Premium: Behind the Scenes with Adam Savage at SXSW

9 thoughts on “Premium: Behind the Scenes with Adam Savage at SXSW”

1. So Adam… what’s with the suit? Do you always dress up on stage?

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2. The Adam Advantage: you genuinely care about what your audience gets out of the talk. As a result, even if your talks aren’t perfect, they are entertaining, and we (the audience) still get a value-added ride from it. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve watched speak who are there because they have to be (mandated by the boss) or they’re milking a cash cow. Boring talks, bordering on the ‘complete waste of time’, with the sizzle of a bowl of mashed potatoes. While I have no doubt you get paid well for your speaking engagements, you carry a passion and desire to enlighten your audience that carries through TV, pod cast, and stage. You’re one of the few speakers that I have yet to be bored with…

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3. I really enjoyed the talk and this video, though I have to say I’m sort of instinctively revolted by the way the latter was shot in front of the HEY HAVE YOU SEEN OUR SPONSORS wall. Not to the point of furious indignation or anything – I understand why events like SXSW have sponsors, and I suppose a brightly colored have-your-photo-ops-here-if-you-please area splattered with a repeating pattern of their logos is less obtrusive than a LOT of ways they could have brought them to our attention. It isn’t “angry letter to the editor” territory, but it’s annoying. I freely acknowledge, however, that that might just be me. I don’t even like the little ad for the dealership that’s on most cars.

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4. It was a great topic! I agree that I think Adam really rushed through it and I hope he can develop it more and hopefully hear it again on a TED talk or something like that. Maybe some examples of the art behind the engineering on Mythbusters or when a time art and engineering was combined to get a prop to work while working at the prop production company he worked for.

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5. I instruct InfoSec courses. Hearing Adam talk about the way he constructs a talk and likes to let it mature in his brain before writing it down is very reassuring to me.

   Other stuff I love about Adam: his admission of the “Imposter Syndrome” (I get it too), and delivering material in the past you were not proud of, but you press on regardless.

   I’m such an Adam fanboy. In one way it’s sad. In another way, it’s awesome that there’s someone like Adam who I can relate to.

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6. I thought it was a great keynote and a subject that Adam is uniquely qualified to deliver on but the whole video I was distracted by the wonderful juxtaposition of…Rooster t-shirt interviews man in suit…I think it would make a great album cover.

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7. I really enjoyed the talk and this video, though I have to say I’m sort of instinctively revolted by the way the latter was shot in front of the HEY HAVE YOU SEEN OUR SPONSORS wall. Not to the point of furious indignation or anything – I understand why events like SXSW have sponsors, and I suppose a brightly colored have-your-photo-ops-here-if-you-please area splattered with a repeating pattern of their logos is less obtrusive than a LOT of ways they could have brought them to our attention. It isn’t “angry letter to the editor” territory, but it’s annoying. I freely acknowledge, however, that that might just be me. I don’t even like the little ad for the dealership that’s on most cars.

   The sponsors are the reason why we have cool things like SXSW/Tested/Mythbusters. I feel you’re directing your anger/annoyances at the wrong thing here.

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8. I really enjoyed the talk and this video, though I have to say I’m sort of instinctively revolted by the way the latter was shot in front of the HEY HAVE YOU SEEN OUR SPONSORS wall. Not to the point of furious indignation or anything – I understand why events like SXSW have sponsors…

   The sponsors are the reason why we have cool things like SXSW/Tested/Mythbusters.

   As I said, “I understand why events like SXSW have sponsors… “

   … but have they absolutely got to be so constantly, loudly, brightly, godawfully pushy about them? It’s distracting. Detracts from the experience. My objection isn’t to the sponsors, it’s to the clumsily obtrusive branding thereof.

   Like I said, could be worse. A few years ago some cable channel (I want to say it was Discovery Science, back when it was still called that) rebroadcast the original Cosmos for the first time in ages, and it was awful. Not just because they had to make horrendous cuts to make the show hit a one-hour time slot with the 20 minutes or so of advertising a one-hour basic cable program has to contain these days, but because they tacked sponsorship announcements on top of that in the most grotesque manner available. There you are drifting pleasantly in the Science Trance, lulled to a higher state of consciousness by Carl Sagan’s dulcet voice, and suddenly – wham! like a car crash! – a very different voice bellows at a volume that can clearly be heard by your next door neighbors,

   “CosmosonDiscoveryScienceisbroughttoyouinpartbySUBARU!EatlivesleepdriveconsumeSUBARU!!!”

   The neon yellow SXSW sponsor wallpaper is sort of a visual approximation of that experience, but it isn’t quite as heart-attack-inducing. 🙂

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9. I caught Adam’s keynote as I attend SXSW like Tested crowd attends ComiCon or similar conventions that have become huge events. I appreciate the behinds the scene video. Cheers…

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