hey guys it's norm from tested and Adam
Savage and we are here in your man cave
we are ups and downs having to chat
don't do a little different uh we're
exhausted cuz back from comic we're back
from comic-con it's true and at
comic-con we don't know what comic-con
is it's an annual conventions going on
for many decades
celebration of pop culture not just
comic it's a cultural juggernaut yeah
yeah it is kind of undescribable if you
haven't been there but once you're there
you're kind of like wow never seen any
it's like baseball you can't tell
someone what it is you go to a baseball
game
watch it hundreds of thousands of people
around the world yeah go to San Diego
every year to celebrate pop culture
movies and art and costume comic books
absolutely and celebrate each other's
love of it as well really you know it
needs some really cool people and you've
gone for past couple years past few
years yeah cosplay dressed up in
costumes that you've made well you know
I the first time we got invited to
comic-con it's one of the first things
that I thought of is that I really
wanted to dress up in costume for the
same reasons that I did when I was eight
mm-hmm I want to be transformed that's
why you build props you can hold the you
know the gun or the toy saw in the movie
and the sword and feel like that
character for the costume you're the
full body experience precisely become
the character exactly now last year I'm
slowly putting on the costume I wore
last year I had quite an impressive
experience in this costume last year and
for every costume that I that I make or
that I've purchased and put together and
there's always there's so much set up
it's non-trivial to cover your whole
body in a costume it's never ever ever
simple I mean there's a lot of if you
look at many of the behind the scenes
videos these people professional
cosplayers who do it for a living they
spend six months building their costume
and as a whole you know makeup session
in their hotel room
oh absolutely wigs and and they have
assistants putting on everything just so
they can walk the floor oh yeah and it's
wonderful this is a funny thing about
living in San Francisco is like where am
I going to find arm length satin gloves
oh it's San Francisco it's actually
pretty straightforward of so
people who might have seen you on the
floor last year or a little recognizable
and wait there we go sorry good see I
think I have it the other way okay and
then ah the final piece de resistance is
the head okay if you could hold up the
head on your side there let me try and
get up underneath see hold on that's it
wait there we go now oh there's my hands
there we are
Wow yeah how about that awesome this is
not insane for people don't know what
this says shame on you it's no face no
face and tell people about no face no
face is the main character of the great
Hayao Miyazaki's unbelievably phenomenal
film spirited away it is about little
girl Chihiro who actually gets caught at
a sort of a an in-between land where I
can only describe it as it's an
in-between land where magic is real and
no face is one of the characters and she
helps no face kind of heal himself in
the in the course of the in the course
of the film
you love this character I love this
character I love this movie I worked
really hard on the way he stands also I
want to point out I actually built the
head here out of clear vacuform plastic
with a hood underneath it so no face is
in fact somewhat see-through in real
life just like he was in the movie that
was really important to me to try and
get that I'll also point out I can't see
anything out of this costume I guess a
your I see your hands and that's it so
you see through the mouth I see through
the mouth so that's all I see and how
does that affect the performance because
it is a performance well it you know I
think that when people when people came
up and asked I just tried to move really
slowly they'd ask to take a picture so
I'd stand there and I'd you know sort of
do my no face pose um and then i did
this other thing which was I had a
satchel of chocolate gold coins hidden
in my robes so I take a picture with
people and then I'd slip my hand
into my into my gown and pull out a
chocolate coin and I'd produce it for
them and I'd give it to them now
people thought this was really cool
especially they knew the movie because
this is one of the ways no face actually
draws people to am is he held out his
hand and he's got gold in it and they
want the gold so it kind of uses their
greed to achieve some things in the film
but something else really amazing
happened the little Japanese girls the
otaku who go to comic-con in force we're
super intense about seeing no face for
real but when I'd hand them gold coins
most of the time
they would hand the code they would take
my hand and put it back and give me back
my gold coins because in the movie it's
bad luck to take coins from no face how
cool is that
getting character it is incredible I got
chills when it happened the second time
I finally realized what was going on and
I realized that what was happening here
was some kind of whole new type of
theater experience in a way yeah because
I love this movie I love this character
they do too and they're playing on this
level that's totally incredible is it
weird sitting here talking to no face
like this very surreal performance I
mean it's obviously practiced yeah I I
worked really hard on them and I'm gonna
take this off now ah oh I worked really
hard on all the aspects of how this
would feel to wear how I could move my
head around I've got a really tight
kayaking helmet in there
I drew full-sized pictures of it on the
on the whiteboard in order to see how it
places it I built mannequins that I
stood around I mean the mechanics were
really I wanted to make sure they felt
right so that my performance could feel
really natural and in the end actually
this is one of the least expensive
costumes I have ever built total cost of
materials for this was about 150 bucks I
mean you know not everyone has a
vacuform machine
not everyone can it has access to the
tools to put this together but the
actual cost of good
was relatively minor cosplay really
doesn't take that much takes a passion
for the character knowing the character
exactly what's important yeah I mean and
this I mean for instance this gown which
covers me in here this is nothing but a
piece of cloth with a hole in it there's
nothing special there
that is so cool Adam I'm going to give
this back to you thank you and well that
is one of your costumes from previous
years at comic-con I am also uh uh I
also wore it at this year's come so if
you saw Adam there and said hi
graduations catching him it was me
awesome wall we'll have more from
comic-con other costumes young man more
intense calm from Adams man cave we'll
see you guys next time
thanks very much
