True Films 3.0 - Kevin Kelly
True Films 3.0 - Kevin Kelly
True Films 3.0 - Kevin Kelly
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With Jamie Hyneman<br />
and Adam Savage<br />
2004, 13 episodes<br />
Available from Amazon<br />
Rent from Netflix<br />
MythBusters<br />
The all-purpose crash<br />
dummy is blown up<br />
when an airplane<br />
window seat explodes,<br />
or when pierced with a<br />
trombone projectile.<br />
This super educational series from the Discovery channel is now on DVD. The two hosts,<br />
veteran Hollywood effects experts, test urban myths. You know, folklore such as: you get less wet<br />
if you walk, not run, in rain. Or, you can kill someone with a bullet of ice that leaves no evidence.<br />
Or, a small hole in an airplane at altitude will rupture into a large one and suck everyone out. If<br />
it involves explosives, all the better – can a cell phone cause an explosion at a gas station? In<br />
each episode they build elaborate equipment to recreate the conditions of the myth in order to<br />
determine if the myth is remotely possible. Sometimes the apparatus is formidable. They bought<br />
a steel ship to test whether sinking it would suck you down if you were swimming nearby (a la<br />
Titanic). Their comprehensive recreation of the myth that a penny dropped from the Empire<br />
State Building will kill you is brilliant and probably the final word on the subject. The cool part is<br />
the techie way they approach the problems: make stuff yourself. As in the series Junkyard Wars<br />
(p.94), you learn a lot by watching tinkerers quickly build things that really work. But here, they<br />
are not just engineering. They are actually doing an entertaining kind of science experiment, with<br />
controls, measurements, and results. Once the defined experiment is completed they push it to<br />
the limit. In other words their approach to investigating an urban legend is this: first they test<br />
the conditions as stated in the myth, and then if that does not work, they try to recreate the results<br />
of the urban legend. For instance, if they can’t get an ordinary cell phone to ignite overflowing<br />
gasoline at a gas station (and they couldn’t), they’ll keep modifying the phone, gas supply,<br />
voltage, whatever it takes until they can get results – a spark from something like a phone that<br />
blows the station up. Cool! My entire family, including teenage girls, watches these with glee,<br />
and more than once, since there’s a lot going on. And as a bonus, you wind up with a fairly good<br />
grasp of which urban legends have any veracity. Now on their fourth season, they cover three<br />
myths per episode.<br />
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