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.
Pre oko četiri godine, Njujorker je objavio članak o skupini kostiju dodo ptice koja je pronađena u rupi na ostrvu Mauricijus. Mauricijus je malo ostrvo sa istočne strane Madagaskara u Indijskom okeanu, a ovo je mesto gde je otkrivena i izumrla ptica dodo, sve to u okviru od 150 godina. Svi su bili uzbuđeni zbog ovog arheološkog otkrića, jer je to značilo da će konačno možda moći da sastave jedan ceo kostur dodoa.
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.
Vidite, iako muzeji širom sveta imaju kosture dodoa u svojim postavkama - niko, čak ni Muzej prirodne istorije na ostrvu Mauricijus, nema kostur sastavljen od kostiju jednog dodoa. U stvari, to i nije baš istina. Zapravo, Britanski muzej je imao ceo primerak dodoa u svojoj kolekciji sve do 18. veka - bio je u stvari mumificiran, sa kožom i svim ostalim - ali u naletu zanosa za uštedom prostora, odsekli su glavu i noge i spalili ostatak na lomači. Ako pogledate njihov sajt danas, nabrojali su ove uzorke, navodeći da je ostatak izgubljen u vatri.
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)
Nije baš cela istina. Bilo kako bilo, naslovnica ovog članka je bila ova fotografija, a ja sam jedan od onih koji misle da je Tina Braun bila odlična za podnošenje fotografija Njujorkeru, jer je ova fotografija potpuno prodrmala moj svet. Postao sam opsednut predmetima - ne samo prelepom fotografijom, bojom, plitkom dubinom polja, detaljima koji su vidljivi, žicom koju možete videti ovde na kljunu koju je konzervator koristio da sastavi ovaj skelet - tu postoji čitava priča, pa sam pomislio: „Zar ne bi bilo sjajno kada bih imao sopstveni skelet dodoa?” (Smeh)
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.
Hteo bih da istaknem u ovom trenutku da sam proveo život sa opsesijom predmetima i pričama koje oni pričaju, a ovo je bila najnovija. Stoga sam počeo da tragam - da vidim da li je neko prodao komplet, nekakav model koji bih mogao da nabavim i našao sam mnogo materijala vezanog za to, puno divnih slika. Ništa od toga; nema skeleta dodoa za mene. Šteta je, međutim, već načinjena. Sačuvao sam nekoliko stotina fotografija skeleta dodoa u svom folderu „Kreativni projekti” - to je skladište za moj mozak, sve ono što bi me moglo interesovati. Svaki put kada imam internet vezu, tamo dospeva priliv stvari, sve od prelepog prstenja do fotografija pilotskih kabina. Ključ koji je Markiz de Lafajet poslao Džordžu Vašingtonu da bi proslavio pad Bastilje. Ruski taster za nuklearno lansiranje: na vrhu je slika onog koji sam našao na Ibeju; na dnu je onaj koji sam napravio za sebe, jer ne mogu da priuštim onaj na Ibeju. Kostimi Stormtrupera. Mape Srednje zemlje - ovu sam lično nacrtao. Evo foldera dodo skeleta. Ovaj folder ima 17 000 slika - preko 20 gigabajta informacija - i neprekidno raste. Jednog dana, nekoliko nedelja kasnije, možda godinu dana kasnije, bio sam u umetničkoj radnji sa decom i kupovao sam neku glinu - planirali smo dan majstorija. Kupio sam malo Super Skalpija, žičanu armaturu, razne materijale. Pogledao sam Skalpija i pomislio sam, možda, da, možda bih mogao da napravim svoju lobanju dodoa.
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.
Treba da naglasim u ovom trenutku - nisam vajar; ja sam naoštreni stvaralac modela. Dajte mi crtež, dajte mi rekvizit da kopiram, dajte mi kran, skele, delove iz „Ratova zvezda” - naročito delove iz „Ratova zvezda” - mogu takve stvari da radim po ceo dan. Upravo tako sam 15 godina zarađivao za život. Međutim, ako mi date ovako nešto - moj prijatelj Majk Murnejn je izvajao ovo; to je maketa za „Ratove zvezda, Epizodu 2” - ovo nije baš moj fazon - ovo je nešto što drugi ljudi rade - zmajevi, nežne stvari.
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.
Ipak, činilo mi se kao da sam video dovoljno fotografija lobanja dodoa da bih zaista umeo da razumem topologiju i možda je kopiram - mislim, ne može da bude toliko teško. Tako sam počeo da gledam najbolje slike koje sam mogao da nađem. Dohvatio sam sve reference i našao sam ovu divnu referencu. Tu neko prodaje ovo na Ibeju; to je očigledno ženska ruka, nadajmo se, ženska ruka. Pretpostavivši da je otprilike veličine ruke moje žene, izmerio sam njen palac i odredio razmeru u odnosu na veličinu lobanje. Povećao sam je na stvarnu veličinu i počeo sam to da koristim zajedno sa drugim referencama koje sam imao, upoređujući ih sa njom kao referentnom veličinom za utvrđivanje koliko kljun treba da bude veliki, koliko tačno da bude dug itd.
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.
Nakon nekoliko sati, na kraju sam uspeo da napravim prilično prihvatljivu lobanju dodoa. Nisam planirao da nastavim - to je kao kad čistite veoma neurednu sobu skupljajući jednu po jednu stvar; ne možete da mislite o celini. Nisam mislio o skeletu dodoa; samo sam primetio da, kad sam završio tu lobanju, žičana armatura koju sam koristio da je drži uspravno je virila pozadi baš gde bi bila kičma, a jedna od drugih stvari koje su me godinama interesovale i kojima sam bio opsednut su kičme i kosturi, prikupio sam nekoliko stotina. Zapravo sam razumeo mehaniku pršljenova dovoljno da počnem da ih podražavam. I tako, dugme po dugme, pršljen po pršljen, gradio sam sve do dole i stvarno sam do kraja dana imao pristojnu lobanju, srednje dobre pršljenove i pola karlice.
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.
Ponovo sam nastavio, tragajući za još referenci, svakom referencom koju sam mogao pronaći - crteži, prelepe fotografije. Ovaj lik - volim ovog lika! Stavio je kosti noge dodoa na skener sa lenjirom. To je preciznost kakvu sam želeo i kopirao sam svaku do poslednje kosti i sastavio ih. Nakon oko šest nedelja, završio sam, obojio, montirao svoj lični skelet dodoa. Možete videti da sam čak napravio i muzejski natpis za njega koji obuhvata kratku istoriju dodoa. U „TAP Plastici” su mi napravili - mada nisam to slikao - muzejsku vitrinu. Nemam mesta za ovo u svojoj kući, ali morao sam da završim šta sam započeo.
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.
I to je zapravo predstavljalo more promena za mene. Još jednom, kao što sam rekao, moj život se vrteo oko fascinacije objektima i pričama koje oni pričaju i oko njihovog pravljenja, pribavljanja, njihovog uvažavanja i uranjanja u njih. U tom folderu „Kreativni projekti” postoji gomila projekata na kojima trenutno radim, projekata na kojima sam već radio, stvari na kojima bih hteo da radim jednog dana i stvari koje bih možda samo hteo da kupim i imam, gledam i dodirnem. A sada je tu bila potencijalno nova kategorija stvari koje sam mogao da oblikujem koje su drugačije, koje - znate, imam svog Artu Ditua, ali to je - iskreno, u odnosu na vajanje, to je lako, prema mom mišljenju.
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.
Vratio sam se na pregledanje svog foldera „Kreativni projekti” i desilo se da sam naleteo na Malteškog sokola. E, sad, ovo mi je smešno: zaljubiti se u predmet iz Hametovog romana, jer ako je istina da se svet deli na dve vrste ljudi, one koji vole Čendlera i one koji vole Hameta, ja sam apsolutno Čendlerov tip. Ipak, u ovom slučaju, ne radi se o autoru, ne radi se o knjizi niti filmu niti priči, radi se o predmetu samom po sebi, a u ovom slučaju, ovaj predmet je -
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.
ima više nivoa. Pre svega, postoji predmet u svetu. Ovo je Niphausenov soko. To je ceremonijalna posuda za polivanje napravljena oko 1700. godine za švedskog grofa i vrlo je verovatno da je to predmet koji je inspirisao Hameta da napiše „Malteškog sokola”. Zatim imamo izmišljenu pticu, onu koju je Hamet stvorio za knjigu. Sačinjen od reči, to je pokretač koji pokreće zaplet knjige, kao i filma u kome je stvoren još jedan predmet: rekvizit koji treba da predstavlja stvar koju Hamet stvorio od reči, inspirisan Niphausenovim sokolom i ovo predstavlja sokola u filmu. Onda je tu i četvrti nivo, a to je potpuno novi predmet u svetu - rekvizit napravljen za film, predstavnik stvari, postaje, sam za sebe, potpuno druga stvar, potpuno novi predmet požude.
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.
Sad je bio trenutak za istraživanje. Zapravo sam pomalo istraživao nekoliko godina ranije - zato je folder bio tu. Kupio sam repliku, zaista lošu repliku Malteškog sokola na Ibeju i skinuo sam dovoljno slika da bih imao neke pristojne reference. Međutim, otkrio sam, kroz dalje istraživanje, zaista želeći preciznu referencu, da je jedna od originalnih olovnih ptica prodata u „Kristiju” 1994. godine, pa sam kontaktirao sa antikvarnicom knjiga koja je imala originalni Kristijev katalog, i u njemu sam pronašao ovu veličanstvenu sliku, koja je uključivala referencu o veličini. Mogao sam da skeniram sliku, uvećam je na punu veličinu.
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.
Pronašao sam drugu referencu. Avi Čekmajan, urednik iz Nju Džersija, pronašao je Malteškog sokola od smole na buvljoj pijaci 1991. godine, mada mu je trebalo pet godina da potvrdi autentičnost ove ptice u odnosu na specifikacije aukcijske kuće, jer je bilo dosta kontroverze oko toga. Napravljen je od smole, što nije bio čest materijal za filmske rekvizite u vreme kada je napravljen. Smešno mi je da je trebalo toliko da se potvrdi autentičnost, jer mogu da vidim kada se uporedi sa ovim, mogu da vam kažem - pravi je, prava stvar, napravljen je u potpuno istom kalupu kao i ovaj. Sa ovim, pošto je aukcija bila tako kontroverzna, profili istorije, aukcijska kuća koja ga je prodala - mislim 1995. godine za oko 100 000 dolara - uključili su - možete videti ovde na dnu - ne samo prednje uzdignuće, već i sa bočne i zadnje strane i uzdignuće sa druge strane.
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,
Dakle, sada sam imao topologiju koja mi je bila potrebna da bih kopirao Malteškog sokola. Šta rade sa tim, kako da započnete tako nešto? Zaista ne znam. Tako sam opet, kao i sa lobanjom dodoa, uveličao sve svoje reference na punu veličinu, a zatim sam počeo da sečem negative i koristim te šablone kao referentne oblike. Uzeo sam Skalpija, napravio veliku kocku od njega i prolazio kroz nju dok nisam dobio prave profile, a onda polako, pero po pero, detalj po detalj, radio sam i uspeo - radeći ispred televizora i Super Skalpija - ovde sedim pored svoje žene - to je jedina slika koju sam uslikao u celom tm procesu. Dok sam napredovao, stigao sam do vrlo pristojne kopije Malteškog sokola. Opet, ja nisam vajar,
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,
tako da ne znam mnogo trikova, na primer, ne znam kako moj drug Majk dobija lepe, uglačane površine sa svojim Skalpijem; ja svakako nisam mogao da ih dobijem. Tako, otišao sam u svoju radnju, ukalupio sam ga i izlio u smoli, jer u smoli sam apsolutno mogao da dobijem glatku završnu obradu. E, sad, ima mnogo načina za popunjavanje i da se dobije fina glatka završna obrada. Meni se najviše dopada 70 premaza ovoga - mat crni osnovni auto premaz. Naprskam ga oko tri ili četiri dana, kaplje kao ludo, ali mi daje baš, baš finu nežnu izbrušenu površinu i mogu da dobijem uglačanost poput stakla. O, završivši sa 000 čeličnom vunom. A sad, ono što je bilo bitno kad se dođe do ovog trenutka je, pošto u filmu, kada konačno iznesu pticu na kraju i stave je na sto, oni je zapravo zavrte. Tako da sam mogao da zamrznem kadar da bih bio siguran. I pratim sve udare svetlosti na ovome i brinem da, dok držim svetlo u istom položaju, dobijam isti odraz na njemu - do te mere se detaljno unosim u ovo. Na kraju sam dobio ovo: moj Malteški soko. Prelep je. I mogu da izjavim sa pravom da, u tom trenutku kada sam ga završio, od svih kopija koje postoje - a ima ih nekoliko - ovo je ubedljivo najtačniji prikaz originalnog Malteškog sokola koji je iko ikada izvajao.
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.
Originalnog sokola je, treba da vam kažem, izvajao tip po imenu Fred Sekston. Ovde stvari postaju čudne. Fred Sekston je bio prijatelj ovog tipa, Džordža Hodela. Zastrašujući tip - mnogi se slažu da je on ubica Crne Dalije. E, sad, Džejms Elroj smatra da je Fred Sekston, vajar Malteškog sokola, ubio majku Džejmsa Elroja. Izneću vam i nešto čudnije od toga: 1974. godine, za vreme produkcije čudnog komičnog nastavka „Malteškog sokola”, zvanog „Crna ptica”, sa Džordžem Sigalom u glavnoj ulozi, Muzeju umetnosti okruga Los Anđeles je gipsani original Malteškog sokola - jedan od originalnih šest, čini mi se, napravljenih za film - ukraden je iz muzeja. Mnogi su mislili da je to bio medijski potez zbog filma. Džonov Roštilj, koji se vidi nakratko u „Malteškom sokolu”, i dalje je isplativ restoran u San Francisku, među svojim stalnim gostima broji Elišu Kuk, koji je igrao Vilmera Kuka u filmu, a on im je dao jednog od svojih originalnih gipsanih Malteških sokolova. Držali su ga u ormaru oko 15 godina, dok nije ukraden u januaru 2007. godine. Izgleda kao da predmet požude postaje to samo ponavljanim nestajanjem.
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.
Dakle, ovde sam imao tog sokola i bio je divan. Izgledao je zaista sjajno, svetlost je baš bila dobra na njemu, bio je bolji od bilo čega što sam mogao postići ili nabaviti u svetu. Ipak, postojao je problem, a problem je bio - želeo sam celokupan predmet, želeo sam i težinu koja pripada predmetu. Bio je napravljen od smole i suviše svetao. Postoji jedna grupa na internetu koju često posećujem. To je grupa zaluđenika rekvizitima poput mene nazvana Forum za replike rekvizita, i tu su ljudi koji trguju filmskim rekvizitima, izrađuju ih i putuju radi informacija o njima. Ispostavilo se da je jedan od likova tamo, moj prijatelj koga nikad nisam sreo, ali smo se sprijateljili kroz dogovore, bio je menadžer lokalne livnice. Uzeo je kalup mog skola, zapravo je uradio izlivanje izgubljenog voska u bronzi, i ovo je bronza koju sam dobio, a ovo je, nakon graviranja kiselinom, onaj koji sam imao na kraju.
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.
To je me učinilo veoma, veoma zadovoljnim. Evo, staviću je tamo kasnije u toku večeri i hoću da ga uzmete i opipate. Hoćete da znate koliko sam opsednut? Ovaj projekat je samo za mene, a ipak sam otišao toliko daleko da na Ibeju kupim kineske novine iz San Franciska iz 1941. godine da bi ptica bila propisno zamotana... kao što je u filmu. (Smeh) Da, znam! (Smeh) (Aplauz) Vidite, teži 12,5 kilograma. To je polovina težine mog psa Hakslija.
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:
Međutim, tu nastaje problem. Evo najskorijeg napretka sokolova. Ovo skroz levo je glupost - kopija koju sam kupio na Ibeju. Evo mog donekle uništenog sokola od Skalpija, jer sam morao da ga izvadim iz kalupa. Tu je moj prvo izlivanje, tu je moj model i tu je moja bronza. Ima nešto što se dešava kada se oblikuju i izlivaju stvari, a to je da svaki put kada je ubacite u silikon i izlijete u smoli, izgubite malo obima, gubite malo veličine, a kada sam postavio bronzanog naspram onog od Skalpija, bio je kraći za dva centimetra. Da, ne, stvarno, aaa - (Smeh) kako se nisam setio toga? Zašto ga nisam na početku napravio većeg? Pa, šta da radim? Kapiram da imam dve opcije. Prvu, da ispalim prokleti laser u njega, što sam već uradio, da bih obavio 3D skeniranje - evo 3D slike ovog sokola. Izračunao sam tačan iznos smanjenja koje sam stvorio prelazeći sa voskanog na bronzani model i uveličao ovo dovoljno da napravim 3D litografski model od toga, koji ću doterati, zatim ga poslati proizvođaču kalupa,
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.
a onda ga uraditi u bronzi ili - ima nekoliko ljudi koji poseduju originale i pokušavao sam da kontaktiram sa njima i da doprem do njih, nadajući se da će mi dopustiti da provedem nekoliko minuta u prisustvu jedne od pravih ptica, možda da je uslikam, ili čak da izvadim ručni laserski skener koji slučajno posedujem i koji staje u kutiju žitarica, i mogao bih možda, čak i bez dodirivanja ptice, kunem se, da dobijem savršenu 3D sliku. Čak sam spreman da potpišem izjavu da je niko nikada neće uzimati, osim mene u mojoj kancelariji, obećavam. Daću im jednu ako je žele. A tada, možda, stići ću do kraja ove vežbe. Ipak, u stvari, ako ćemo biti iskreni, moram da priznam da stizanje do kraja vežbe nije ni nije bila poenta vežbe na početku, zar ne? Hvala.