Crash Test Girl

by Kari Byron

  It didn’t work. I was able to throw it over a dummy’s head (after way more effort than the edit presented), but when I tried the guillotine to cut through the neck, it didn’t slice cleanly. Tory’s saw-inspired Frisbee of Death came close enough to working to declare the myth “plausible.” I was satisfied with that, horrifying as it was. The process of problem-solving to get that far using only materials we had lying around the shop was a grim, gruesome, cool accomplishment—and a super-fun shoot.

  CRACK UNDER CREATIVE PRESSURE

  You know the story by now. I begged my way into an unpaid internship at M5, and, by chance, got the job as the host of a science entertainment show. The job itself was to create original, inventive, unpredictable rigs and gizmos every week.

  And that’s when I realized that it was one thing to paint love letters on a piece of sea glass for my boyfriend, and another to be tasked with coming up with a prototype of, say, a flying guillotine, in an hour.

  We appropriated the model maker concept of “kit bashing” to create our prototypes. This is one of my favorite tricks I learned from working in Jamie’s shop. It’s the process of taking apart store-bought models and kits, or using random objects to create a new custom project. You can pull apart a model train and some plumbing parts, taking copper cables and a tire tread, and “kit bash” them together to build a robot. As an artist, I thought kit bashing was the perfect expression of creativity, and doing it alongside a bunch of guys who worked in the industry for so long was like a dream come to life.

  * * *

  INSPIRATION

  Even though self-knowledge will take you to higher levels of creativity, you still need something to chew on to get the ideas flowing.

  It could be travel. Just changing the scenery makes your brain think in different ways.

  It could be a movie, documentary, or TV show. I was inspired by a series on the History Channel about serial killers, and made a collection of tiny dolls with realistic sculpted heads based on just their mug shots; the idea was to take all that big scary darkness and quarantine it in a wee small object.

  I love going to museums and am a member at all the San Francisco biggies. When I feel a need to be inspired, my go-to is the ancient oceanic art exhibit at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

  I trick myself into being inspired by alternating between two mediums—sculpture and black powder art. What is black powder art? It’s a controlled explosion of black powder, a small amount of the same stuff that makes bullets fire, that leaves a shadow or impression on wood or paper that I look at, meditate on, and allow an image to surface in my mind that I fill in with paint. I apply myself to what’s there. It’s a good way to push through my mental creative blocks I might have while making sculptures. And vice versa.

  Walking around always brings my eye to some new, cool thing that triggers a notion or idea. Some graffiti, a person on the street, a snatch of conversation, a random image, a piece of junk in someone’s garbage that I drag home and turn into jewelry or a frame or something else. It’s all out there, just waiting to be noticed.

  Halloween, just the thrill of it, inspires me. October is Christmas around here. I design and sew all of our family’s costumes and they can get pretty ornate. One year, I was a Death Queen, with a long white wig and skull headpiece. I was once a zombie with red contact lenses. Stella vetoed that one. “Too scary, Mommy,” she said. I replied, “I can’t wait until you’re older,” and switched to a fairy, which she approved. One year, we went as mother-and-daughter lemurs and Paul was our gorilla sidekick.

  * * *

  Big-eyed, I’d asked everyone I met for their war stories. “You worked on Gremlins? Tell me everything! How did they operate the robots? What inspired the look?” I was so eager to learn from all the old guard masters. I tried to remember everything they taught me and closely watched their techniques. It was an education you can’t buy and it really helped in making prototypes for MythBusters. We’d look at our pile of broken machines and think, “We can take that spring from that, and the metal arm from this, attach a rubber hand, and voilà! We’ve got an automatic slapping machine!”

  When we were shooting the show, it never felt like anyone besides the sound and cameramen would ever see it. We had such a skeleton crew that it was more like making home movies. After a few years, the slightly awkward TV practice of narrating out loud whatever you’re doing became old hat. In fact, I’d hear myself doing it at home while making breakfast. “That pan is too hot. Never enough coffee around here. Whoa, that’s how toast gets burned! . . .” My husband had to remind me that every thought that popped into my head didn’t need to be narrated.

  The point is, since I was so used to the crew and the practice of creating on camera, it felt like I was alone in my studio, or just playing at building with my friends. Being creative on command never felt like pressure. It was the most fun part of my job, and ideas continued to flow like a river.

  But, when the show got popular, I started doing science fairs in front of an audience. With a crowd of people right in front of me, I found it stressful to invent on command. If I have to face creative deadlines (like writing this book), my anxiety kicks in, and it can be paralyzing. I’m used to comfortable creativity in my little studio in my backyard to make whatever moves me, or just sitting there for an hour, cleaning my brushes. But put me on a stage or under a deadline, my river of ideas might freeze over.

  That does not stop me from doing it! I go for it, helmet first, and crash test through my anxiety and stress. If the result is lame, so be it. When it’s just for me, my art is better. But you can’t always dance like no one’s watching, or write like no one’s reading (since Stella was born, I’d really like to just poop like no one’s watching). People are watching and reading. So you do—and hope for—your best. Any creative endeavor, no matter how successful it turns out to be, should be celebrated for the accomplishment it is.

  I have a tradition of going to a local ceramics place, and hand-painting mugs for every new career or creative venture that Paul or I begin. So I have mugs commemorating all my TV shows. We have one for his skateboard business, one for this book. The vessel is a good metaphor, too. We pour our hearts and souls into our projects, and coffee—there isn’t one project I do that isn’t entirely fueled by thick dark roast.

  THERE WILL BE TIMES IN YOUR CREATIVE LIFE WHEN THE IDEAS AND INSPIRATION DRY UP

  Break Through Blockage

  I was in the midst of a long period of going in the studio to make something, and cleaning my brushes for hours a day, increasingly frustrated. I just didn’t feel excited about anything. I was starting to get an antsy depression about not creating . . . and then, while watching Stella gnaw away on her fingernails, a terrible habit that she had to break, I thought about all the mom gossip about her classmates, the nose-pickers, back-talkers, the candy-sneakers. The light went on in my brain, and I latched onto my next big idea—a series of bad habit monster characters that children needed to conquer. Stella and I worked together on creating them. I did a workshop at her school and brought in some sculptures of the monsters. The kids went crazy, and I got that hit of having invented something that people could be excited about. Luckily, kids are disgusting, so I have a whole room of little bad manners monsters.

  I look at Stella and get a contact high from her wild imagination. I’m not sure yet if she’s inherited her parents’ compulsion to create, but there are signs. Not too long ago, we both had colds and didn’t want to take the dog out on a walk. Stella said, “Mom, let’s get the stretchy string, tie a ball to the ceiling, and the dog will throw it for herself.” It totally worked. I couldn’t have been more proud of her.

  On other days, I hope she won’t be a starving artist. How amazing would it be if she could fix our computers or do our taxes one day? She announced recently that she wants to go to coding camp. She might be like the Alex P. Keaton in our household of liberal artsy types. How cool would that be? If you are ever in need of a spar
k, watch a kid, or look at the world with the wonder of a child.

  Whenever I feel blocked, I look at Stella and am reminded of magic. If you don’t have a kid in your house, borrow one from a friend or relative. Or, just zoom back in time to when you were a crafty kid who, like me, turned empty Cheerios boxes into 3D art, or wrote long, complicated dramas for your stuffed animals. Creativity just bursts out of kids, and ideas are like exploding firecrackers in their minds. I’m not saying you should steal ideas from a kid (although artists have certainly done it before), but it can’t hurt to question everything, laugh hysterically at farts, and make weird connections, as if the magic of life hasn’t been hammered out by adult logic.

  CREATIVITY IS CONTAGIOUS

  Any creative life has to begin with the one big idea, one that eclipses all the little ideas that people ask you about at college lectures. It’s an idea you have about yourself and who you are (not what you do).

  When I was in India, Rama Krishna said, “You are an artist.” He could say it a lot easier than I could admit it to myself. Saying “I am an artist” takes some conscious doing. A lot of people would roll their eyes at that statement. It can sound a bit pretentious. But since my whole journey is about learning to be brave, by calling myself an artist I am forced to live up to the title. I strive to be a translator of experience and emotion into art—or writing or prototyping—that people relate to, appreciate, and are moved by. You won’t know until you declare yourself. Saying the words sets the intention.

  As you progress in a creative life and/or profession, you’ll find that one creative pursuit inspires and fuels another. The very act of making—be it dinner, art, a book, a pitch—gives me energy and ideas about other things to make. I love to visualize a mountaineering quote my friend’s father used to say: “When one climbs, the rest are lifted.” When life is full of creativity, it’s vibrant and blooming. The best part is that it also spreads to those around you.

  For that Flying Guillotine episode, we knew going in that our gadgets would probably fail, and yet, we did it anyway, not only for the job, but for the challenge and joy of creating. I see the same joy and passion in kids on the science fair circuit, and in the eyes of geeks everywhere. I hope to keep it alive in myself. My weird, wild life has let me stay a big kid. We are all born curious and fascinated with the world. In my mind, “growing up” always meant I had to stop having fun, but as long as I keep fostering my curiosity, I can be a grown-up and keep my giggles forever.

  I could be happy taking a walk or watching TV every night, but I have this screaming need to create and paint. Creating is humanizing, it makes me a better person. I believe art is just as important as science, and that’s why I push to add the A to STEM and turn it into STEAM. If not for novelist Mary Shelley, we wouldn’t have the grandmother of science fiction. Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter, a mathematician, had the idea of using numbers to make pictures, and basically invented the foundation of digital computing. Use both sides of your brain. Foster art, combine it with science, and you’ll get something that is truly groundbreaking. Innovators with artistic hearts are the ones who’ll move us forward. Creativity is contagious (thanks, Einstein). Pass it on.

  Chapter Ten

  Setbacks

  The most controversial MythBusters episode ever became known as the “Cannonball Mishap.”

  The objective of the test was to see if a cannonball made of stone could be a viable weapon of carnage on a castle wall. We were on the bomb range and doing our control tests with a cannon we’d built. The day was pretty standard—for us, that is. We built our target, shot our cannon multiple times, collected results, goofed around taking silly selfies, just another location day.

  The next thing we knew, a fire truck arrived at the bomb range. The fire chief got out and asked, “Are you firing cannonballs up here? One of them just tore through the neighborhood outside.”

  We thought he was joking. “You’re kidding, right?” we asked.

  “No, really. It went through the wall of someone’s house.”

  And then we saw the news choppers.

  We’d tested cannon fire there many times, and it was never a problem because we had so many fail-safe measures in place. First, the balls went through water barrels, then a brick wall covered in truck bed liner, then more water barrels, and finally, a backstop giant wall of dirt. Every cannonball we’d shot over many years always embedded itself into the giant dirt mountain that surrounded the range. On this particular day, we’d tripled up on safety by creating those extra layers to catch the ball.

  What went wrong? In an almost inexplicable series of events, the cannonball bounced up the hill and launched into the air in a perfect ballistics trajectory. Then it arched down, into the adjacent neighborhood, crashing onto a sidewalk almost half a mile away, before bouncing up into the front door of a house, ping-ponging up the stairs through a bedroom and out the back wall, then bouncing off a roof in the next neighborhood, and finally coming to rest after crashing through the windshield of someone’s (thankfully unoccupied!) minivan.

  I didn’t even know there were houses back there. When we first started using the bomb range, we climbed to the top of the hill and saw nothing but fields. So when they told us the cannonball hit houses, we were like, “Where?” We went up the hill and saw that, in the years since we’d first looked, development had moved closer and closer to the perimeters of the range. There were houses about half a mile away.

  If we had come across this story, we would have assumed it was an urban legend. That kind of wild flight did not fit anything we knew about ballistics. Each impact, on the road, on the houses, should have absorbed the cannonball’s energy and slowed down or stopped it, but it just kept going. We couldn’t have replicated its path of destruction if we tried. There were too many variables. It would have been like firing a gun freehand through the same hole twice.

  We found out right away no one was hurt, which was a huge relief. But I still felt the weight of the accident, and the implicit danger. It was heavy. I felt responsible. My whole body shivered and my breathing was shallow.

  Right away, we shut down production. I sat down in the bunker with my hands on my head, listening to the news choppers circling above. The next day at the shop, we had an in-house therapy session and talked about what it all meant and what we had to do to make sure it never happened again. I just busted out crying (which I never do at work as a matter of principle). We could have seriously hurt someone. Even writing this, I feel tears building in my eyes.

  I took it to heart, and many of my colleagues felt the same way. We did a tour to personally apologize to anyone and everyone who would listen, and went into the exact community where it happened for a town hall meeting. They were, understandably, very angry and let us have it. I looked them in the eyes and let every verbal punch land square in the face. We hosted a barbecue and said, “We know it’s not enough, but here’s food?” Adam and I went to their local science fair and talked to the community, trying to convince them that we were so sorry and doing everything we could to prevent it in the future.

  We never shot a cannon there again, only set off explosives. No trajectories.

  We fixed their houses and the car immediately. The lawyers took over from there.

  Strangely enough, the story went wide internationally. I had friends in every country from Australia to Russia to Mexico emailing me that they saw it.

  But it didn’t kill the show.

  The cannonball incident did give us all a wake-up call. It radically changed our safety procedures. We had done dangerous things so often, maybe we lost some of our reverence for the implicit risk.

  The lesson of the cannonball mishap: Don’t get too comfortable.

  HOW DO YOU BOUNCE BACK FROM SETBACKS?

  No Crying in Science Entertainment TV

  Early on, I was often worried that, one day, the producers or the network would wake up and realize I had no business being there, and they’d tell me to hit the
road. I wasn’t an actress and was mostly making this whole hosting thing up as I went along. My fatalistic view of my job meant I’d do virtually anything they asked.

  * * *

  REGRETS, DEFINITELY HAVE A FEW

  Although the departure was rocky, I have no regrets at all about my tenure on MythBusters. I made best friends, had a tremendous amount of fun, and learned a million facts that I can spout at will. And even if it had gone balls-up earlier than it did, I would have been glad I went for it. I believe in learning from your mistakes and I have plenty to draw from. I tend to make grand life decisions very quickly, and find it easier to pick up the pieces later on rather than to prevent the awfulness with careful thought beforehand. I guess you could call the behavior “impulsive”? It’s part and parcel of the crash test lifestyle. You have to own your actions and your emotional reactions to what you do, even if they haunt you still, years later.

  Some of my regrets:

  Not buying a bigger house in San Francisco before the tech bubble.

  Not getting a job at Google in 1998.

  Not buying shares in Google in 2004.

  Ghosting sweet boys in my youth who didn’t deserve to be treated so shabbily.

  Piercing my nipples. Big time.

  The memories I don’t have because I blacked out from drinking.

  Every moment I wasted waiting for something to happen instead of being mindful in the moment.