Speaker 1: Technology with tech Stuff from dot Com. Hey there, and
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, executive
Speaker 1: producer here at how stuff works dot com, talking all
Speaker 1: about technology on this show. And today we have a
Speaker 1: very special treat, at least for me and also for
Speaker 1: you guys. There's this little series that showed up on
Speaker 1: Netflix and took the world by storm. That would be
Speaker 1: Stranger Things, a series that I very much personally enjoyed. Well,
Speaker 1: my producer extraordinaire Ramsey was able to land interviews with
Speaker 1: two really cool people who came in to talk to
Speaker 1: us about what they did behind the scenes to make
Speaker 1: Stranger Things work. And that's just Royal, the set decorator
Speaker 1: for the series, and John Hilton, the rigging gaffer for
Speaker 1: the series. So what follows is our conversation about the
Speaker 1: tech behind making a show work and just sort of
Speaker 1: the interesting challenges one faces when doing these sort of things,
Speaker 1: especially in locations as opposed to sets. So enjoy. I
Speaker 1: have to thank my two special guests who have joined
Speaker 1: me for this episode of Tech Stuff, Jess and John,
Speaker 1: who both have worked on multiple projects, but the one
Speaker 1: we're talking about specifically today is the Netflix series Stranger Things,
Speaker 1: a show that I binged immediately when the first season
Speaker 1: came out and fell in love with it, not just
Speaker 1: because I recognized some of the people in it, but
Speaker 1: because it really felt to me like it didn't feel
Speaker 1: like a show set in the nineteen eighties. It felt
Speaker 1: like a show that was made in the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: and somehow disappeared and then resurfaced twenty years later, and
Speaker 1: it's it's so evocat of and I wanted to have
Speaker 1: both of you on to talk about your roles in
Speaker 1: making this show what it was. So we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: today about sort of the tech side, the the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes side of making a show and and the
Speaker 1: work that you do and how that ends up contributing
Speaker 1: to this overall effect whatever the show maybe, or the movie,
Speaker 1: whatever the project is. In this case, we're talking about
Speaker 1: something that is a period piece, but you know, obviously
Speaker 1: there are other ones where you have a very different
Speaker 1: feel for whatever the project is. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: start with you, John, John, you are rigging gaffer. Tell
Speaker 1: listeners who have seen i'm sure the term gaffer in
Speaker 1: the credits what that means, because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of folks just don't know. The gaffer is just a
Speaker 1: department head that's in charge of the electrical so electrical
Speaker 1: distribution and lighting. Um. I think the term comes from
Speaker 1: old man. Yeah, was the old man on the crew.
Speaker 1: He's in charge of the lighting. Yeah. They have a
Speaker 1: the term gaffer in uh and Lord of the rings. Actually,
Speaker 1: Sam Wise Gamgees father is called the old gaffer. Uh.
Speaker 1: I say that because of my Lord of the rings geek.
Speaker 1: So what are your responsibilities typically on a on a
Speaker 1: shoot as a ringing gaffer? I'd provide the power to
Speaker 1: the set and any any lighting that we can get
Speaker 1: up before beforehand before photography, We'll get that done as well. Cool.
Speaker 1: So you are making sure that all the stuff that
Speaker 1: needs to work is actually going to work. Yes, an
Speaker 1: important role on any production. And how did you get
Speaker 1: your start in in the business known as show I
Speaker 1: was a nanny for a director of photography in eight
Speaker 1: the summer of ninety eight, and I watched his kids
Speaker 1: during the summer and after at the end of the summer,
Speaker 1: he had me tag along with him to go work
Speaker 1: on a film. And after the film was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you'd be great this, you should move to l A.
Speaker 1: I got my friends. They can hook you up at
Speaker 1: a camera rental house and you can do that for
Speaker 1: a little while. And I was like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do that. I want to move to New York
Speaker 1: City and be a bum. So I didn't get into
Speaker 1: it right away. I was a maintenance man in an
Speaker 1: apartment complex and all my tools were stolen, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I'll go work on movies, a security circuitous
Speaker 1: route to get there. So did you have a background
Speaker 1: and electrical work before you even got into the movie
Speaker 1: a little bit? And I've done, like my dad does
Speaker 1: h V a C. So I kind of dabbled on
Speaker 1: that during the whole maintenance for apartment complex thing. I
Speaker 1: kind of understood electrical systems, right. So you then take
Speaker 1: that understanding and you start pouring it over to the
Speaker 1: production side, where I imagine it's a a a fairly
Speaker 1: uh strenuous process to make sure everything is how it
Speaker 1: needs to be because obviously, any time on any set
Speaker 1: is money, So anything that takes extra time is going
Speaker 1: to cost the whole production extra amounts of money. So
Speaker 1: I mentioned it's a fairly high stress environment. It is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't get a lot of sleep. I always called
Speaker 1: Jessell workaholic, but really it's for me. I do it
Speaker 1: all at home. She doesn't see it. It's fair. And now,
Speaker 1: Jess you you were a set decorator, are still lar
Speaker 1: sick decorator for Stranger Things? Also, congratulations on getting an
Speaker 1: Emmy nomination for that work. Thank you. That's amazing. I
Speaker 1: at this first time I think I've ever sat down
Speaker 1: at a table with an Emmy nominee. Uh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: It's a big moment for me, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about what that means. What is what
Speaker 1: is actually set decorator on a set? Um? So I
Speaker 1: work under the production designer UM, and the production designer
Speaker 1: kind of sets the look like, helps pick locations UM,
Speaker 1: and then you know, has a lot of references and
Speaker 1: different things as far as the minutia of how a
Speaker 1: set comes together. UM. There's an art director who kind
Speaker 1: of oversees more the construction end of things, and then
Speaker 1: everything from like those four walls. For the most part,
Speaker 1: I kind of deal with so light fixtures and um,
Speaker 1: you know, carpet and sofas and electronics and all the
Speaker 1: garbage and some sets and piles up in the clutter.
Speaker 1: That's my specialty. So when a when the art department
Speaker 1: has said, like, oh, we've got this idea for what
Speaker 1: the the feel for this particular set needs to be, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's your job to go and actually procure all that,
Speaker 1: put it all together, make sure that it's matching the
Speaker 1: vision for whatever that that idea was right. Yes, and
Speaker 1: on a on a production that's a period piece, I
Speaker 1: imagine that also involves lots of hunting around for really
Speaker 1: obscure and obsolete stuff. It does. I spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time and I always tell everyone dead ladies, basements,
Speaker 1: estate sales. I'm always like emptying out the leftovers of houses,
Speaker 1: you know, um after an estate sales over um. And
Speaker 1: you know in Stranger Things is one of those weird shows,
Speaker 1: especially where everything is a little bit interactive kind of
Speaker 1: which is why, um, that's why I wanted John to
Speaker 1: be here, because he's I think he's sold himself short
Speaker 1: a little bit as far as like just preparing or
Speaker 1: providing power to a set. Because we had so many
Speaker 1: interactive elements, you know, lights and otherwise that um kind
Speaker 1: of had to be period and had to be functional
Speaker 1: and do a bunch of different things. So yeah, a
Speaker 1: good example of that would be, of course, the Christmas
Speaker 1: lights make a play a huge role in that season
Speaker 1: of Stranger Things. I mean, it's it's a communications device.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how many of my listeners know this, Chris,
Speaker 1: the lights don't work that way. Typically, you have them
Speaker 1: all rigged ump so that if one goes out, they
Speaker 1: all tend to go out, especially the period ones. So
Speaker 1: getting them so that they very they light up in
Speaker 1: very specific ways. Uh, probably meant a little bit of
Speaker 1: rewiring work and a little bit of rigging things in
Speaker 1: an interesting way so as you could get to do
Speaker 1: it on command. That was such an important integral part
Speaker 1: of the storyline. I remember. I remember when they came
Speaker 1: and asked me. They were walking through the buyer's house set.
Speaker 1: It was Chris and Jess and Todd, and they were like,
Speaker 1: we want to make each light go off and individually.
Speaker 1: Is it possible? Yes? And I turned around and I
Speaker 1: walked back in my little office and I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: how am I gonna make this story? Like? Technically, yes,
Speaker 1: it's possible. Practical not really, So, so how did you
Speaker 1: go about solving that problem? Um? I just started scribbling
Speaker 1: a lot and locked my door and just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to get lights to go on and
Speaker 1: off individually, which means we had to build individual strands
Speaker 1: of lights. So I ended up, I guess that's kind
Speaker 1: of low tech. We're kind of getting at low tech
Speaker 1: as possible. So I ended up using Cat five cable
Speaker 1: and taking all the different strands and making them individual
Speaker 1: and solder soldering them into old Christmas likes that Jess
Speaker 1: would bring us. Wow. So you were actually hand designing
Speaker 1: something so that you could achieve this effect in a
Speaker 1: practical approach. That's one of the other things, by the way,
Speaker 1: that I love about stranger things and being I was
Speaker 1: born in the seventies, so seeing uh, not just something
Speaker 1: that is set and appears to have been made the eighties,
Speaker 1: but to rely so heavily upon practical effects that warms
Speaker 1: my heart as I grew up watching films that relied
Speaker 1: heavily on practical effects, and I think it is very
Speaker 1: important to get across that same feel in order to
Speaker 1: get the effect that you want and not rely too
Speaker 1: heavily on anything that's computer generated. Not to dismiss computer generated,
Speaker 1: it certainly has a place in storytelling, but to me,
Speaker 1: at least and maybe this is my own bias has
Speaker 1: uh it just it just has a different look and
Speaker 1: a different feel. You know, there's something genuine about practical effects.
Speaker 1: And not all of ours went. Uh. We had different
Speaker 1: test runs that the juffers for would they kill if
Speaker 1: any of those videos ever got out some of the
Speaker 1: ones that didn't work as well. Um with like the
Speaker 1: monster coming through our latex. Uh, we have you know,
Speaker 1: printed the wallpaper and stuff in the buyer's house onto latex,
Speaker 1: and we had all these different tests so we did
Speaker 1: with various um, you know, slimy substances and things on. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they didn't all it took a while to kind of
Speaker 1: get that just tweaked, you know, just right the face
Speaker 1: like kind of pushing feel of the wall. And originally
Speaker 1: they had him breaking through the wall entirely. They're trying
Speaker 1: to do it all practical, and um, I think it's
Speaker 1: nice to have technology options where VFX could just take
Speaker 1: what we did and really enhance it. And you know,
Speaker 1: uh right, Yeah, eventually you get to a point where
Speaker 1: you just say, you know, physics just doesn't work that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I like, I appreciate where you're trying to go
Speaker 1: with this. Yeah, I love that there was a latex
Speaker 1: approach a practical approach with that too, because I mean
Speaker 1: I also, full disclosure, my sister's a puppeteer, so I
Speaker 1: see the puppeteer side of sort of this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff all the time. And to appreciate practical effects where
Speaker 1: you're using something like a latex sheet and you're using
Speaker 1: some form of whether it's an actor, a mask, a puppet,
Speaker 1: or whatever, to to create that effect. I mean, there
Speaker 1: is something really visceral and and the textures are really impressive.
Speaker 1: It's something that goes again beyond just that. Oh, there's
Speaker 1: a very clever animation. Uh. And and also it just
Speaker 1: shows a level of care that you know, you have
Speaker 1: to have all of that work back behind the scenes
Speaker 1: to get that effect to happen on on screen. Uh,
Speaker 1: that is happening in real time somewhere. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: not a bunch of people staring at a green wall
Speaker 1: pretending that they see something that is really effective and
Speaker 1: then having to react to nothing at all. They actually
Speaker 1: have stuff to react to in those practical effects. Uh.
Speaker 1: I am not an actor that's good enough to react
Speaker 1: to a green screen with and and make that at
Speaker 1: all convincing. I need to have some sort of monster
Speaker 1: thing coming at me so that I can really, you know,
Speaker 1: be somewhat convincing in my response. And the Christmas lights
Speaker 1: is the same thing because we um, you know, I
Speaker 1: think it looked a lot more authentic and better to
Speaker 1: have it practical. But even um, there's like the scene
Speaker 1: where Holly, the the young Wheeler daughters like following the
Speaker 1: Christmas lights down the hallway. Um, and I think if
Speaker 1: we didn't have all of those actually lighting up in
Speaker 1: her having that direction and sort of all the interaction
Speaker 1: you know with the lights and actors, it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been the same. No, you wouldn't be able to get
Speaker 1: that tension. Yeah, that's a great moment, so tell me also,
Speaker 1: I mean the Christmas lights. I think that's one of
Speaker 1: those that I that I definitely wanted to hit upon
Speaker 1: because it's a deceptively simple technology that ends up actually
Speaker 1: requiring thinking outside the box in order to get the
Speaker 1: effect they wanted son requiring you to actually solder things
Speaker 1: weeks weeks. Wow, So if you had to estimate like
Speaker 1: how many weeks are you talking about for that just
Speaker 1: to make sure you can get that effect to work properly.
Speaker 1: It was two weeks. That's I mean, that's a lot
Speaker 1: of work to get Christmas lights. The light up we built,
Speaker 1: I think we only built out of the twenty that
Speaker 1: we were going to build, we only built seventeen because
Speaker 1: that's all we had time to do on top of
Speaker 1: everything else that we had to do. Yeah. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: then they would so they would solder these little strands,
Speaker 1: you know, onto the sockets, and then we had it
Speaker 1: involved me going back to props Um the lights that
Speaker 1: Joyce originally buys at Melball's Um props. I guess it
Speaker 1: just sort of had newer lights in the box and
Speaker 1: wasn't really thinking about the bigger picture. So we had
Speaker 1: to go back and have switched those out for the
Speaker 1: older strands to have like the green and red twisted
Speaker 1: sort of look, so that we could that that was
Speaker 1: the easiest thing for us to copy. So they would
Speaker 1: finished soldering and then we would paint them green and
Speaker 1: red and twist them all together. Um, you know, so
Speaker 1: there's like a whole there's a whole collaborative effort any
Speaker 1: right there making sure that like because I mean I
Speaker 1: see a lot of movies where clearly that that level
Speaker 1: of care was not quite taken. You'll look at something
Speaker 1: and things like that's not even the same prop as
Speaker 1: what he was holding a second ago. So having that
Speaker 1: kind of level of detail is really cool. Uh So
Speaker 1: I assume there was someone just like actually just manually
Speaker 1: operating those lights for all those sequences. We had our
Speaker 1: demmer board operator Jim Donovan. He programmed all that and
Speaker 1: operating real temperating in real time. He's another one of
Speaker 1: my heroes too, because these guys, because it wasn't because
Speaker 1: the Christmas lights were one thing. And then um there's
Speaker 1: also like the scene with the lamps in in in
Speaker 1: the bedroom, um and Winona having to you know, bring it.
Speaker 1: I guess we never had a scene at first they're
Speaker 1: going to show her like bringing all the lamps in
Speaker 1: and setting them up, and that was going to be
Speaker 1: like a whole other nightmare. But um, once they were
Speaker 1: sort of you know, they're just getting those programmed right
Speaker 1: to do that effect. Um, Jim stayed late with me
Speaker 1: one night and just like we did, you know, kept
Speaker 1: practicing and getting all that down. So see, to me,
Speaker 1: that's really cool because it's not just technical, it's it's
Speaker 1: a level of performance. I mean you we're playing effectively
Speaker 1: another character in the scene, and so you know it's
Speaker 1: there's there's all the timing that's required in that too,
Speaker 1: and again to get what the director wants in order
Speaker 1: for that to have the emotional and psychological impact on
Speaker 1: the viewer, which, by the way, credibly effective because I
Speaker 1: loved it. Uh, So you know, I'm my hats off
Speaker 1: to you because I occasionally am a performer, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't do any of the rest of it, whereas you
Speaker 1: guys are doing all of that. So I'm really I'm
Speaker 1: really impressed. I assume that it's is pretty tricky outfitting
Speaker 1: entire sets with nineteen eighties era uh, carpet ing, furniture,
Speaker 1: the technology in particular, because we're not so far removed
Speaker 1: from the nineteen eighties that we think of those things
Speaker 1: as antiques. So therefore there's not a lot of work
Speaker 1: in preserve preserving them, but we're far enough out where
Speaker 1: nobody wants to hold onto them anymore. So was was
Speaker 1: that a challenge to you to to find things that
Speaker 1: could incorpe that could live in that early eighties setting?
Speaker 1: Not as hard as you would think, I think, mostly
Speaker 1: just because thank God for state sales and Atlanta being
Speaker 1: a good estate sales city. Um. I've worked in other
Speaker 1: cities where you just don't you know, they just don't
Speaker 1: operate like that. They don't. I don't know how people
Speaker 1: get rid of their stuff after they've passed. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But um, Atlanta is good about it. Um. There are
Speaker 1: other like I've done other movies. I did a movie
Speaker 1: um that it was a news station set in the seventies. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's one of those like there's already not a
Speaker 1: ton of like news broadcast station equipment out there, not
Speaker 1: like you know, old Nintendos and things, but um, and
Speaker 1: and then it was so fragile. It was sort of
Speaker 1: that like just that first wave of like electronic technology
Speaker 1: and the old analog stuff from like the fifties was
Speaker 1: you know, you can get that kind of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: but that's but getting stuff that worked that was That's
Speaker 1: sort of that. Um. That first generation plastic electronic disposable
Speaker 1: almost like technology is was harder. But um for gently
Speaker 1: for you know, Sears catalog days, a lot of Americans
Speaker 1: all had the same stuff, and enough people held onto
Speaker 1: it her pack rats that we could kind of curate
Speaker 1: and go through and find everything we needed. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: I went to a panel with uh, the art director
Speaker 1: from Stranger Things, and he talked a little bit about
Speaker 1: the process of identifying the different the different types of
Speaker 1: of fabrics and the different color schemes that were going
Speaker 1: to be important, and how you know, certain certain houses
Speaker 1: we're going to look like they were more of a
Speaker 1: holdover from maybe the mid to late seventies and some
Speaker 1: were a little bit more modern in the sense of
Speaker 1: the early eighties and UH. And that also was really
Speaker 1: interesting to me, this idea of you know, you're not
Speaker 1: just you're not just creating creating a huge pile of
Speaker 1: stuff from a general era. You actually have to give
Speaker 1: each of these places its own personality. Well that's yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a I tell people the story that one
Speaker 1: of our accountants came to me after we were like
Speaker 1: up in filming the first week or so on stage,
Speaker 1: and um, she said, you know, Jess, I saw your sets.
Speaker 1: They look really great, but gosh, like is this this
Speaker 1: is the eighties and they look very seventies to me.
Speaker 1: And I was, you know, and it's one of those
Speaker 1: like not every socioeconomic group is going to just instantly have,
Speaker 1: you know, the eighties. So Yeah, from like that Sears
Speaker 1: catalog that year. It's all it's more of a you know,
Speaker 1: when did they build a house, when would they have
Speaker 1: you know, renovated or what's there? You know, what did
Speaker 1: they have the means to update the carpet, wallpaper or whatever,
Speaker 1: and kind of have to just think it through. Um,
Speaker 1: each character having its own sort of storyline with their
Speaker 1: home keeping everything consistent. I mean that is clearly very
Speaker 1: important if you want to establish things, like, you know,
Speaker 1: unbelievable character. It would be weird to go into a
Speaker 1: home of a person who was presumably just scraping by
Speaker 1: and you see what it appears to be a brand
Speaker 1: new Apple two gs in the background. You're like, it's
Speaker 1: a couple of grand Where did they that money for that? They? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So was there anything in particular that you either of
Speaker 1: you that you think was really interesting or really cool? Uh,
Speaker 1: something that you had not anticipated? Uh that you know,
Speaker 1: that's like your go to, Like, you know, if if
Speaker 1: people are asking you what was it like, like, well,
Speaker 1: let me tell you this particular thing that I was
Speaker 1: really excited about. Whether it was something that turned out
Speaker 1: the way you expected at the beginning or something that
Speaker 1: completely win a different direction, getting getting invited back to
Speaker 1: season two. That was that's good, that's good. I think
Speaker 1: if you were able to take all of those Christmas
Speaker 1: lights and make them light up individually, that's a really
Speaker 1: good start. Um. I don't know, I don't that's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's why I was thrilled to be here today and
Speaker 1: asked John to come to because for me, that sort
Speaker 1: of like a collaborative overlap um my thing. And he
Speaker 1: knows this well. Is it like today in film? Um?
Speaker 1: Like everyone loves led lights and lighting, even if they're
Speaker 1: trying to make even if it is like period or
Speaker 1: they wanted to look um, you know, period, they still
Speaker 1: kind of fall back on LEDs because they're easier to
Speaker 1: control and and I kind of hate them, so um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm coming around to some of them. But
Speaker 1: anyway to have them, to have our electrical department have
Speaker 1: the patients to kind of like really do it right
Speaker 1: and work with the older technology and and you know
Speaker 1: that that was a it was a long process. But
Speaker 1: the fluorescent fixtures lots fluorescence because their period, of course,
Speaker 1: and hardly anyone stocks fluorescent ballast that we had to
Speaker 1: replace hundreds of ballast and high schools and Melvols and
Speaker 1: all over Georgia. We replaced ballast. Wow, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a big undertaking. That was awful. Yeah, but but it
Speaker 1: pays off on screen because it does give you that
Speaker 1: like like that's why it feels like it was made
Speaker 1: in the eighties, is because has all of this this
Speaker 1: love and care behind it. Uh, And you can see
Speaker 1: that rolling out through other projects that are clearly uh
Speaker 1: following that same philosophy. I mean, Stephen King's it coming out, Like,
Speaker 1: I think the look of it owes an awful lot
Speaker 1: to Stranger Things. Uh, it has a very similar kind
Speaker 1: of field to it. For that that second, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's amazing to me that they went ahead and decided
Speaker 1: to set the adult story in modern day, which conveniently
Speaker 1: made the children's story set in the eighties. And so
Speaker 1: there are a lot of parallels there. But it's funny
Speaker 1: because of course Stranger Things also, you could tell, has
Speaker 1: a little bit of the influence of Stephen King is
Speaker 1: certainly in the Stranger Things universe as well, So it's
Speaker 1: all kind of feeding in on itself. It's umu collaborative
Speaker 1: and cooperative as well as competitive process. I'm sure so, uh,
Speaker 1: were there any particular sets that you really liked working
Speaker 1: on or any that you really did not like working on?
Speaker 1: I don't, John, I probably will have different responses, but um,
Speaker 1: I mean the Buyer's House is one of them. I
Speaker 1: tell everyone, it's like its own sort of character that
Speaker 1: we had. You know, it's at least we shot it
Speaker 1: in a for the most part, chronological order, because we
Speaker 1: really literally destroyed it completely. Um as we went and
Speaker 1: you know, Joyce ripping things apart and monsters smashing things,
Speaker 1: and um, I will say it was it was towards
Speaker 1: the end of it when all the Christmas lights were
Speaker 1: up and like half pulled down, and it was an
Speaker 1: absolute nightmare for the shooting crew. I mean for a
Speaker 1: boom operator to operate in that setting was just like
Speaker 1: it's uh, you know, it's everyone was getting like tangled
Speaker 1: and um it was. Yeah, it was truly like a
Speaker 1: it was a it was kind of fun to watch
Speaker 1: it progress, but it was a It took a lot
Speaker 1: of patients. They're not not every shooting crew would be
Speaker 1: cut out to kind of handle that. That setting. My
Speaker 1: favorite was the high school because we had again we
Speaker 1: had to go in and replace every fluorescent most of
Speaker 1: the ballast in there, and then towards the end of it,
Speaker 1: when they had the scene with eleven and the monster,
Speaker 1: everything starts to go crazy and flickers. We had to
Speaker 1: take everything out and we reinstalled our own LED strips
Speaker 1: throughout the school so we could make everything flicker on
Speaker 1: and off. That's a lot of work. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of work. And it wasn't even just LED twos. It
Speaker 1: was like they were soldering again. I just would see that,
Speaker 1: you know, you guys were on location soldering in some
Speaker 1: old classroom putting LED strips in like twos or whatever
Speaker 1: you were doing. And yeah, that was well what was
Speaker 1: what was it like working in Uh? Did they the facility?
Speaker 1: Wasn't that set in an old building and emory? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Hawkins Lab. How was that experience? Uh? I'm you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of shows at filmed there. Um,
Speaker 1: I feel like we were still in the early wave
Speaker 1: of like some of the shows that were like really
Speaker 1: working on all the different floors and stuff. So like
Speaker 1: especially John and having to go up and put you know,
Speaker 1: move ceiling tiles out of the way to run cable
Speaker 1: and stuff. Is like you're for the first time in
Speaker 1: forty years. You know, you were you were, you were
Speaker 1: the explorer that everyone else got the benefit we found
Speaker 1: all the rat face. Yeah, Well, for people who don't know,
Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about the building itself
Speaker 1: where the Hawkins Lab was, because I think, you know, again,
Speaker 1: everyone sees it in the show, but they don't know
Speaker 1: what the actual space was. They might just think, oh,
Speaker 1: was that just a set on a studio, and in
Speaker 1: fact that parts of it at least we're very much
Speaker 1: in a real building here in Atlanta. Yeah, we I
Speaker 1: will say, like when we were first when the Duffers
Speaker 1: were first here and we were gonna, you know, film
Speaker 1: Stranger Things in Atlanta and full disclosure, I sometimes location
Speaker 1: scout when I'm not decorating. It's like my secret job.
Speaker 1: So um so I was doing a lot of the
Speaker 1: like early scouting, trying to figure out what Hawkins Lab
Speaker 1: was going to be and how undercover and small it
Speaker 1: was gonna be, your how big and um you know,
Speaker 1: just what the look was gonna be. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: we didn't all agree. I felt like that building at Emory,
Speaker 1: with its metal facade and kind of craziness on the outside,
Speaker 1: was a little like ostentatious for a secret sort of
Speaker 1: different facility. But um, anyway, but they loved I mean,
Speaker 1: it is a pretty impressive building and it's very distinct,
Speaker 1: and what they did with it in posts, like putting
Speaker 1: the satellites and stuff on top of it made it
Speaker 1: all kind of work. But um, yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: on Briar Cliff here in Atlanta, and it's an old
Speaker 1: mental hospital. Um and uh yeah, so it's truly creepy.
Speaker 1: Um it's not everything works in there anymore. Powers like
Speaker 1: kind of like hit or miss in some areas, and uh,
Speaker 1: a lot of leaks and things. It's yeah, so it
Speaker 1: must have been a tough one to work in as well, John,
Speaker 1: did you do you have a lot of challenges going
Speaker 1: through all that. I mean, it just like that place
Speaker 1: they just stopped one day and everyone left and then
Speaker 1: people came in behind them and trashed the place. So
Speaker 1: there's broken glass everywhere, there were needles everywhere, um, and
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out what like how to power
Speaker 1: how does this light come on where? And you have
Speaker 1: to trace it all the way down sometimes in the
Speaker 1: floor underneath you or the subfloor underneath you. That was
Speaker 1: definitely a challenge. Wow. So I'm sure that was one
Speaker 1: of the more difficult ones to actually to power and
Speaker 1: make sure that everything was working properly. Uh yeah. I
Speaker 1: saw the pictures of sort of the before and after
Speaker 1: during one of those presentations, and it was really, um,
Speaker 1: really alarming. Actually there was a shot that was just
Speaker 1: down the hallway and it was possibly the most creepy
Speaker 1: looking photograph I had seen in a really long time. Well,
Speaker 1: the one thing I will say is that we'd every
Speaker 1: intention when we first started of shooting um like the
Speaker 1: the sort of rift lab and Hawkins like where the
Speaker 1: tank and everything is. That was the tunnels leading up
Speaker 1: to that and the opening scene where he's like getting
Speaker 1: off the elevator and everything. We're going to do that
Speaker 1: at Emery, which is they actually have these like underground tunnels,
Speaker 1: um that are that are It's pretty bad. I don't
Speaker 1: even know. Yeah, it's like asbestos and all these like
Speaker 1: crazy you know, it's just it's dark. There hasn't empowered
Speaker 1: on there forever um And so at the last minute,
Speaker 1: I think they've done these like air quality tests and stuff,
Speaker 1: and they finally said there's okay, this is great. The
Speaker 1: texture is great. It's authentic, but we like, really, we
Speaker 1: cannot film down here, so we ended up um copying
Speaker 1: the general look of it on our stage and we
Speaker 1: built a series of tunnels that were a lot more
Speaker 1: easy to control from a lighting standpoint in every other aspect,
Speaker 1: so right, and you don't have to worry about bringing Yeah,
Speaker 1: when we do that, I feel like the like John
Speaker 1: and I and our cruise that are there you know beforehand,
Speaker 1: so early working on places, especially those guys with like
Speaker 1: the ceiling tiles are the hidden that's what is above
Speaker 1: those is uh, they're real, you know, there's yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's a whole treasure trove of exactly. Yeah. So we
Speaker 1: deal with the worst of it, and then I think
Speaker 1: shooting crew has a little better time. By the time
Speaker 1: they get in there, it's all been cleaned up a
Speaker 1: little bit. And then of course then you have you know,
Speaker 1: the very pampered people to actors. That's fantastic that they
Speaker 1: complain a little bit about it being a little chilly outside.
Speaker 1: Like listen, when we came here, there was no power,
Speaker 1: water was coming in, and there were rats everywhere. So
Speaker 1: there's some sets like in season two, UM which you know,
Speaker 1: who can kind of leave everyone just sort of experienced
Speaker 1: later this month, but um, it's there is an arcade
Speaker 1: and just know like when we finish all the south
Speaker 1: showing the photos, but the before was like an old
Speaker 1: um Launder matt dry cleaner place that had been sold,
Speaker 1: closed down, leaky roof, all the same stuff. Um the
Speaker 1: hoarder had taken it over and it was like to
Speaker 1: the ceiling with like mattresses and diapers and like whatever garbage.
Speaker 1: And so that process was another good one. We've had
Speaker 1: a lot stranger things. Is like people who hear about
Speaker 1: our production, I feel like who also shoot in Atlanta
Speaker 1: are like who he seet and kind of know what
Speaker 1: we started out with and then what the final product
Speaker 1: is are like why you know your show is like
Speaker 1: does the craziest Like we're willing to put up with
Speaker 1: a lot more, I think than a lot of other
Speaker 1: like productions, Hollywood productions that you know would never touch
Speaker 1: some the places that we go into. Yeah, well again
Speaker 1: it pays off though, So I look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: those photos because of course, again growing up in the
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, I have a lot of fond memories
Speaker 1: of arcades that you just you know, you very rarely
Speaker 1: encounter those kind of places these days, it's going to
Speaker 1: be another one of those like why would you put
Speaker 1: the effort into it? Like it's but it was just
Speaker 1: little architectural things about the building that we thought were
Speaker 1: kind of great. And I don't know every knowing that
Speaker 1: you run into one of those places where you're just like, well,
Speaker 1: everything inside here is is try but it's so evocative
Speaker 1: of that particular thing you're trying to do that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it becomes one of those debates that rages
Speaker 1: in your mind, like is it going to be worth
Speaker 1: the amount of effort it's gonna take to get this
Speaker 1: place into shape? And if the answer is yes, then
Speaker 1: you just have to grit your teeth and going for
Speaker 1: it and and and uh, you know, get the work done.
Speaker 1: The library we had, the Hawkins Library. Yeah, um, we
Speaker 1: another one of my really good ideas. There's a a
Speaker 1: library in downtown East Point, Georgia that was, um, it
Speaker 1: was like on the places in Peril, like a story
Speaker 1: preservation list. It was. It was leaky roof same thing,
Speaker 1: you know, asbestos, mold, tons of tons of mold. They
Speaker 1: had standing water in the basement for like two years. Um.
Speaker 1: And we had the big idea to spend out don't
Speaker 1: know how much we spent there with like a full
Speaker 1: like mold remediation and abatement process. Um. And then you know,
Speaker 1: John went in and fixed all the light fixtures, and
Speaker 1: we went in and put in you know, the bookcases
Speaker 1: and of a lot like twenty books and um, library
Speaker 1: card catalogs, all that stuff just to you know, for
Speaker 1: really not at all much screen time. UM. But you know,
Speaker 1: but you need a perior of library and you gotta
Speaker 1: start somewhere. So um, we ended up actually donating I
Speaker 1: donated like the books and everything to the city's point
Speaker 1: to stay intact there so it can it kind of
Speaker 1: gets now rent out as a location for other productions,
Speaker 1: and that money kind of goes into keeping the building
Speaker 1: up and they fix the roof and everything. So you
Speaker 1: saved it. Yeah, there's there's a little nice little byproduct
Speaker 1: of the production. It's not just not just that you're
Speaker 1: making amazing entertainment, but that you can actually benefit well.
Speaker 1: And again this gets outside of tech, but we hear
Speaker 1: it all the time. I Mean there's always the discussion
Speaker 1: about the benefits of the film and television business moving
Speaker 1: into any place. When you can hear about the stories
Speaker 1: that you're like, that's something that I wouldn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: thought of, just from the effect that we're getting this
Speaker 1: influx of productions coming into Atlanta. For those who do
Speaker 1: not know, Atlanta is one of the cities in the
Speaker 1: United States that's really taking off when it comes to
Speaker 1: film and television and music video production. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's certain to a certain extent, music video had been
Speaker 1: fairly big here for a while. Uh. Television, some TV
Speaker 1: productions we're being were shot in here. But we're seeing
Speaker 1: more and more film projects as well, largely because of
Speaker 1: the construction of the Pinewood Studio that's south of the city,
Speaker 1: and they're especially like just around the area that we're
Speaker 1: in right now, we're at Pont City Market in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Around this general area, you can't you can't go maybe
Speaker 1: a couple of miles in any direction before you start
Speaker 1: seeing signs for various productions. They're everywhere, uh and um.
Speaker 1: And so we're actually seeing some of that benefit now
Speaker 1: where we're seeing you know, communities get potentially get the
Speaker 1: reuse of buildings that otherwise would have been remaining vacant um.
Speaker 1: From a similar perspective, although this wasn't from a film production.
Speaker 1: The building we're in right now was largely vacant for decades.
Speaker 1: It was a Sears distribution center. Then for a while
Speaker 1: the city of Atlanta had about ten percent of this
Speaker 1: building and the other was empty. I picked up many
Speaker 1: police reports and things here, and you could get like
Speaker 1: art supplies, and I used to come here and get
Speaker 1: art supplies. Yeah. Yeah, And to the point where if
Speaker 1: you were to walk around all the different offices here,
Speaker 1: first of all, they'd ask you to leave. But if
Speaker 1: you were to do that, you would probably see a
Speaker 1: lot of of old equipment, like we have an old
Speaker 1: turbine in our lobby. And it's because every office was
Speaker 1: given some of the pieces of equipment that had been
Speaker 1: used when this was a big distribution center for Sears.
Speaker 1: I mean it was built right on the railroad. They
Speaker 1: would actually bring railroad cars into this place. So every
Speaker 1: office has some some element of that worked into it.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, it's it's again just one of those
Speaker 1: reminders of the history of the place that for decades
Speaker 1: went just completely unused. And this was literally just stuff
Speaker 1: that was piled up. So I guess it's kind of
Speaker 1: similar to what you do just where you have to.
Speaker 1: You have to go into interesting places and just kind
Speaker 1: of search around. I mean, uh, there used to be
Speaker 1: a really great place very close to here that had
Speaker 1: crazy stuff for lots of antiques and a lot of
Speaker 1: old fixtures and things. And now it's a restaurant. And
Speaker 1: I'm always sad when I go by the Wrecking Bar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sad that that place is gone because I would
Speaker 1: find really interesting stuff there. But that was just for me.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't decorate sets at all. So, uh,
Speaker 1: what do you think out of maybe not just stranger things,
Speaker 1: but every anything, any production you've worked on, was the
Speaker 1: the most interesting, uh piece that you have ever found
Speaker 1: for a production? Well? This, um, the movie I was
Speaker 1: talking about there was uh took place in a television station. Um.
Speaker 1: It was set in nineteen in Sarasota, Florida, and the director,
Speaker 1: I don't know if he completely understood, he's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a savantain and wanted to have like a
Speaker 1: full working broadcast studio from that era. They not just
Speaker 1: look like one, but actually literally working, which yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: monitors in a control room and cameras and and all
Speaker 1: of it, and all the editing and um and this
Speaker 1: is all still like film and stuff. Yeah. Um. And
Speaker 1: there was this one piece a quadruplex machine. And this
Speaker 1: is like right when um, news gathering was like going
Speaker 1: like ronic and so a lot of that technology was
Speaker 1: changing like in the moment. But um, this quadruplex machine
Speaker 1: that looks like a giant kind of real to real thing.
Speaker 1: Um that there are not that many of them, and
Speaker 1: they are really not that many of them left now,
Speaker 1: especially working, which is like uh you know, and they're
Speaker 1: so finicky. Um. There was like a place in the
Speaker 1: Rhode Island that had some museum and like a couple
Speaker 1: other places even like in l A what I'd call
Speaker 1: the regular prop houses to ship it out here that
Speaker 1: they didn't have any So I just um was calling
Speaker 1: old TV stations. Not that anyone has phones or answers
Speaker 1: their phone anymore anywhere. It's like an annoying another annoying
Speaker 1: landline thing. But um, so I was just driving around.
Speaker 1: We were filming in Savannah, and I was just driving
Speaker 1: like on the weekends too, smaller towns that used to
Speaker 1: have news stations. UM, just like looking for like that
Speaker 1: one place that has an attic or a basement that
Speaker 1: just dashed all the stuff and never threw it away. Um.
Speaker 1: And there was a guy in in making at a
Speaker 1: TV station and he was like literally the only guy
Speaker 1: like manning like reruns of the Simpsons or whatever they're
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't even think they didn't news anymore. Um.
Speaker 1: But he came to the door and I was asking
Speaker 1: him about like old equipment and you know, um, he's like, well,
Speaker 1: we do have this old site out in the swamp
Speaker 1: that we used to use like as a studio. And
Speaker 1: I was like, do you think you have a quadruplex machine?
Speaker 1: And he was like, oh yeah, I got that. I
Speaker 1: got like two of those out there. And I was
Speaker 1: just like literally, um, yeah, that was like the best moment.
Speaker 1: And so I getting this guy's truck when you're right
Speaker 1: out to the swamp and uh leaky roof, no power, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, same thing we always were dealing with. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, they're in the corner and like a dry
Speaker 1: corner was like this quadruplex and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff that was really useful to have to we were
Speaker 1: able to kind of tinker and get it to work.
Speaker 1: And um, that was my that's by far my my
Speaker 1: like prize possession of all the things I've ever found. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's uh, sort of the sort of challenges you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily anticipate until you encounter one of those tour directors
Speaker 1: who has that that strong dependence upon authenticity. I'm sick
Speaker 1: of control panels. That's another yeah, Like season two is
Speaker 1: uh yeah, you guys will see when that comes out.
Speaker 1: But there's a we did a whole control panel in
Speaker 1: the riff lab this time that we needed to be
Speaker 1: able to really control rather than like getting prop ones,
Speaker 1: which is kind of what we had the first season
Speaker 1: and something I was never really that happy with UM.
Speaker 1: I had probably the bad idea of UM designing my
Speaker 1: very own UM control panel with all these separate like
Speaker 1: old boat led lights and indicator lights and all these
Speaker 1: different things that I was trying to get John in
Speaker 1: like really early last season to help start like figuring
Speaker 1: out how we were going to empower each one and
Speaker 1: have each one on a separate control I was told
Speaker 1: there would be no flickering too, because that was a big,
Speaker 1: big expense for production, and then then there will the
Speaker 1: board is a flickering mess of like yeah, like I
Speaker 1: feel like I feel like a little bit of it
Speaker 1: has been spoiled for me, but I will I'll go
Speaker 1: into it just knowing there may be a flicker or
Speaker 1: two in season two. I don't know. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: any of the footage, so I'm not sure. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: that all got cut. I wasn't even there when it happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was kind of a nightmare. And UM, we've done
Speaker 1: all kinds of like even season one, UM in the quarry,
Speaker 1: which you would think like that's you know, probably not
Speaker 1: even that much from a set deck standpoint and there,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't except they wanted to light some of
Speaker 1: that scene with search and rescue where they find um
Speaker 1: Will's body or not real body, but you know, UM,
Speaker 1: they wanted to light that practically, and so we needed
Speaker 1: period whacker lights. UM. And just like the logistics of
Speaker 1: like me me finding the lights that were there, right,
Speaker 1: government auctions is my other go to, UM, And so
Speaker 1: we found some and like Tennessee sent sent transpoke guys
Speaker 1: up there to go pick him up and bring him back.
Speaker 1: And then just John assessing that for the first time
Speaker 1: is you know this like archaic mess of wires and
Speaker 1: different things and um, but he rewired those and they
Speaker 1: looked great. On camera. So, uh, it's it's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: I I did an interview it's actually going to be
Speaker 1: the episode that follows this one, Uh, with a guy
Speaker 1: who was hired to to write a full kind of
Speaker 1: like a workshop manual of the Ghostbusters technology. And he
Speaker 1: was given full access to all the different props and stuff.
Speaker 1: But it was his job to figure out not just
Speaker 1: what the stuff was, but what it used to be
Speaker 1: and how it actually works in real life and then
Speaker 1: how was it in in the mythology of Ghostbusters altered
Speaker 1: so that it works for that. And he started looking
Speaker 1: at all the different pieces, like just imagine the top
Speaker 1: of Ecto one, like the top of that car and
Speaker 1: all the different coutrement that on top of it, and
Speaker 1: he had to source all of that, and he says, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they went to a junkyard that outside of a NASA
Speaker 1: site and they got all of that, and I had
Speaker 1: to figure out what they were And then how does
Speaker 1: that help you catch ghosts? Is there really a junk
Speaker 1: yard outside of NASAs? Because that sounds amazing. And I'll
Speaker 1: put you in touch with him because he can tell
Speaker 1: you where they went to get all the different pieces
Speaker 1: because they had like various pieces of sonart they had.
Speaker 1: They had an old uh I think it was like
Speaker 1: an old ground to air missile launch case. There was
Speaker 1: nothing in it because apparently that would be bad to
Speaker 1: get out there. But yeah, so there's yeah, I'll get
Speaker 1: you in touch with him because he can certainly tell
Speaker 1: you more about where they sourced all that stuff, because
Speaker 1: that was it was somewhere out west, I know. But
Speaker 1: um and keep in mind Ghostbusters were made back in
Speaker 1: the early eighties, so maybe they've tightened up since then.
Speaker 1: But it was pretty it was pretty incredible. Uh. And yeah,
Speaker 1: learning about that like that, that experience of having to
Speaker 1: uh to to really find out the way sources sometimes
Speaker 1: is fascinating to me because you know, I hold onto
Speaker 1: stuff fairly for a fairly long time. But I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just technology is just one of those things that
Speaker 1: goes obsolete so quickly. And uh and also there's just
Speaker 1: so many different parts that if any one part fails,
Speaker 1: the average person is more likely to either go out
Speaker 1: and buy a new one and just throw the old
Speaker 1: one away or just do without because a repair tends
Speaker 1: to be about the same amount of money as it
Speaker 1: would cost just buy a new one. Anyway, for a
Speaker 1: lot of the older tech, So I imagine it gets
Speaker 1: really tricky, especially if they want something that's gonna work
Speaker 1: on screen, if it's something that's just going to be like,
Speaker 1: all right, well we just need this this washer dryer
Speaker 1: that was back then, but the whenever you're gonna use it,
Speaker 1: we just need in the background. I guess that's one thing,
Speaker 1: but we need a working one. That's a totally different thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's this. Season two has a lot of well, we
Speaker 1: have the Arcade, which has John and I. Early on
Speaker 1: we were getting the scripts and stuff with season two
Speaker 1: talking about like how to get arcade cabinets that were
Speaker 1: in good enough shape or you know, when we get
Speaker 1: real ones, and then there's all this UM. I don't
Speaker 1: know if like the average viewer knows, but like playback,
Speaker 1: UM is a thing that we deal with constantly on
Speaker 1: Stranger Things. It's UM the frame rate adjustment and stuff
Speaker 1: on various like screens and monitors. So your screen that
Speaker 1: you're you're shooting is refreshing at a certain rate, the
Speaker 1: camera is going at a certain rate, and if that
Speaker 1: doesn't match up, probably that's when you start getting those
Speaker 1: weird lines that starts scrolling across the screen, which is realistic,
Speaker 1: but it's distracting because now you realize you're looking through
Speaker 1: the lens of a camera as opposed to being an
Speaker 1: observer and less scene. So we have to fix that,
Speaker 1: right and so and and even UM season one was
Speaker 1: similar to the there's various UM security U hims like
Speaker 1: at Hawkins Lab and we I think, I feel like
Speaker 1: I've bought every Commodore sixty four available because there they
Speaker 1: tend to be fairly reliable and easy to work with
Speaker 1: and you can input various things into them. And UM
Speaker 1: so doing something similar, you know, a lot of I
Speaker 1: think a lot of productions probably would have put like
Speaker 1: l E D screens or l c D. You know,
Speaker 1: they would have updated with new technology and not dealt
Speaker 1: with the playback aspect of running through like CRT monitors
Speaker 1: with whatever we need to show on screen. UM, but
Speaker 1: we're we try to be as authentic as possible and
Speaker 1: stranger things and so there's just a lot of our
Speaker 1: playback guy was always present. I felt like on every
Speaker 1: set it was always like real monitors, UM saying with
Speaker 1: the arcade, and we did it all pretty practically, UM
Speaker 1: leaving a lot of those those old monitors inside the
Speaker 1: cabinets and then just like running stuff through them and
Speaker 1: adjusting the frame rate. That's great. I mean again, I
Speaker 1: just to me that stuff definitely pays off, Like again,
Speaker 1: gives that that feel that you want and uh that
Speaker 1: that since that you're watching something that was made years ago,
Speaker 1: um and yet with a modern sensibility. So it's anyone
Speaker 1: who grew up around the same time I did, I
Speaker 1: think just has that deep connection when they see this there,
Speaker 1: you know, because it feels very Spilledburgian in many ways.
Speaker 1: You know, it just it's very evocative of those, uh,
Speaker 1: those great films and TV series in the eighties. So
Speaker 1: you guys did a phenomenal work to recapture that and
Speaker 1: to make it feel like it was on screen. It
Speaker 1: looks effortless. I know that that's exactly the opposite of
Speaker 1: what it really was. It was very very full of effort.
Speaker 1: But from an audience perspective, um, it just it just
Speaker 1: works so well. So I'm really looking forward to season two.
Speaker 1: We keep hearing rumors about how many seasons they are
Speaker 1: going to be. I think there need to be as
Speaker 1: many seasons as there need to be to tell the story,
Speaker 1: and then we can we can close the chapter on
Speaker 1: that book and want more. I'm happy with that. We'll
Speaker 1: see because who knows what what will happen down the line.
Speaker 1: But I am so really excited to see season two
Speaker 1: and beyond. And if you if you put a word
Speaker 1: in for they need a bald guy as an extra,
Speaker 1: you know, even if he's just like screw in a
Speaker 1: light bulb in in the background. I'm local, I'm right here,
Speaker 1: I know I know Randy. So Randy and I go
Speaker 1: way back, I can. It's just throwing it out there.
Speaker 1: Randy needs an assistant, yeah, who knows me, or maybe
Speaker 1: just like a guy to like deal with all the
Speaker 1: insanely attractive women that he's dating. It's phenomenal. Really, It's
Speaker 1: like we had a discussion with him about that, Like
Speaker 1: that was to me, like everything was believable up until
Speaker 1: they showed your girlfriends, Like I was buying into it
Speaker 1: right upto that. And he's like, thanks, Jonathan, thanks a lot,
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Randy, very good guy. Thank you Jess and
Speaker 1: John for joining me on this show. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: the opportunity to explore what it is you do and
Speaker 1: get a deeper appreciation for the work that goes on
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, and uh, this was phenomenal. I wish
Speaker 1: you guys the best of luck and success in the future,
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll have you on again at some point.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about some other crazy stuff like you know,
Speaker 1: let me tell you what now is the hardest props
Speaker 1: I've ever had to find. You never know when that
Speaker 1: story is going to change. Well, thank you guys again,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. I know it sounds like a
Speaker 1: broken record, but once again I have to thank Jess
Speaker 1: and John for coming into the office and talking with us,
Speaker 1: and of course thank you Ramsey for landing the interview.
Speaker 1: It was an amazing opportunity and I think it really
Speaker 1: turned out great. I very much enjoyed this. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of the show, and also just
Speaker 1: learning more about what goes on behind the scenes on
Speaker 1: any kind of shoot is fascinating to me. I see
Speaker 1: all these terms all the time, and I don't really
Speaker 1: have a working knowledge of what they all mean. So
Speaker 1: we're hoping that in the future will get other professionals
Speaker 1: who have worked on various productions here in the Atlanta
Speaker 1: area to talk more about what it is they do
Speaker 1: so we can understand how the best boy turned out
Speaker 1: to be so darned best because we don't know. We
Speaker 1: want to know, but we don't know. You might already know,
Speaker 1: but keep it to yourself because I'm gonna ask that
Speaker 1: best boy when they get in the studio. So you guys,
Speaker 1: just hold onto that. But if you do have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for topics that you would like us to cover
Speaker 1: in future episodes of tech Stuff, or maybe there's a
Speaker 1: company that I should focus on or a particular person
Speaker 1: in tech, send me a message. Let me know the
Speaker 1: email addresses tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or drop me in line on Facebook or Twitter. The
Speaker 1: handle at both of those would be text Stuff hs W.
Speaker 1: Remember you can watch me record shows live on Wednesdays
Speaker 1: and Fridays that happens over at twitch dot tv slash
Speaker 1: tech stuff, and there you'll see not just the the
Speaker 1: whole process of me recording, but what happens when I
Speaker 1: make mistakes, which is more frequent than I care to admit.
Speaker 1: So come on watch and laugh and learn and maybe
Speaker 1: even fall in love. Who knows who will show up
Speaker 1: in that chat room, And I will talk to you
Speaker 1: guys again really soon for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics because it staff works dot com