Fame isn’t binary, Adam Savage says. It’s bandwidth.
He’s been the bombastic builder and blower-upper of stuff coming to you through the tee-vee box in your living room on Mythbusters.
No shortage of inspiration fed to a couple of generations of would-be makers.
But no built-in means to more directly engage them.
As the face of the maker-culture YouTube channel Tested, he’s markedly dialled down.
And more dialled in to those who follow along at home or at work or on their phones, wherever.
Here, Savage can share what’s going on in his workshop and the audience can ask him questions.
It’s not always about the weird and wonderful things on his workbench.
Sometimes he’s a Mythbuster of the Human Condition, answering questions like, ‘How do you handle stress?’ or ‘When is it time to start over?’
“We’re having the most fun,” Savage says.
“When I started it, it was a side-hustle. Television was the thing that I did—producing for television. And it has become my only hustle because it affords me so much more creative freedom than television ever did, and also real, granular interaction with the fandom.”
Savage also finds his fans as a regular on the convention circuit.
He’ll be in town for the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
And he’s excited for it.
How Savage views and attends conventions has evolved over the years, as his status as a famous person has evolved.
Fifteen or 20 years ago, he found showing up at a place to charge for autographs odd.
Some years in, the transactional nature of it started to make sense to him.
Fans wanted a reliable way to get the couple of minutes in person with him.
“It has been such a clouds-parting moment for me, being able to go to these cons and hear the stories people want to tell about how the work I and my colleagues have done has intersected with them,” Savage says.
“They want to show me their costumes and they want to consult with me about the difficult build issues they’re having and sometimes they just want to say thanks.
“That’s what I’m coming to Calgary to do ... take some selfies, sign some autographs and hear some beautiful stories.”
Every convention Savage attends, it happens.
Someone will, inevitably, show up at the table wearing the costume they made or with the thing they built in hand.
They’ll be timid about it.
Savage will find himself stunned, because they don’t know.
They don’t know how cool it is.
They don’t know not many people could pull off such a thing in such a short period of time.
“In addition to making it cool, they clearly have some deep sensitivity to colour or form and function and I get to be the one—I get to be one of the people that tells them, ‘This is special (and) you should blow on this fire with some oxygen (because) this could take you somewhere (and) this is not normal—this is really beautiful.’” Savage says.
“It feels like a very special grace to be able to be witness to that. ... I know it’s highfalutin (but) to me that’s what I do at the cons. I’m bearing witness, and that’s part of my return for the incredible life that the fandom that I get to interact with gives me and my team.
“It feels like a wonderful exchange.”
Savage has photo ops scheduled each day he’s at the BMO Centre and a panel scheduled for Saturday.
He’s one of dozens of guests of the show, which runs Thursday through Sunday.
More information about the show can be found at fanexpohq.com/calgaryexpo/.
Extras/outtakes:
At the time Savage speaks with CTV News Calgary, a week and a bit out from hopping a flight to Calgary, he has no shortage of projects on the go.
He fully intends to get into three of them same-day.
A group of New Zealand puppetry makers are set to visit, and he’s getting ready for that.
“We’re going to build something together and I’ve been doing some prep for that on the sewing machine,” he says.
He’s also hauled out a beast of propwork, the Hellboy mecha glove, crafted a decade ago, and scheduled in for a redo because reasons.
“It’s a ludicrous piece, and it’s been sitting on display for a decade and had slowly sort of started to wear out,” he says.
And there’s a tall tool shelf behind him, the current organization of which is bugging him so he’s going to make that make sense.
“That’s first thing today,” he says.
