The Five Qs with Max!
Our new Production Tech shares some little-known facts.
Max Kriff is one of our new Production Technicians this fall and a recent graduate of University of Vermont. In Media Factory tradition, we have asked him to share his answers to the Five Qs, which include some fun facts about smoke alarms!
1. If there was a movie about your life, who would play you?
Me. I would play me because no other actor could possibly live up to such a charismatic and nuanced character.
2. What is your favorite piece of Media Factory technology, and why?
The 360 camera is so ridiculous and cool. I love how goofy it is and it's the best when you get an animal to sniff it up close. Big time snout action.
3. What is the funniest thing that has happened to you recently?
Recently I was biking on a trail near my house and I slowed down so I wouldn't whip past this old guy in front of me, and it turns out that old guy was none other than Bernie Sanders. I waved to him and he waved to me and that was it.
Photo: Max in his Rebel Pilot uniform from Crowdsourced Star Wars, posing with R2D2 at the Burlington premiere.
4. Tell us something we might not know (a fact or piece of trivia that you know for no apparent reason).
Almost every smoke detector in America uses a small radioactive component inside of it. Americium 241 is the element and isotope used. Its purpose is to create a constant ionizing charge on the air around it that can be detected by electrical plates surrounding it. Those electrical plates are connected to the alarm, and if the rate of ionization of air particles changes the alarm goes off. The rate of the ionization changes when smoke containing heavy particles enters the chamber, which are harder to ionize and change the rate. Now you know how a smoke alarm works!
5. If you had to put your life bio into one run-on sentence, what would you say?
If there's one thing I have above all else, it's commitment to the bit, other than that, I love learning and reading and I'm interested in Biological science, History, Photography and Technology, I graduated from UVM with a degree in Microbiology, but during college I realized I couldn't work in a lab, and I kept finding myself working on movies and shows, so now here I am working at the Media Factory.