3.5 year old blog post still relevant

[Tony West]

[Andrew Kimery] “I think that was their target demo and they were going to back-in to the high-end if they could, but if not, no big loss to them. Millions of potential users vs a few 10’s of thousands of potential users.”

Ok, first of all I consider that guy’s work high end. Second, didn’t the editor of Focus say he was in talks with Apple while he was cutting that film and they put stuff in that he wanted?

I thought I saw where he said that.

[Andrew Kimery] “You said “…if you are working on projects with cameras like that you are working on high end stuff almost by definition” and that’s not true. Go to places saturated with gear (like LA) and REDs will be used on everything from no budget short films to high-end feature films. “

Should I have said 90 percent of the market then? I can tell you that nobody in St. Louis is going out for nothing with their RED

I guess I’m in a great market to work in.

You would have to break down “no budget short film” as in, give me the day rate for the camera and op

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Andrew Kimery] “I’m saying Apple makes the products Apple wants to make and users can take it or leave it.”

Isn’t that true of almost everything you buy? What can you buy off the shelf that you designed, manufactured, distributed, and produced?

This method has served Apple well. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t have the success it has today. FCPX has added massive amounts of professional features from the outset of the release date. I still don’t believe that this was a mistake, this was planned. Otherwise, they had everything they needed in iMovie. Why make another iMovie when they have iMovie?

[Andrew Kimery]

[tony west] “Ok, first of all I consider that guy’s work high end. Second, didn’t the editor of Focus say he was in talks with Apple while he was cutting that film and they put stuff in that he wanted?
“

Don’t know. I assume more behind-the-scenes stuff will come out once the movie drops and I’m curious to hear about their workflow in depth.

[tony west] “You would have to break down “no budget short film” as in, give me the day rate for the camera and op”

Credit, copy, pizza and maybe a token amount of cash.

Probably a guy who has a buddy that works at a rental house (or knows another guy w/a RED) that said they could use the camera for free over the weekend assuming it wasn’t rented out. Or a guy bought a RED and thought it would be a great thing to rent out to make some extra cash except that a ton of other people in LA thought the same thing so he’s willing to shoot for copy, credit and pizza just to network and put something new on his reel.

I’m not in production but I have friends in production (some rent out their own gear) and they get hit up for freebies all the time. The market place is so saturated with gear and talent it’s unbelievable. On more than one occasion I’ve been asked to grade (Resolve only of course) and deliver a 4K master of someone’s film for between $0-100 dollars.

When I say no budget I mean no budget. The only thing that gets paid for is food and gear they must have but haven’t figured out how to borrow or steal it. Then of course there are the ‘named’ no budget gigs that are typically pilots with B or C list talent (or ‘famous’ producers) attached that don’t pay anything, but when the pilot inevitably gets picked up they will certainly call you back to work on the series at your normal rate.

/rant

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Andrew Kimery] “When I say no budget I mean no budget. The only thing that gets paid for is food and gear they must have but haven’t figured out how to borrow or steal it. Then of course there are the ‘named’ no budget gigs that are typically pilots with B or C list talent (or ‘famous’ producers) attached that don’t pay anything, but when the pilot inevitably gets picked up they will certainly call you back to work on the series at your normal rate.”

With all due respect, sir. What the f*ck is Apple supposed to build to appease that market?

[Andrew Kimery]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Isn’t that true of almost everything you buy? What can you buy off the shelf that you designed, manufactured, distributed, and produced?”

Too extreme down that path, J-dawg. 😉

Compare Apple’s products to a competitors products and its pretty clear what I mean. The iDevices, for example, have never been the most feature rich or been the most open devices (no SD card slot, no removable battery, no non-app store apps, etc,) and the Mac Pro Tube vs an HP tower is another example of Apple only offering what it thinks the product should be regardless of user expectations. If you need PCIe slots and internal expansion you are no longer part of Apple’s demographic (and you are probably in a pretty small minority so Apple isn’t worried about the lost revenue).

[Jeremy Garchow] “This method has served Apple well. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t have the success it has today. FCPX has added massive amounts of professional features from the outset of the release date. I still don’t believe that this was a mistake, this was planned. “

Of course it has served Apple well (if it didn’t they wouldn’t keep doing it) and of course it was planned. Again, I’m not saying Apple is releasing 2nd rate products or anything like that. I’m saying Apple is releasing software how it thinks software should be done, not necessarily how the end users (especially a niche inside of a niche of end users) thinks it should be done. Go back to 2010 and ask 100 editors what they want and I bet 0 of them describe FCP X but now many people that use X never want to use anything else.

From Ron’s blog post:
“After the acquisition I remember sitting in a roomful of Hollywood VFX pros where Steve told everybody point-blank that we/Apple were going to focus on giving them powerful tools that were far more cost-effective than what they were accustomed to… but that the relationship between them and Apple wasn’t going to be something where they’d be driving product direction anymore. Didn’t go over particularly well, incidentally, but I don’t think that concerned Steve overmuch… :-)”

Did Apple suddenly turn Shake into iShake? No, Shake of course stayed high-end, but Apple did change the development of Shake from user feedback-centric (for lack of a better term) to Apple-centric. Does this literally mean that Apple never listens to user feedback? Of course not, but the driving decisions at Apple come internally, not externally. Contrast that with Adobe where employees have blogs and due to the overwhelming response to this blog post (Happy New year… and a question) the AE team is actually focusing much more on making AE faster right now at the expense of new features.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Jeremy Garchow] “With all due respect, sir. What the f*ck is Apple supposed to build to appease that market?”

I dunno… a machine that gives away free kittens?

Tony asked for more detail about what I meant by “no budget” so I gave him more detail. Not sure what any of that has to do with Apple.

[Tony West]

[Jeremy Garchow] “With all due respect, sir. What the f*ck is Apple supposed to build to appease that market?
“

hahahaha thanks for a good laugh brother

[Tony West]

[Andrew Kimery] “Tony asked”

Thanks for the break down Andrew

I had no idea that your market place has turned into such a circus and a race to the bottom.

This is a big union town here and for the most part we stick together.

I’m out, I have hijacked the tread enough.

[Andrew Kimery]

[tony west] “I had no idea that your market place has turned into such a circus and a race to the bottom.

This is a big union town here and for the most part we stick together.

I’m out, I have hijacked the tread enough.”

Ringling Brothers ain’t got nuthin’ on LA! lol

The good part about LA is that there’s room for everyone. The bad part about LA is that there’s room for everyone.

[David Mathis]

Introduce an Apple Cinema Camera with FCP X and Motion for free? 😉