Inside Adam Savage's Cave: Model Making for Movies 

One of the first things we learned from talking to Adam and other prop and model builders is that they are very realistic about the movies their work is used in. Just because the movie didn't turn out great doesn't mean that the work they did for it isn't good.

The coolest thing about Adam Savage is he was a nerdy model building genius that through a twist of fate became a stunt performing test pilot for all the craziness that Mythbusters is now famous for, and he still gracefully retains the best part of his life and personality prior to becoming a celebrity. One hell of a life change and he handled it amazingly.

Adam goes into detail about the casting of the "Hammer" gun he had produced. He talks about how he received a file from Maya and reversed engineered it to build a practical version. What is cool, is I have stored in my archives the original Maya file he used. I was given it to use as a bash kit when working on a separate film. I find this so cool. He is holding onto the practical version as a keepsake, and I'm hanging onto the digital version as a keepsake.

I would love to be Adam Savages apprentice

You ask this on every single video. We will get to it eventually. It requires a little more preparation than the Cave videos do. You can stop asking though, we won't forget.

The amount of heart and soul and effort that adam puts in these models and everything he makes is absolutely astonishing.

My favorite cheesy model effects scene is from Logan's Run. They had a scene where they shot the city from a distance. It was a model crisscrossed with the clear transportation tubes with the little maglev carts in them moving across. In a making of documentary, it showed the model and off to the side there were special effects guys blowing into the tubes, pushing the maglev carts across like spitballs.

I've one of your Y-wing standing on a shelf right behind me ! I've spent so much time playing with those toys when I was a child. Thank you so much Adam !

Adam! Thanks for all your hard work and sharing it with everyone. I had a Y wing from Micro Machines and it was probably my absolute favorite Micro Machine that I had. I spent hours appreciating all the details in between and on the engines. I collected what seemed like about 100 different Micro Machines and that one was still my favorite.

i've been in that model shop that adam's talking about, at the old ilm building in san rafael. he's exactly right. there is a loft space where a lot of the detailed models are built, with a ton of boxed models in the corner for pulling greeblies from, and a huge wall of little drawers (like what you'd find in a tool shop holding screws, washers, etc), holding a shit ton of styrene and other model building parts. fascinating stuff. wish i could have stayed in that room for the next week to just build stuff. ;-)

Adam is living such a cool damn life. You rock brother.

hey tested could we get more videos of Adam talking about which projects he worked on at ILM.

Without a doubt some of the best stuff on RU-vid. Thanks so much Tested and Adam!

it's always great to hear adam's anecdotes and insights on the special effects industry.

Adam is awesome, so cool learning he made templates for Action Fleet ships.

Adams impersonation of George Lucas is BEAUTIFUL lmao

Absolutely fascinating.......I love building stuff and this interview with one of best makers was delicious. Great job Adam and Will, thank you!

So lovely (and inspiring) to watch the Master ruminate!

Thank you for sharing all these cool experiences!

great job, Adam!!. practical special effects always looks better that CGI visual effects. i watching every single MITHBUSTERS episodes!!. greetings from Paraguay, South America!!.

Adam seems like the coolest guy to be around. Not to sound creepy at all but I would love to just shadow him for a day just because I feel like he has a sort of meticulous OCD-type personality that I have. Getting fascinated by the seemingly most uninteresting objects to the average person and spending hours on projects that in the end you probably could have picked up at a store for less than $10 to do the job just as well. Everything has to be personalized for me and if I can make it, that makes the function of the device all the much more satisfying. It's like cooking your own food that tastes better than the exact same meal from take out.

Right on - years ago I had asked Adam (through his website) to show some of his work from the Matrix - got to see it today, awesome...

I watch so much tested and i am a model builder and maker for a living i used his water temporary tattoos of his actual tattoo of the measuring scale on his arm tattooed on my arm in same wxact spot its so nice having it cause now i can get quick reference measurements of stuff like bolt lengths and length of pieces and ect most useful thing i could have done for my self and ppl love it and it got me this job i got now cause the manager of the modeling side said someone with a tattoo to measure with on thier arm is someone who is dedicated to making building fabercating and model making. I was a welder and favercator before becoming a model maker and used my arm tattoo alot in fab shops as well

I had no idea about the movies and stuff. Love these videos. Thanks Adam

Love this video, I've been using CGI for years, now I am so into making 3D prints, painting them and then photographing them and will make short animations soon too. I just love the lighting, the freedom real life models give me, it feels more hands on and liberating! :)

Very informative indeed. I've also noticed that in some films as mentioned in this video that some of the cgi involving puppetry movement of actors looked totally unconvincing in certain films such as Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter films, but here are people actually in the film business confirming what I saw with my own eyes.

I would really love to see Adam go over a small prject for beginners to start out how to do things. It's so cool listening to him because he has this enthusiasm for his work that's just so much fun to watch and listen to.

Thank you Adam when I was little I loved my y-wing with my little r2.

amazing amazing amazing model and prototype work! And the shop..... OG GOD THE SHOP! Thanks for making this series!

Excellent as always Adam and Will. Always very informative and interesting. keep it up!

Oh, I remember that Micro Machines line. I had the C-3PO head that opened into Episode IV cantina scene. You could make Greedo fall out of his chair, and from behind the scenes make the stormtroopers burst through a pair of double doors. I remember seeing a set of droids, and as a Clone Wars fan, really wish I had gotten it.

Fascinating!!! Really enjoyed that.

i love this little show, so suited to youtube, entertaining and dare i say it educating, i often wonder how much adam would like my Ep 1 props and dark crystal props. i was in the fx field (still am) since '95. would work for adam any day of the week. good job guys. keep making the vids

I played with that Y wing toy. That was probably my favorite star wars toy line, because you had all the doors open, you had droids that popped out, the pilots could move their arms and legs (in synchronous), and the detail work was immaculate. The only things that were that cool were the full sized ships from kenner and the xray versions of the mini ships, where you can see the internals. I recognized it immediately from the scale. That was a pretty cool ship to play with.

Great episode. There was this series 'space 1999' in my youth, I still remember the "eagle transporter", I guess it was called, dangling on it's fishing wire suspension. I actually build that model from a kit that came out back then. When it comes to 'kit bashing' I remember those jet fighter kits with optional fuel tanks or rockets etc. that left you with some 'leftovers'. I used these as well to 'pimp' some other models :-)

Loved this episode!!! Keep it up Tested!!

Kit bashing. Have a look at the Borg Cube from Star Trek.

Yes! Adam! Please post a pic or something and show us the universal greebly, so we all can geek out over spotting it in our favourite films!

Oh my god, I had the Galoob Y-Wing. I loved the ship itself and the toy was one of my favorites, I played with it the most and I wish I had it today solely to know I had something related to Adam.

So now we know Adam Savage is a model citizen.

Watching these videos makes me really want to start making these practical effects, and try and make a career out of it.

Wow, these two guys must have set a new world's record for talking with their hands.

I loved the Micro Machines Star Wars sets. There's a VHS somewhere where my brother and I did some crude live action narrative with Micro Machines on the kitchen floor, but which of us here hasn't done something similar?

Star Wars and prop/model making. LOVE!

My dad still does this. Such a cool job.

If I wasn't out building my skills by building stuff and filming, I could watch Adam all day

It's a really cool that Adam made prototypes for Galoobs Micro Machines.

He does have a vacuformer, he built it himself using kit-parts and plans that are available for purchase online, beefing up certain details to make it more powerful. I can't remember who is selling it, though. I hope the full tour of the shop should be coming soon, its been requested long enough :) but, it is another thing that probably takes a lot of planning to be able to do efficiently enough for Adam's schedule, unlike these shorter cave-vids.

that's pretty cool way of wrapping it up :P thanks for the info, think ill rewatch the movies anyhow, havent seen them in a long time

Lol the Flackenflinger. I used that for my Warhammer 40k Hydras. I agree! It's an excellent model!

Thank you. This was very informative! :)

Hey! I built up some of the CG version of the Mjölnir... err Hammer. And the Neb. And Novalis; Vishnu; Icharus; Novalis; Vigilant etc... They were built in Softimage initially but all ended up in Maya at some point. BTW, we were on set together the day the Dock Doors blew up. I was coming over from the CG dept to take some measurements. Good times!

You certainly have to teach us how to did those models!

Holy crap Adam made the Action Fleet Y-Wing?! I loved that toy!

at 11:16 Adam mentions the movie "Silent Running". No, this is not a WWII submarine movie (you are thinking of "Run Silent, Run Deep"). This is a great, for its time, 1972 sci-fi movie staring Bruce Dern with a very strong environmental theme about saving the plants of a decimated earth. It has some wonderful space and spacecraft scenes in it. Love the robots Huey, Dewie and Louie which feel like early attempts at creating an R2-D2 like helpful soul. Worth seeing.

I'm I remember using my mom's "LEGGS" eggs as a kid to make all sorts of stuff! I had forgotten all about them until Adam mentioned them!

Silent Running, a very underappreciated movie and the influence it had on moviemaking onward.

Wow that's a spot on impression of George!

I watch this video many times its great

I did not mind the guy asking so many questions. Only thing I did mind which adam lucky did correct. Is him just insulting the whole matrix trilogy while talking about a wonderful model gun of it.

Wait... Adam designed the Galoob Action Fleet toy line?!?!!? I still have these in my attic! Easily one of my favorite childhood toys. I always knew those rear nacelles were too short! (Box size)

I would love for the old-school model effects to come back into full swing again. Seriously, there's no school like old-school. :)

I would have loved to see a cut from the movie where that boat crached into those doors! Anyway's, I love this, keep it up, I've been watching these for hours! Adam should make those ''Most interresting Man in the world'' adds ahah

Watching Episode IV right now. When i saw Porkins in an X-wing for some reason this episode of Tested popped in my head. "Wait, they said he was in a Y-wing." According to Canon back story for Porkins... he did fly a Y-wing at some point, but never within any of the films.

thank you for makeing a video that i can hear . you know what your doing thank you

I feel nostalgic watching this!..

Great to hear Adam's stories and descriptions of his techniques. Why is the other guy in the video?

Oh my God, a Rhino reference?! I learned that back when I was in highschool!

Great video guys, but it would be really cool to see some of the things that Adam talks about... the UG, that Blade Runner scene, etc. Saludos

I believe it was a t-16 skyhopper used in the original trilogy, as it had a similar cockpit layout to the z-95 and the x wing

On full size sets of ships we often used the Styrofoam that came out of the box with your tv we could glue it to a surface and then even put gauges or lights in it for Airplane 2 there was the plastic rack on the inside of a refrigerator door turned around and fitted with lights and toggle switches

I think I had one of those Y wings when I was younger, don't know what happened to it but I remember that you could deploy the landing gear and the nacelle on the right came out slightly.

This is Gold! thank you

I would assume that there is people making model parts specifically for kit bashing? I think Adam could design some great kit bashing kits so model makers would be using his parts for decades to come.

It would be nice to be able to easily find the latest videos from the cave.

Adams statement about Jon Favearu liking practicall effects is sooo funny now that it’s been 7 years.

Adam channels Lucas at 9:50 Bahahaha!!!

great video this really helped me explain to my tutors at uni what i want to achieve quality wise because i've been showing them books from WETA for Narnia and they just didn't "get it" so thank you tested :D Adam Savage ;)

Im a HUGE< HUGE Call Of Duty Fan and I would love a the BlunderGat from Black Ops 2 Zombies, made by Adam Savage! Im drooling now lol!

Awesome, love these videos.

there are variants of the Y wing where there is no Ion cannon on the top section, some variants of the BTL-A4 and S3 dont have ion cannon turrets near the cockpit.

Oh my god, that y wing toy, I have one of those. Adam made that, wow!

That George impression is SO spot on! xD

The Y-Wing was Gold squadron. Porkins (the 'fat guy') flew an X-Wing in Red Squadron.

Adam, I love you in a manly nerdy way, and my wife approves of this.

Well that is just really very thouroughly interesting.

Great new video .Like it very much.

I REALLY want to do my homework because it's due tomorrow. But Adam Savage is to interesting.

I had that toy Adam. Surreal stuff.

cool i had that micro machines Y-Wing...still do come to think of it

1998. Maya was in its infancy. Autodesk Maya is 20 years old this year. Wow!

I never figured Adam to have worked for Galoob. That was my favorite brand before they closed.

Being an Adam Savage is my dream job!

Looked up what the Greeblie is, cool, who would have thought?. I want to scratch build a spaceship and I just love the detail that some model makers go into. I believe it's a certain obsessive trait that's needed to have the model as real/detailed as possible. Soon I'll have the bare minimum of tools to start, next will be an airbrush then paints.... :) :) :) :)

I would love to see Adam make Finn's blaster from Star Wars!

Could you guys talk more about the big tools that Adam has in his shop? Does he have a vacuforming machine there? And I'd really like to see him building some stuff... So please, whenever he's about to start a prop replica, put a camera in there!

I think the real originator of kit-bashing was Derek Meddings and the Gerry Anderson productions like "Thunderbirds".

I love that J.Lucas parody :D

I would be curious as to which Galoob ships other than the Y-Wing Adam did prototypes for as I still have a few of those. Those "Action Fleet" toys were rather nicely done. Granted they had to get bulked out a little in spots to accomodate the mini figures when they got to the toy stage, but they still looked pretty dang cool (although I wish Adam's original Y-wing head shape could have been maintained better through the design process).

that could be a show in and of itself. 20-30 mins on the FX of his favorite movies. I would watch that