It’s no secret to Amme nor the rest of my friends/family that I LOVE Mythbusters. If you’ve never heard of it then don’t even talk to me, heh. If you have seen Mythbusters you’ll know why it appeals to me. Not only do they solve myths that have circulated through our culture for years, such as “Can using a cell phone while pumping gas causes really an explosion?” and “Cement inside a cement truck can be removed with dynamite”, they also blow up, torch, and wreck pretty much anything they get their hands on, and build amazing apparati and gadgets, all in the name of science.
The best part is that it is not a flashy mindless thrown-together sort of TV show. The hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are Visual Effects professionals who attack every myth using the scientific method, use physics and science researched by a crack team of behind-the-scenes specialists, and test each myth tirelessly and thoroughly to make sure their findings are correct.
I love the show so much that I’ve made DVDs of every episode, and I encourage you to watch every episode you can, however you can get your hands of them. The subject matter is fascinating. The hosts, including the “build team”, are hilarious, with Adam and Jamie having a classic Double Act relationship. You’ll probably even learn something while watching. And lets face it, these guys are doing things we can only do in our wildest dreams.
So, now that I’ve professed my affliction for this marvelous show, we can get down to what sparked all this. For some reason I came across links to both the M5 website (M5 is Jamie Hyneman’s visual effects company), and Adam Savage’s website. These weren’t hard to find mind you, I just hadn’t ever looked for them before. Both websites have a lot of really neat stuff for both Mythbusters fans, and those just interested in the cool, weird, unusual, and funny.
First, lets highlight some neat pages at M5…
The Portfolio, as you might imagine, makes up the bulk of the site. Here you will find a comprehensive list of Visual Effects projects M5 has undertaken over the years. There are Commercials, Films, and Prototypes. This area is still in progress, so some of the project pages are lacking description or images, but most are there. M5 has created puppets, models, robots, and all manner of gadgets over the years.
Of particular interest are This ingenious Chef Boyardee rolling can, The massive Monkeybone set, The famous 7-Up vending tank, and of course this great vintage shot of young Hyneman!
I’d like to see video links here, maybe from youtube/google video, alas not today.
This section is really neat because it gives us a sneak peek into M5I’s inner workings. As you’ve seen on Mythbusters, there are artifacts stuffed and dangling all over the place from past builds and projects. We also see some build tools like band and table saws, caulk, paint supplies, and CAD equipment. Also hanging out in M5I is a chatty rat, I believe from the Junkyard Wars commercial, and one of the guys from Naked Lunch looking like an alien autopsy photo. I’m not linking these, to encourage you to hunt them down yourself.
The staff section has a little bit about a couple of the people that make M5 function. As a side note, I stumbled upon this page by Cris Rocha who is apparently renting his family’s Villa, lol.
The Departments section gives us a look at the different areas of M5 that go into creating these crazy concoctions. Among them are the Modelshop, Moldmaking, Machine shop, Painting, Woodshop, Robotics, Electronics, Welding, and Fabrication.
The Machine shop is where their two-time champion BattleBot Blendo was constructed.
The press area is that last area of the M5I site (besides Contact, which is just for companies wanting to hire M5). In this section you can view Article excerpts from magazines M5’s creations have been featured in.
Well, thats about all the fun stuff on the M5 Industries page. I really enjoy looking at the projects they’ve done in the past. I hope you do too!
I’ve decided to split this into a two-parter, and Adam Savage’s website has some really zaney stuff, so check out part two here.
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