How Screen Accurate Prop Replicas Are Made!

hey everybody Adam Savage in my cave alongside Tyler Hamm creative director of paragon FX group now you guys know how much I love props here it is such a primary occupation of this cave to make them replicate them exult over them and you guys have sent me some you're a brand new replica props company yeah just a couple years old a couple years old uh and you've been sending me some of your wares and they are beautiful I've been doing some unboxings here on the channel but what we're here to talk about today is your actual process how do you bring these things to life because it's not only non-trivial it is so much more complex than I think most people realize yeah there's there's a lot behind the scenes here and that's actually that's why we always love we love watching your videos when you look at our stuff because we get to see both someone who appreciates the aesthetic and the delivery but also has an appreciation of what it took to get from uh from concept to your doorstep well and yeah within the making of things I have been a professional maker for for decades but I also spent a few years in manufacturing which is a fundamentally different Beast absolutely so and you come from the prop manufacturer prop making standpoint right yeah yeah both me and uh my partner rylan's both Ryan was very technical in the engineering he was a a custom builder for years worked for a lot of the companies that anyone who's spent any time in the space knows yeah uh I have traded props with Ryan over the last couple of decades for decades yeah and uh I started out in film visual effects and then switched over to uh Collectibles and proper replicas from there well so you guys sent me this piece this beautiful bat Rap no and I did a full unboxing of this we'll include a link in the description um I talked about this extensively as like one of my favorite prop replicas I've I've encountered because it feels so much like exactly what I would imagine the in-universe piece to feel like well that that's what we wanted when we built this uh that's why and so when you hold the pieces you fit them together they click hard it's cold it's heavy they pieces spin yeah you can put the the dart in and kind of uh when we go about doing this yeah there's always this um because people buy these types of things it's not always necessarily just to have something like on the shelf or like a poster you have on the wall yeah it's this is my connection you know I just pulled this directly out of the screen yes I am Batman for a minute and if you can get that feel and capture that feel in something that's like job is done like that's what you want you want someone to open that like it's Christmas morning now that means that this is a lot of machined Parts as well as die-cast Parts am I correct about that this prototype was all hand machined all hand machines so you have the first hand machine prototype of the grab Mill here yeah so that's right in here I love these oh can I yeah absolutely man can you guys release one that looks just like this I know I've wanted we were we wanted to show these pictures off the first time we saw our fully machined one assembled and and to rylan's credit um when we were getting this this was all hand machines this was looking over shoulders and machine shops right this was you know old school on the ground making sure all the clearances were correct making sure you got that you know when these two parts go together it it punches like it clicks into place I don't think people really understand or resp or or get just how complex this is because when you're manufacturing a product let's say you're making something like this you have these aesthetic marks to hit and these performance and you know you want it to work in a certain way and all the same applies here except you also have to hit this perfect aesthetic mark because the people spending money on the stuff you're selling are completely unforgiving if the Aesthetics Aren't Dead to the money completely unforgiving and it's also uh you're you're also in a place where you're sort of managing uh people's expectations of do they want what they think they saw on screen do they want something that looks like on screen but as first built they want to look like how it looked on the set so and and especially like if something like the uh like the knife for example yeah uh you sell that to someone and if there's a scratch on the case no no one cares it's a utility knife right you get one of these out and there's a scratch and it's not only is it a return but it's kind of a heartbroken customer oh my gosh and so is that something you have to educate your manufacturer on about what QC obviously what QC is acceptable absolutely we have sort of a policy where you see by I mean quality control yeah where we will actually go through and especially some manufacturers that we work with uh that are more familiar with high-end Collectibles and replicas they sort of come in with a more of an understanding of you know this is because they have worked in that because they've done it they understand that extra care that needs to be spent yeah okay and and they they don't want to they don't want returns either right and they want us happy and you know the End customer being happy is what makes us happy is what makes everybody happy and so a lot of times it will have uh some some of the manufacturers are really good with that but sometimes you know when you're working in overseas and especially in things like um specific Collectibles where you're not dealing with tens of thousands you're dealing with hundreds or thousands you'll find that some of the factories that you use aren't necessarily even collectible factories right you know and so they they'll do something like uh they could do dishware right and so they have the equipment and the knowledge and they can they can make something that's you know like a like a sphere or something you know like a batarang but with a shop like that sometimes you might send them a prototype and say match this and they send you back something that is different completely different and that doesn't and it's not because they're dumb absolutely they're simply applying your problem to their way of solving that problem yeah and their logic of what is wrong the level you know if you're used to making spoons and dishes or doorknobs like a little flaws in in the surface aren't a big deal but if you're making uh you know a prop that someone has been waiting years for and is you know none of these things are an insignificant amount of money you know it it there's a responsibility yeah to deliver something to someone who's giving you hard-earned money for it and there's uh when when that part is missing that's where the education comes in well I think that people don't realize that manufacturers every kind of manufacturer every version of a manufacturer has its own way of solving its problems absolutely doing its business absolutely that those those ways that they have are part of their institutional inertia yes and I don't think people realize that you could send you can say to a part that a company that makes aluminum pieces I'm sending you a piece make a piece exactly like this and you might still get pack a piece that is fundamentally different in a lot of the aspects oh absolutely because uh a lot of times too the people who are actually doing the manufacturing on the shop floor yeah aren't necessarily the people that you're speaking with and so someone will make a call on the shop floor well where you say I want you know I want it like this and they'll go you know it'd be better if we did it this way so it's a game of telephone yeah and it even though it might be better structurally or for whatever they're and it's it's always it's not malicious no it's we think this would work better and I don't want it then it's wrong you know yeah yeah no I don't want to cast this versions but I do remember a problem replica from Years Ago by another company in which uh there was a lid and the lid was mounted upside down yeah on the actual piece and they ended up having they saw I got one and I was like what's wrong with the lid they're like well it's mounted upside down and I'm like why did you sell it then they were like well we got like we bought a thousand like that and it was like no that's a real expense to them sometimes you you don't find out those errors until they're in your your Warehouse wow and so uh like when we do this we have we have extreme checks and balances and so we we do our own quality control throughout just but Extreme checks and balances is an expensive proposition right like you have to incorporate you have to be able to manage all that QC and still be able to sell your thing and make some a little bit of money on the side well it's also time consuming yeah and so when you have people and that that's why we we're not like a a big big pre-order order you know way an advanced company because we'd rather not feel the pressure of delivering to people who've paid versus the pressure of getting it right so that the people are happy when they get it fair enough that makes total sense um so can you talk me through some of the particular issues you might have had between the Prototype and the manufacturing of the grapnel gun oh absolutely well ironically and so you know if as we were just talking about so this is all hand done yeah at a great expensive time right because it was literally you know piece by piece oh dude this was some of the this is doing toy prototyping was actually one of the more lucrative side hustles I had going when I was a professional model maker yeah well I mean because it's it takes such a specific attention to detail yeah and it and I thought I was detail-oriented before I got into this industry and then once I was in it I I was like I I'm just like a toy slob I guess like I I wouldn't you know it took a while to kind of educate the eye the biggest kind of the the funniest part of this was halfway during there's kind of a saying where people say you know what's the worst thing that can happen when you're developing a replica yeah it's that someone finds the real one the screen used one oh right because you've done all your research from you've done some standard reference and then all of a sudden you're halfway through development and the real one shows up well during this the real one showed up and uh that when we went up for auction and we discovered that many of your assumptions were slightly wrong and then we had to kind of we had to like stop we had to stop manufacturing to go back and just like like well now we have better photos of like but little things like you know like this must kill you because like this sorry I just realized that the most likely circumstance for the real one showing up is you releasing the replica right sorry but go ahead no it's it's like a blessing and a curse yeah of course of course so tell me about this and so it was just like little things like we noticed all of a sudden on on the the one that came up that like this was a shaped a little different and it's really minor things this little site just this little teeny piece right here yeah and it's um it's one of those things too where you're like how many people would notice you asked that question and you ask it and then you get to that point where you're like it doesn't matter how many people notice because we notice and and we are both such sticklers for I mean that's you know the company's named Paragon I mean so we there's pressure there you've set expectations yeah we've set expectations from the name to just try to make exemplary models of everything we do and so we're we are not afraid too if something comes up hey let's let's stop this let's revise it we have some products that we've been revising for well over a year well so let's let's talk about some of the other franchises you are playing in I I notice here this feels like a deep cut to me is the Phantasm murder ball yeah this is gorgeous thank you um and I I'll have to say at the outset I see a shiny Chrome ball and I sense nothing but headaches yes that's a uh that's another thing too when when at the end of the production run you don't want someone to pull their ball out of the box and there's fingerprints all over it no they're oh you know yeah even that and so we have strict uh conditions in uh back and forth you know these all need to be uh polished before they're placed in everything has to be white gloved oh and then I mean even down to little tiny things the angles these come out of the balls the angles they come out this way every one of those angles is a is a critical measurement it is because a lot of times when you see these uh at horror conventions when you kind of are looking a lot of times the knockoffs just assume that that these come straight out right of course and no they're actually there's a slight flight yeah they go towards the center a little bit we're doing this when we call this one the Mr Potato Head because uh this is actually this isn't even the final version this is just a more final prototype yeah but we're going to have the drill bit accessory and then the tri-blade accessory oh so you so the tri-blade is going to fit into here that's some yeah it's gonna stick on and at this point we're just finalizing uh just our packaging and not even the external packaging there's a lot to think about with um like it's called drop testing which I think a lot of people don't realize all right you've got to be able to pack it so someone can drop kick it out of a delivery van and it still arrives perfect really drop ticket yeah like someone can throw it out of out of a van and it can land on your deck and still survive and so it's not it has to get loaded from a factory yeah onto a boat and get unloaded and then get shipped to your door well I mean to your point of lest you wonder if anyone's going to notice I have seen threads on the RPF where people are in a thread talking about a limited edition of a hundred stuff that came out and 20 of the receivers of that prop are on the thread comparing their as delivered versions whether there are scratches or fingerprints like they are hard tracking this stuff on your dime right oh yeah and that's why we have to take such precautions with it I mean there is such a thing as you know we are designing the interior foam yeah you know there there is and everything is thought out because like like you said you know one one thing goes wrong and people write people are writing about it so talk to me about the this 3D printed murder ball here I know that's not exactly what it's called but um how does this fit into your in your prototyping process so when we were prototyping this one uh we decided to go a 3D route versus actually hand Machining we did a 3D version of this and uh because we wanted to make sure that the size was right uh we went up and we took reference from the uh there's technically that people call them the Sentinel sphere and so there is one from Phantasm two up in the pop culture Museum oh yeah up in Washington Seattle yeah in Seattle and so I went there I took a bunch of pictures got sort of a basic you can get a basic idea of about how big it is you know looking through the glass and then so we kind of wanted to make sure you know it's it's an odd size it's kind of like not softball not baseball but like it's a it's not a standard sphere yeah and so we just want to make sure the size that we chose based on uh what we had deduced from photogrammetry and everything right just felt right because you can you can guesstimate it and you can look at it in 3D and you can you know do cutouts but I mean 3D printing Technologies here so why not use it by all means and that allows that's a great tool for this that allows you to make multiple versions of slightly different sizes and choose the exact one yeah and this is great because you guys are look I always say on the channel here I'm looking at props that give me a specific experience as we were talking about of like it's the real thing pulled from the screen and so you guys are using your institutional expertise to be like yeah this is the one that this is the experience but it's like that it's it's you know how uh I guess it's the equivalent of when a restaurateur says mouthfeel yeah you know it's like prop feel like this yeah this feels right and that's great that's kind of how we felt with this like you know you get it you hold it like it feels right yeah I the only thing I wanted to do is like have it rattle around in the wheel well of my car for a few weeks yeah a little bit a little dinged a little bit weathered around the edges so I you guys have uh you brought here a piece I didn't know you were making and I would like to talk about it the uh the John Hammond came back here oh you've got a little Jurassic Park going on yes we love this piece this was one of the ones that when the company it was started when we both were talking about you know like what every prop mixer maker does you know what would you make what would you make right right that was a top so talk to me this is the this is a piece I've always been curious about first of all this is license so this is totally accurate in terms of the cane yes okay and I purchased one of these it seemed like it was way too inexpensive and discovered that the mosquito I had purchased was a clear plastic print of a mosquito in a clear ball so that to most of the world it looked like that but from the side and then from the side it disappears yeah as you twist I was very sad about that how did you do this this mosquito that was it was funny because that was actually a question that we were asking when we're doing it because either I mean those aren't flying around anywhere right you know there's nowhere to where they're farming them oh right and so that's actually a 3D printed bug no way yeah with uh I believe the legs are just a thin like a thin wire it looks like they're almost a wire but it's yeah their wings have um their wings have actually some design on them yeah and there's specular stuff going on it's a wing uh sort of a wing I guess you'd call it like a vein pattern I'm not sure and you've 3D printed that into acetate or something it's just printed on acetate wow it looks so freaking good we were really excited when we saw this because also I mean there's parts of this industry where when you're doing it uh even though you're prototyping it you're still not sure how it's going to work out right right and so it was like 3D printed bug with acetate wings like oh let's see and then they show up and you're like wow like this is and that's it's kind of it takes you out of being a manufacturer and puts you back into being a fan again for a minute and you know you kind of get that you know even though you've worked on this thing every day for months yeah you get that first look feel again now I bet you also get this experience of being able to look at like 50 of these all at once because its own particular kind of weird pleasure I'll bet well and then you get photos of of the assembly lines and the right and am I correct this is cast into resin which means there's a whole post polishing uh uh uh process for this yes that's non-trivial no no none of it really is I mean polish is literally the most unforgiving process there is and this is a slightly irregular shape yeah and that that was another interesting thing too it's not you know a lot of times you see them in and it's assumed it's just egg egg shaped right but it's not egg-shaped it's got sort of this organic it's a piece of stone yeah it's a little piece of Amber and so getting that right and you know figuring out I mean we we were directing the manufacturer and how to set the bug yeah so as you must be yeah it's not just randomly part of it's too close to the outside we have we kind of named a b and c because there's sort of edges you know you call them edges so it's like a edge B Edge C Edge and we need the bug to be like if you're looking down the bug needs to be at this angle and this is a edge and B Edge and because we wanted it to just look right from how you would be holding it sure sure because if you're holding it kind of in like the the hero pose but the bug's facing you you can't really see it you kind of need that profile wow yeah there's a lot more again it's not just people like dumping bugs into resin and yeah clear coating it um and then is this uh is this is this injection molded the cane part that is resin pour it is resin pour yes it's a very flexible it's a lovely resin it's got a great feel to it now we were really really happy with it I mean we hope that no one actually uses it as a cane because I don't think that's going to be the one that supports your body weight you don't have an Armature no no okay but it's uh so not to be used as a cane yeah but to be used as a lovingly decorative uh replica it is really really gorgeous I just I I I've long thought about this prop and wondered about how people did the mosquito and this has been like a lot of people on the RPF over the last 30 years have made versions of this there are a lot of replicas of this and you still had to burn brand new territory to figure out your own method yeah well also it's uh when you're doing it at a more of a scale you definitely need a more you need consistency of course of course yeah and then you need to name sides of a bug and have maps of mosquitoes in your that's what people don't see is I mean this this is metaphorical but you know the stack of paperwork that goes back and forth with notes you know I mean the as in PDFs uh it's just pages and pages and yeah you know bug angles and color call outs and and all sorts of stuff and it's just all back and forth no no no no no no no and if you change manufacturers you'd have to go through all of that again and that happens right and that happens sometimes uh because Midstream a manufacturer might tell you we have to let this job go and yeah that happens you know sometimes we will change manufacturers and sometimes manufacturers Just change wow or um or a subcontractor will change it right or like um like Chinese New Year big holiday oh and that will close everything down that closes everything down and then when uh some of those factories start re-upping afterwards yeah uh either so you know sometimes a lot of employees will leave one Factory and just start their own Factory over Chinese New Year and then all of a sudden you don't have a factor anymore or the same people and oh my God okay so you have one more prop to show here again from Jurassic Park and I have not seen this yeah no this is this is a debut I am very excited about this also I I really dig your guys packaging I I I love this it's a digital set of digital files that you had made up I actually did this you actually built this yeah I did the packaging design from reference photos so a digital assembly oh that's great ah it is the barbasol so this is famously the shaving cream can in which uh Dennis nedry hides the dinosaur DNA yep oh my gosh and this is such a classic uh Jurassic Park piece it's sort of the one that I feel like when you say Jurassic Park props this is what everyone's thinking that's the default yeah yeah oh my God it's beautiful I think there's just one like we know the confines and the shape we understand this prop right yes like it's it is a known quantity talk to me about some of the manufacturing difficulties in making this one got woman so gorgeous for one it's uh it's done a lot of I think there's sort of a misconception when you when you talk to people about manufacturing as a customer that you just send your idea to a manufacturer right and they and they send it back sure and it and it's done and it's beautiful and you know you send them your your artwork and you get it back in a in a nice box ready to go right and so but the reality is you know there's a manufacturer for the machine work there are manufacturers for these little capsules there's manufacturers for uh wraps there's manufacturers for the plastic lid each one of these is a separate manufacturer a separate Factory a separate set of design goals and then there's a someone who makes the packaging oh my God and then they all have to get made get approved get qc'd get brought together get assembled put together pass your drop testing and to get to your door and you also have to choose a yellow liquid that's not going to deteriorate over time or rot or change color well we leave that up to the customer because we actually another thing you can't ship a product like that with liquid and so we we set this one up and you make a suggestion oh nice as to uh to what is the the proper Dyno DNA color oh my God that's great I just that must have been real fun to get this prototype it was really hot and this is a prototype yes uh this is a final okay yes it's um deaths really it's another one of those ones where again when you open it up after you've been working on it for so long yeah it brings you it it's it's like little kid Christmas again and you would think you know it's there's so many times when also during development of everything yeah it gets to the point where you're just kind of tired of of looking at something and you get that that product burnout yeah and then you work through it and then you get to hold it in your hands and it's just like you you forget all the ills and it's just all all the smiles that is a a Fellini was famous for saying he knew one of his films was almost done when he totally despised it I can uh-huh yes absolutely Tyler I really really appreciate this deep dive i i as you know on the videos about these I talk a lot about how difficult it is to make this stuff and to make it at the Fidelity your customer base demands um you guys are just killing it it's really really lovely well thank you so much and this has been amazing thank you so much for having me man can't wait to see what you guys are gonna make now see you guys next time I can't thank you enough for supporting us by watching the channel if you've been to our merch store you might want to head there again because we are always updating our roster with new products here is the anime inspired tested logo in Japanese my one of my all-time favorite new designs uh we're also selling tested mugs and tested hats oh and if you want a cup of tea we're selling that too tested.com tester.store.com laughs

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 331,721

Keywords: tested, prop replica, jurassic park, replica prop forum, prop making, 3d printing, movie props, Tyler Ham, paragon fx group, paragon fx jurassic park, paragon fx group jurassic park, jurassic park props, barbasol jurassic park, adam savage, adam savage tested, adam savage props, adam savage jurassic park, Batman grapnel launcher, batman props, paragon fx group batman

Id: Zh7XTsCU7AQ

Length: 26min 18sec (1578 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 14 2023