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On 2/22/18 8:36 PM, Steve White wrote:
The parts that were worth watching (5 minutes per program) was an actual tesla coil builder attempting to build what they were calling the "Death Ray". Basically, what the coiler built was a large tesla coil combined with a capacitor discharge system. He had a bank of very large pulse capacitors which he would charge and then discharge through a streamer plasma path that the tesla coil had established to a grounded target. The streamer would then strike the grounded object and destroy it. At least this is what it looked like to me. Of coarse this would never work in practice for many reasons: you can't steer the streamer, the flying target isn't grounded, a huge bank of pulse capacitors would be required to destroy an actual aircraft, limited range, and probably many more reasons. It was impressive though that the coiler figured out a way to discharge thousands of joules from a capacitor bank through a streamer generated by a tesla coil to a grounded target.
I was wondering throughout the series if the tesla coil builder was a member of TCML. He probably is but I haven't been following TCML enough recently to know all of the major names. Unfortunately I can't remember his name. I have a feeling he was holding back the laughter every time the 2 overheated "investigators" engaged him in conversations about Tesla conspiracy theories and such. He was probably thinking "the Science Channel is paying me to build this thing and I get to keep all of the cool equipment after it is all over so I will play along with these jokers". I must confess that I missed the final episode where they were supposed to demonstrate the "Death Ray". I will have to catch the re-run.
I used to make my living doing physical special effects (mostly the
usual fire, rain, smoke, explosions, mechanical stuff) for all manner of
shows, commercials, etc.
It's a very different environment and as a "effect generator", you're
not exactly exercising creative control. You're typically starting with
some sketches the director or producer has, you say "well, you can't
really do THAT, but you can do THIS", and that's what gets the job going.
One should also bear in mind that there's a LOT of editing that goes on
- the producer may have hired you to build a coil and do some cool
effects, perhaps with some story boards of a show concept. But by the
time the show actually airs, it might have changed dramatically,
particularly if they had to find a different funding source, and the
direction of the show changed.