About four years ago, the New Yorker published an article about a cache of dodo bones that was found in a pit on the island of Mauritius. Now, the island of Mauritius is a small island off the east coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, and it is the place where the dodo bird was discovered and extinguished, all within about 150 years. Everyone was very excited about this archaeological find, because it meant that they might finally be able to assemble a single dodo skeleton.
Asi pred štyrmi rokmi New Yorker uverejnil článok o skrýši s kosťami vtáka dodo, ktoré sa našli v jame na ostrove Maurícius. Maurícius je malý ostrov neďaleko východného pobrežia Madagaskaru v Indickom oceáne a je to miesto, kde bol vták dodo objavený, ale aj vyhubený, všetko v priebehu 150 rokov. Všetci boli z tohto archeologického nálezu nadšení. Znamenalo to, že sa im možno konečne podarí poskladať kompletnú kostru vtáka dodo.
See, while museums all over the world have dodo skeletons in their collection, nobody -- not even the actual Natural History Museum on the island of Mauritius -- has a skeleton that's made from the bones of a single dodo. Well, this isn't exactly true. The fact is, is that the British Museum had a complete specimen of a dodo in their collection up until the 18th century -- it was actually mummified, skin and all -- but in a fit of space-saving zeal, they actually cut off the head and they cut off the feet and they burned the rest in a bonfire. If you go look at their website today, they'll actually list these specimens, saying, the rest was lost in a fire.
Hoci múzeá po celom svete majú v zbierkach kostry vtáka dodo, nik, dokonca ani Prírodopisné múzeum na Mauríciu, nemá kostru pozostávajúcu z kostí jedného vtáka dodo. No, nie je to celkom pravda. Pravdou je, že Britské múzeum malo v zbierke kompletný exemplár vtáka dodo až do 18. storočia. Bolo mumifikované, s kožou a všetkým, ale v prozreteľnom zápale mu odsekli hlavu a nohy a zvyšok spálili v ohni. Keď sa dnes pozriete na ich stránku, pri týchto vzorkách majú uvedené, že o zvyšok sa prišlo pri požiari. (smiech)
Not quite the whole truth. Anyway. The frontispiece of this article was this photo, and I'm one of the people that thinks that Tina Brown was great for bringing photos to the New Yorker, because this photo completely rocked my world. I became obsessed with the object -- not just the beautiful photograph itself, and the color, the shallow depth of field, the detail that's visible, the wire you can see on the beak there that the conservator used to put this skeleton together -- there's an entire story here. And I thought to myself, wouldn't it be great if I had my own dodo skeleton? (Laughter)
Nie je to úplná pravda, ale nevadí. Titulnou ilustráciou článku bola táto fotka. Som z tých, ktorí si myslia, že Tina Brownová bola pre New Yorker veľkým prínosom, pretože táto fotka ma úplne odrovnala. Bol som posadnutý týmto objektom, nie iba samotnou skvelou fotkou, farbou, plytkou hĺbkou poľa, viditeľným detailom, drôtom viditeľným na zobáku, ktorým si reštaurátor pomohol pri skladaní kostry. Je za tým celý príbeh. Pomyslel som si, nebolo by to skvelé, keby som mal vlastnú kostru vtáka dodo? (smiech)
I want to point out here at this point that I've spent my life obsessed by objects and the stories that they tell, and this was the very latest one. So I began looking around for -- to see if anyone sold a kit, some kind of model that I could get, and I found lots of reference material, lots of lovely pictures. No dice: no dodo skeleton for me. But the damage had been done. I had saved a few hundred photos of dodo skeletons into my "Creative Projects" folder -- it's a repository for my brain, everything that I could possibly be interested in. Any time I have an internet connection, there's a sluice of stuff moving into there, everything from beautiful rings to cockpit photos. The key that the Marquis du Lafayette sent to George Washington to celebrate the storming of the Bastille. Russian nuclear launch key: The one on the top is the picture of the one I found on eBay; the one on the bottom is the one I made for myself, because I couldn't afford the one on eBay. Storm trooper costumes. Maps of Middle Earth -- that's one I hand-drew myself. There's the dodo skeleton folder. This folder has 17,000 photos -- over 20 gigabytes of information -- and it's growing constantly. And one day, a couple of weeks later, it might have been maybe a year later, I was in the art store with my kids, and I was buying some clay tools -- we were going to have a craft day. I bought some Super Sculpeys, some armature wire, some various materials. And I looked down at this Sculpey, and I thought, maybe, yeah, maybe I could make my own dodo skull.
Chcel by som teraz upozorniť, že celý život som posadnutý predmetmi a ich príbehmi. No a tento bol najnovší. Začal som hľadať, či niekto nepredáva súpravu, nejaký dostupný model. A našiel som mnoho referencií s krásnymi obrázkami. Smola, žiadnu kostru som nezohnal. Cesty späť však už niet. Uložil som si stovky fotiek vtáka dodo v mojom priečinku Kreatívne projekty, kam si ukladám všetko, čo by ma mohlo zaujímať. Vždy, keď som na internete, tam pribudne niekoľko vecí, všetko od krásnych prsteňov po fotky kokpitu. Kľúč, ktorý markíz du Lafayette poslal Georgeovi Washingtonovi v rámci osláv dobytia Bastily. Ruský nukleárny odpaľovací kľúč: horný som našiel na stránkach eBay, spodný som si vyrobil sám, pretože ten na eBay som si nemohol dovoliť. Kostými Storm Trooperov, mapy Stredozeme, túto som nakreslil sám, Tu sú kostry vtáka dodo. Priečinok má 17 000 fotiek, vyše 20 gigabajtov informácií, a stále ich pribúda. Jedného dňa, o pár týždňov, možno aj rok neskôr, som bol s deťmi v obchode a kupoval nástroje na hlinu, lebo sme plánovali vyrábať. Kúpil som hlinu, drôty, rôzne materiály. Pozrel som sa na tú hlinu a napadlo mi, čo keby, čo keby som si vyrobil vlastnú lebku vtáka dodo.
I should point out at this time -- I'm not a sculptor; I'm a hard-edged model maker. You give me a drawing, you give me a prop to replicate, you give me a crane, scaffolding, parts from "Star Wars" -- especially parts from "Star Wars" -- I can do this stuff all day long. It's exactly how I made my living for 15 years. But you give me something like this -- my friend Mike Murnane sculpted this; it's a maquette for "Star Wars, Episode Two" -- this is not my thing -- this is something other people do -- dragons, soft things.
Chcel by som pripomenúť, že nie som sochár. Som nekompromisný modelár. Dáte mi nákres, predlohu na reprodukciu, žeriav, lešenie, diely z Hviezdnych vojen, najmä z Hviezdnych vojen, a venujem tomu všetok čas. Presne takto som sa živil 15 rokov. No dajte mi niečo takéto – vyrobil to môj priateľ Mike Murnane –, maketu z Hviezdnych vojen, druhej epizódy, to už nie je pre mňa, také vyrábajú iní – draky, jemné veci.
However, I felt like I had looked at enough photos of dodo skulls to actually be able to understand the topology and perhaps replicate it -- I mean, it couldn't be that difficult. So, I started looking at the best photos I could find. I grabbed all the reference, and I found this lovely piece of reference. This is someone selling this on eBay; it was clearly a woman’s hand, hopefully a woman's hand. Assuming it was roughly the size of my wife's hand, I made some measurements of her thumb, and I scaled them out to the size of the skull. I blew it up to the actual size, and I began using that, along with all the other reference that I had, comparing it to it as size reference for figuring out exactly how big the beak should be, exactly how long, etc.
Mal som však pocit, že som už videl dosť fotiek lebky vtáka dodo na to, aby som dokázal pochopiť topológiu a možno zhotoviť duplikát. Hovorím si, nemôže to byť až také ťažké. Začal som si teda pozerať najlepšie fotky, aké som našiel. Zhromaždil som si všetky referencie a našiel aj takúto krásnu. Niekto to predáva na eBay, drží to ženská ruka, aspoň teda dúfam. Keďže je asi rovnako veľká ako mojej ženy, odmeral som si jej palec a prispôsobil ho veľkosti lebky. Upravil som to na skutočnú veľkosť, ktorú som začal používať, ako aj všetky ostatné dostupné referencie, aby som dokázal určiť veľkosť zobáka, jeho dĺžku a podobne.
And over a few hours, I eventually achieved what was actually a pretty reasonable dodo skull. And I didn't mean to continue, I -- it's kind of like, you know, you can only clean a super messy room by picking up one thing at a time; you can't think about the totality. I wasn't thinking about a dodo skeleton; I just noticed that as I finished this skull, the armature wire that I had been used to holding it up was sticking out of the back just where a spine would be. And one of the other things I'd been interested in and obsessed with over the years is spines and skeletons, having collected a couple of hundred. I actually understood the mechanics of vertebrae enough to kind of start to imitate them. And so button by button, vertebrae by vertebrae, I built my way down. And actually, by the end of the day, I had a reasonable skull, a moderately good vertebrae and half of a pelvis.
Po niekoľkých hodinách sa mi podarilo niečo, čo vyzeralo ako naozaj primeraná lebka. Nechcel som už pokračovať, pretože je to, ako keby ste upratovali izbu zdvihnutím vždy iba jednej veci, nesmiete to brať ako celok. Neuvažoval som o kostre vtáka dodo, len som si po dokončení lebky všimol, že drôt použitý na držanie trčal zo zadnej strany, kde mala byť chrbtica. No a jednou z vecí, ktoré ma zaujímajú a som nimi posadnutý, sú chrbtice a kostry, mám ich pár stoviek. Rozumiem mechanike chrbtice dosť na to, aby som ich dokázal napodobniť. Takže krok po kroku, stavec po stavci, pokračoval som nadol. Na konci dňa som mal obstojnú lebku, chrbticu a polovicu panvy.
And again, I kept on going, looking for more reference, every bit of reference I could find -- drawings, beautiful photos. This guy -- I love this guy! He put a dodo leg bones on a scanner with a ruler. This is the kind of accuracy that I wanted, and I replicated every last bone and put it in. And after about six weeks, I finished, painted, mounted my own dodo skeleton. You can see that I even made a museum label for it that includes a brief history of the dodo. And TAP Plastics made me -- although I didn't photograph it -- a museum vitrine. I don't have the room for this in my house, but I had to finish what I had started.
Znova som začal hľadať ďalšie referencie, všetko, čo sa dalo – kresby, krásne fotky. Tento chlapík, milujem ho! Dal kosti nôh vtáka dodo na skener s pravítkom. Presne niečo také som potreboval, takže som zhotovil duplikát každej jednej kosti. Asi po šiestich týždňoch som to dokončil, natrel, a mohol si vystaviť vlastnú kostru vtáka dodo. (potlesk) Ako vidíte, vyrobil som si aj štítok ako z múzea, na ktorom je stručná história vtáka dodo. Spoločnosť TAP Plastics mi vyrobila, hoci nemám fotku, múzejnú vitrínu. Nemám na to doma miesto, ale už som to musel dokončiť.
And this actually represented kind of a sea change to me. Again, like I said, my life has been about being fascinated by objects and the stories that they tell, and also making them for myself, obtaining them, appreciating them and diving into them. And in this folder, "Creative Projects," there are tons of projects that I'm currently working on, projects that I've already worked on, things that I might want to work on some day, and things that I may just want to find and buy and have and look at and touch. But now there was potentially this new category of things that I could sculpt that was different, that I -- you know, I have my own R2D2, but that's -- honestly, relative to sculpting, to me, that's easy.
Bola to pre mňa vlastne istá zmena. Ako som hovoril, celý život som fascinovaný vecami a ich príbehmi, ich výrobou, získaním. Vážim si ich a nechám sa nimi pohltiť. V priečinku Kreatívne projekty je mnoho projektov, na ktorých práve pracujem, na ktorých som pracoval, na ktorých možno budem pracovať. Mnoho vecí, ktoré chcem nájsť, kúpiť si, môcť sa na ne pozerať a dotýkať sa ich. Teraz ale pribudla nová kategória vecí, ktoré by som mohol modelovať, ktoré sú iné, ktoré... Mám vlastného R2D2. Z pohľadu modelovania to je pre mňa naozaj jednoduché.
And so I went back and looked through my "Creative Projects" folder, and I happened across the Maltese Falcon. Now, this is funny for me: to fall in love with an object from a Hammett novel, because if it's true that the world is divided into two types of people, Chandler people and Hammett people, I am absolutely a Chandler person. But in this case, it's not about the author, it's not about the book or the movie or the story, it's about the object in and of itself. And in this case, this object is -- plays on a host of levels.
Znova som začal hľadať v spomínanom priečinku a narazil na Maltézskeho sokola. (smiech) Toto je pre mňa vtipné, zamilovať sa do predmetu z Hammettovej novely, pretože ak sa ľudia ozaj delia na dva typy, Chandlerových a Hammettových, určite patrím k prvým. V tomto prípade nejde o autora, knihu, film ani príbeh. Ide o samotný predmet. V tomto prípade ide o predmet na viacerých úrovniach. V prvom rade ide o skutočný predmet.
First of all, there's the object in the world. This is the "Kniphausen Hawk." It is a ceremonial pouring vessel made around 1700 for a Swedish Count, and it is very likely the object from which Hammett drew his inspiration for the Maltese Falcon. Then there is the fictional bird, the one that Hammett created for the book. Built out of words, it is the engine that drives the plot of his book and also the movie, in which another object is created: a prop that has to represent the thing that Hammett created out of words, inspired by the Kniphausen Hawk, and this represents the falcon in the movie. And then there is this fourth level, which is a whole new object in the world: the prop made for the movie, the representative of the thing, becomes, in its own right, a whole other thing, a whole new object of desire.
Tým je Kniphausenov sokol. Ide o obradnú nádobu na nalievanie, ktorá bola vyrobená okolo roku 1700 pre švédskeho grófa. Ide pravdepodobne o predmet, z ktorého čerpal Hammett inšpiráciu pre Maltézskeho sokola. Potom máme fiktívneho vtáka, ktorého Hammett vymyslel pre knihu. Vytvorený zo slov, ide o hnaciu silu zápletky knihy a tiež filmu, v ktorých bol vytvorený ďalší predmet, rekvizita reprezentujúca vec vytvorenú Hammettom zo slov a inšpirovaná Kniphausenovým sokolom, ktorý reprezentuje sokola vo filme. Na štvrtej úrovni ide o úplne nový skutočný predmet, rekvizita vyrobená pre film, reprezentujúca vec, ktorá sa sama stane úplne inou vecou, úplne novým predmetom túžby. Nastal čas na výskum.
And so now it was time to do some research. I actually had done some research a few years before -- it's why the folder was there. I'd bought a replica, a really crappy replica, of the Maltese Falcon on eBay, and had downloaded enough pictures to actually have some reasonable reference. But I discovered, in researching further, really wanting precise reference, that one of the original lead birds had been sold at Christie's in 1994, and so I contacted an antiquarian bookseller who had the original Christie's catalogue, and in it I found this magnificent picture, which included a size reference. I was able to scan the picture, blow it up to exactly full size.
Pred pár rokmi som si ho vlastne už urobil, preto mám aj ten priečinok. Na eBay som kúpil naozaj veľmi zlý duplikát Maltézskeho sokola a stiahol dosť obrázkov, takže som mal veľa referencií. No pri ďalšom výskume som zistil, že potrebujem presnú referenciu, že jeden z pôvodných olovených vtákov sa v aukčnom dome Christie's predal v roku 1994, takže som kontaktoval kníhkupca so starožitnosťami, ktorý vlastnil pôvodný katalóg Christie's. V ňom som našiel vynikajúci obrázok, ktorý obsahoval referenciu k rozmerom. Obrázok som naskenoval a zväčšil na skutočné rozmery.
I found other reference. Avi [Ara] Chekmayan, a New Jersey editor, actually found this resin Maltese Falcon at a flea market in 1991, although it took him five years to authenticate this bird to the auctioneers' specifications, because there was a lot of controversy about it. It was made out of resin, which wasn't a common material for movie props about the time the movie was made. It's funny to me that it took a while to authenticate it, because I can see it compared to this thing, and I can tell you -- it's real, it's the real thing, it's made from the exact same mold that this one is. In this one, because the auction was actually so controversial, Profiles in History, the auction house that sold this -- I think in 1995 for about 100,000 dollars -- they actually included -- you can see here on the bottom -- not just a front elevation, but also a side, rear and other side elevation.
Našiel som aj ďalšiu referenciu. Avi [Ara] Chekmayan, editor z New Jersey, našiel Maltézskeho sokola zo živice na blšom trhu v roku 1991, hoci mu overenie vtáka podľa špecifikácií dražiteľa trvalo päť rokov, pretože to bolo dosť kontroverzné. Bol vyrobený zo živice, ktorá sa v čase filmovania bežne nepoužívala. Príde mi vtipné, že to trvalo tak dlho, pretože pri tomto porovnaní vidím, že je to naozaj ono. Je úplne rovnako vytvarovaný. Pretože išlo o kontroverznú dražbu, Profiles in History, predávajúci aukčný dom, myslím, že v roku 1995 za asi 100 000 dolárov, pridal – môžete vidieť dolu – nie iba predné vyvýšenie, ale aj bočné, zadné a vyvýšenie druhej strany.
So now, I had all the topology I needed to replicate the Maltese Falcon. What do they do, how do you start something like that? I really don't know. So what I did was, again, like I did with the dodo skull, I blew all my reference up to full size, and then I began cutting out the negatives and using those templates as shape references. So I took Sculpey, and I built a big block of it, and I passed it through until, you know, I got the right profiles. And then slowly, feather by feather, detail by detail, I worked out and achieved -- working in front of the television and Super Sculpey -- here's me sitting next to my wife -- it's the only picture I took of the entire process. As I moved through, I achieved a very reasonable facsimile of the Maltese Falcon. But again, I am not a sculptor,
Takže teraz som už mal potrebnú topológiu na zhotovenie duplikátu Maltézskeho sokola. Ako vlastne s niečím takým začať? Naozaj som nevedel. Znova som urobil to, čo s lebkou vtáka dodo, zväčšil som všetky referencie na skutočnú veľkosť, potom som si povystrihoval šablóny a tie som použil ako referenciu pre tvary. Vzal som hlinu, urobil z nej veľký blok a pracoval s ňou, kým som nemal správne obrysy. Potom som pierko po pierku, detail po detaile, vypracoval – sediac pred televíziou a hlinou –, tu sedím vedľa manželky, jediná fotka z celého procesu. Ako som napredoval, podarila sa mi presná kópia Maltézskeho sokola. Ešte raz, nie som sochár,
and so I don't know a lot of the tricks, like, I don't know how my friend Mike gets beautiful, shiny surfaces with his Sculpey; I certainly wasn't able to get it. So, I went down to my shop, and I molded it and I cast it in resin, because in the resin, then, I could absolutely get the glass smooth finished. Now there's a lot of ways to fill and get yourself a nice smooth finish. My preference is about 70 coats of this -- matte black auto primer. I spray it on for about three or four days, it drips to hell, but it allows me a really, really nice gentle sanding surface and I can get it glass-smooth. Oh, finishing up with triple-zero steel wool. Now, the great thing about getting it to this point was that because in the movie, when they finally bring out the bird at the end, and they place it on the table, they actually spin it. So I was able to actually screen-shot and freeze-frame to make sure. And I'm following all the light kicks on this thing and making sure that as I'm holding the light in the same position, I'm getting the same type of reflection on it -- that's the level of detail I'm going into this thing. I ended up with this: my Maltese Falcon. And it's beautiful. And I can state with authority at this point in time, when I'd finished it, of all of the replicas out there -- and there is a few -- this is by far the most accurate representation of the original Maltese Falcon than anyone has sculpted. Now the original one, I should tell you,
takže nepoznám triky, napríklad neviem, ako priateľ Mike dokáže vytvoriť lesklé povrchy. Mne sa to fakt nepodarilo. Zišiel som do dielne, dal to do formy a odlial do živice, pretože s ňou som mohol dosiahnuť hladký povrch. Existuje mnoho spôsobov, ako to urobiť. Rozhodol som sa pre 70 náterov tohto – matný čierny lak. Sprejoval som to asi tri či štyri dni, strašne z toho tieklo, ale umožnilo to dosiahnuť jemný povrch, naozaj pekne hladký. Zakončil som to drôtenkou. Skvelou vecou bolo, že vo filme, keď sa na konci vták konečne objaví, roztočia ho na stole. Mohol som si teda obraz zastaviť, aby som mal istotu. Snažím sa kopírovať všetky tiene a keď ho držím v rovnakej polohe, dosiahnem ten istý odraz. Išlo mi až o takéto detaily. Toto je výsledok – môj Maltézsky sokol. Je krásny. Môžem oprávnene povedať, keď je už hotový, že zo všetkých duplikátov – je ich niekoľko –, je táto najpresnejšou napodobeninou pôvodného Maltézskeho sokola, akú ktokoľvek vyrobil. Originál vytvoril Fred Sexton.
is sculpted by a guy named Fred Sexton. This is where it gets weird. Fred Sexton was a friend of this guy, George Hodel. Terrifying guy -- agreed by many to be the killer of the Black Dahlia. Now, James Ellroy believes that Fred Sexton, the sculptor of the Maltese Falcon, killed James Elroy's mother. I'll go you one stranger than that: In 1974, during the production of a weird comedy sequel to "The Maltese Falcon," called "The Black Bird," starring George Segal, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art had a plaster original of the Maltese Falcon -- one of the original six plasters, I think, made for the movie -- stolen out of the museum. A lot of people thought it was a publicity stunt for the movie. John's Grill, which actually is seen briefly in "The Maltese Falcon," is still a viable San Francisco eatery, counted amongst its regular customers Elisha Cook, who played Wilmer Cook in the movie, and he gave them one of his original plasters of the Maltese Falcon. And they had it in their cabinet for about 15 years, until it got stolen in January of 2007. It would seem that the object of desire only comes into its own by disappearing repeatedly.
Teraz sa to trochu zamotá. Fred Sexton bol priateľom Georgea Hodela. Desivý chlapík – mnohí sa zhodujú, že išlo o vraha v prípade Black Dahlia. James Ellroy je presvedčený, že Fred Sexton, tvorca Maltézskeho sokola, zavraždil jeho matku. Pridám ešte niečo čudnejšie – v roku 1974 počas produkcie pokračovania divnej komédie Maltézsky sokol s názvom Čierny vták s hercom Georgom Segalom, bol z múzea umenia v Los Angeles, ktoré vlastnilo sadrový originál Maltézskeho sokola, ukradnutý jeden zo šiestich odliatkov vyrobených pre film. Mnoho ľudí si myslelo, že šlo len o propagáciu filmu. Reštaurácia John's Grill, na okamih zobrazená vo filme, dnes v San Franciscu stále funguje a medzi jej pravidelných zákazníkov patrí Elisha Cook, ktorý hral Wilmera Cooka a dal im jeden z pôvodných odliatkov Maltézskeho sokola. Mali ho vo vitríne asi 15 rokov, kým nebol v januári 2007 ukradnutý. Zdá sa, že predmetu túžby je predurčené stále sa strácať. Takže tu mám tohto sokola a je krásny.
So here I had this Falcon, and it was lovely. It looked really great, the light worked on it really well, it was better than anything that I could achieve or obtain out in the world. But there was a problem. And the problem was that: I wanted the entirety of the object, I wanted the weight behind the object. This thing was made of resin and it was too light. There's this group online that I frequent. It's a group of prop crazies just like me called the Replica Props Forum, and it's people who trade, make and travel in information about movie props. And it turned out that one of the guys there, a friend of mine that I never actually met, but befriended through some prop deals, was the manager of a local foundry. He took my master Falcon pattern, he actually did lost wax casting in bronze for me, and this is the bronze I got back. And this is, after some acid etching, the one that I ended up with.
Vyzerá skvelo, hra svetla sa naozaj vydarila. Bol tým najlepším, čo sa mi mohlo podariť vytvoriť alebo získať. Ale bol tu problém – a to – chcel som ho mať kompletný, jeho skutočnú váhu. Bol vyrobený zo živice a bol príliš ľahký. Na internete navštevujem jednu skupinu. Ide o rovnakých bláznov do rekvizít ako ja, volajú sa Replica Props Forum a ide o ľudí, ktorí vymieňajú a vyrábajú filmové rekvizity. Zistil som, že jeden z ľudí, priateľ, ktorého som nikdy nestretol, bol manažérom miestnej zlievarne. Vzal si môj model sokola, vytvoril voskový odliatok, a použil bronz. Vrátilo sa mi toto. Toto je finálna podoba po vyleptaní kyselinou.
And this thing, it's deeply, deeply satisfying to me. Here, I'm going to put it out there, later on tonight, and I want you to pick it up and handle it. You want to know how obsessed I am. This project's only for me, and yet I went so far as to buy on eBay a 1941 Chinese San Francisco-based newspaper, in order so that the bird could properly be wrapped ... like it is in the movie. (Laughter) Yeah, I know! (Laughter) (Applause) There you can see, it's weighing in at 27 and a half pounds. That's half the weight of my dog, Huxley.
S týmto som naozaj, naozaj spokojný. Vyložím to tu a potom neskôr večer si ho môžete vziať do ruky. (potlesk) Áno, až takto som posadnutý. Celý projekt je iba pre mňa. No zašiel som tak ďaleko, že som si na eBay kúpil čínske noviny zo San Francisca z roku 1941, aby som vtáka mohol správne zabaliť... Presne ako vo filme. (smiech) Áno, ja viem! (smiech) (potlesk) Tu to vidíte, váži 27,5 libry. Polovicu z váhy môjho psa Huxleyho.
But there's a problem. Now, here's the most recent progression of Falcons. On the far left is a piece of crap -- a replica I bought on eBay. There's my somewhat ruined Sculpey Falcon, because I had to get it back out of the mold. There's my first casting, there's my master and there's my bronze. There's a thing that happens when you mold and cast things, which is that every time you throw it into silicone and cast it in resin, you lose a little bit of volume, you lose a little bit of size. And when I held my bronze one up against my Sculpey one, it was shorter by three-quarters of an inch. Yeah, no, really, this was like aah -- why didn't I remember this? Why didn't I start and make it bigger? So what do I do? I figure I have two options. One, I can fire a freaking laser at it, which I have already done, to do a 3D scan -- there's a 3D scan of this Falcon. I had figured out the exact amount of shrinkage I achieved going from a wax master to a bronze master and blown this up big enough to make a 3D lithography master of this, which I will polish, then I will send to the mold maker and then I will have it done in bronze. Or:
Ale je tu problém. Najnovšie novinky o sokoloch. Úplne vľavo je nepodarok – duplikát z eBay. Ďalej môj trochu zničený hlinený sokol, pretože som ho musel vybrať z formy. Je tam môj prvý odliatok, hlavný model a bronzový model. Pri formovaní a odlievaní sa pri použití silikónu a odliatí do živice stratí časť objemu, veľkosti. Keď pridržím bronzového k hlinenému, je kratší o 2 cm. Fakt, bolo to... (smiech) Prečo som si na to nespomenul? Prečo som ho na začiatku neurobil väčší? Takže čo robiť? Mám dve možnosti. Po prvé, mohol by som použiť laser, čo sa už aj stalo, a urobiť 3D sken – už ho mám. Zistil by som presné množstvo úbytku pri prechode z vosku na bronz a zväčšil tak, aby z toho bolo možné vyrobiť 3D litografiu. Tú by som potom vyleštil a poslal na odliatie, aby sa mohla vyrobiť z bronzu.
There are several people who own originals, and I have been attempting to contact them and reach them, hoping that they will let me spend a few minutes in the presence of one of the real birds, maybe to take a picture, or even to pull out the hand-held laser scanner that I happen to own that fits inside a cereal box, and could maybe, without even touching their bird, I swear, get a perfect 3D scan. And I'm even willing to sign pages saying that I'll never let anyone else have it, except for me in my office, I promise. I'll give them one if they want it. And then, maybe, then I'll achieve the end of this exercise. But really, if we're all going to be honest with ourselves, I have to admit that achieving the end of the exercise was never the point of the exercise to begin with, was it. Thank you.
Alebo: niekoľko ľudí vlastní originál. Snažil som sa s nimi spojiť dúfajúc, že mi umožnia stráviť pár minút s originálom, možno si urobiť fotku, či vytiahnuť laserový skener, ktorý mám, a s ktorým by som možno mohol bez dotyku, prisahám, urobiť perfektný 3D sken. Ochotne podpíšem, že to nikomu inému nedám, prisahám. Ak budú chcieť, jeden im dám. A až možno potom dosiahnem to, čo chcem. Ale ak máme byť k sebe úprimní, musím priznať, že dostať sa až na koniec nebolo pointou tohto celého, že nie? Ďakujem.