make those belts look like they were CNC from a single block of aluminum. It was Summer, in North Hollywood CA. I spent an entire week in a Tyvek suit, face shield, and respirator, working my ass off in the Parking Lot, in 120ºf (49ºc) heat. The accident came down to the fact that Bob was an idiot, and he who shall remain nameless was a dick, my work had nothing to do with it... But it broke my thermostat, I love Death Valley in the middle of the winter, -10ºf (-23ºc) in the winter in jeans and a tee up in Emigrant Pass, or the flats in the middle of Summer. Thanks to those damn belts I have a hundred plus degree comfort zone.

@@shewmonohoto Thank you so much for your reply! Interesting to learn that the visors were formed by another vendor prior to your polishing and assembly. Given that Global is such a prolific visor supplier, I suppose I’d just assumed that they were 100% in-house. I regularly find myself surprised by the number of separate entities with a hand in projects like this. And hand-machining every one of those finger tabs - that’s an astounding amount of work! I wouldn’t have guessed that those were magnesium, either. Thanks again - you made an excellent (and still very unique) product.

Fun fact: Cruise ships have morgues, too. It's actually pretty standard.

I know, but they’re not designed like nightmare scenarios. To be fair, they do have to exist. They’re just not usually meant to scare someone enough to take leave of their ability to function.

Thank you, but we filmed this in May!

@@tested I always enjoy it when Adam and Tested visit us over here in the UK, hope you enjoyed your stay. I wondered if you guys have ever seen the show "The Repair Shop" which airs over here. I reckon you'd love it. :)

I’m no movie industry professional but I imagine that if you just get high enough PWM frequency it won’t matter for flicker. Might get spicy with the radiated EM disturbances though. Constant current is fairly easy nowadays as well.

I build movie props for a living and yes you can use PWM. Just run at minimum (max FPS) * 4 so you dont get into trouble with VFX department about some weird globas shutter problems. I like to use 1kHz. Still works ok with the ~300FPS modern standard camaras can do nowadays. Definitely not enough when they bring out the high-speed ones. True linear controlled current will save your day there.

@@greenveg42 EM disturbances will not be a problem unless you arrive on set with this 24V 400A LED power supply, running at variable frequencies and featuring 20m long unshielded cables. Other department's gear is more likely to scramble your little microcontroller...

@@pyrolabsberlin I’m sure you are right!

@@pyrolabsberlin in my head I was like ”yeah they might need looooots of light for camera reasons so 48vdc @ 10amps or more doesn’t seem too far out” and ”If you switch at like 10s or 100s of kHz that could for sure lead too problems if you aren’t cabling correctly” How off am I in judging that as problematic? Im really a mech engineer that just dabbles in the magic pixies…

Raspi? Too "sensitive", too long to boot up, too difficult to fix in case of an error. If you go on set with a prop like this, you bring a couple of replacement parts with you. Also today LEDs might even be requested spcifically.

You'd notice its absence.

Ur right, that does kinda look like him. 😅

Without the lights, you'll have a block "hole" instead of the face. Looks shitty. Believe me. Been there, done that. Looks shitty. Really.

they mention turning them down at times

Last one was Halo. Wasn’t sure which one they did the flicker on. He mentioned it was an underwater set if I heard right.

Believe me, it will never work the way the DOP/Director etc. likes it

Not only are a lot of scenes shot with a different background (ex., brightly lit green screen which will later be replaced with a dark environment), there's also the fact that camera settings and other lights present in the scene (that might be visible to the camera but not by the helmet's sensors) will influence the final result. And, ultimately, they might want the lights to be darker or brighter in some scenes (or even change during a scene) for _narrative_ reasons. TL;DR - Automated light sensors make very poor directors of photography. ;-)