Andrew Kimery
Forum Replies Created
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[Oliver Peters] “Actually, if we are talking about film majors in college, that’s not true. “
The wires might be getting crossed about a difference between hands-on classroom instruction (which is what it sounds like Bill is talking about) vs pseudo-vocational situations (which is what it sounds like in your example). Certainly in the past there were schools that couldn’t afford Avids or 35mm cameras or moviolas so the teaching was mainly theoretical with SVHS cameras and linear, deck-to-deck editing standing in for the ‘real stuff’. In the past 15-20yrs the cost of gear has come down so much I think every program (especially at the college level) can be more hands-on in the way that Bill is describing.
When talking to students I always stress the importance of finding a post/production place locally and trying to work part time, intern, etc.,. so they can get a feel for how real world production work is done as it’s going to be much different than what they experience in a classroom environment. Which I think is fine. IMO college should be primarily about exposure to new people/experiences/ideas, learning how to think critically, and acquiring job-agnostic skills that will serve you the rest of your life regardless of the job(s) you end up having.
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[Michael Gissing] “I much prefer Johnathan Haidt’s analogy of the rider and the elephant.”
“The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” is a fantastic book.
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[Oliver Peters] “As a producer friend has often reminded me: “It’s better than good. It’s done!””
lol
I need to remember that one.
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[Oliver Peters] ” I would hope that good quality is somewhere towards the top of the list.”
Good enough quality is towards the top of the list. 😉
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[Bill Davis] “And the scary corollary now, is that if you can successfully manipulate people into accepting an fictional reality well enough – you can manipulate their behavior in reality, in return. “
Isn’t this what we do for a living? We create/edit stories together (ranging from very subjective to very objective)
in order to elicit a desired action by the audience (be happy, be said, pick Jif over Skippy, vote for this person, dare to overcome adversity, don’t eat fast food, etc.,).-Andrew
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[Oliver Peters] “I think we’ve gotten a bit off into the weeds with this film school discussion.”
Us? Weeds? Never! 😉
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[Bill Davis] “Think of how much better off the industry would have been if…
George Lucas,
Martin Scorsese,
Joss Whedon ,
Terrance Malick
David Lynch
Darren Aronofsky
Chen Kaige
Joel Cohn
Francis Ford Coppola
Tim Burton “Somewhat successful people that didn’t go to film school. ????
Steven Soderbergh
Christopher Nolan
James Cameron
Quentin Tarantino
David Fincher
Wes Craven
Kevin Smith
Luc Bessen
Harold Ramis
John HughesFirst off, I don’t think there is an inherently right or wrong answer with film school. Personally I don’t think it’s worth the huge price most of them charge. A big selling point of film schools used to be access to filmmaking equipment but that’s pretty much a null and void advantage at this point. I think you can get 80% of the same experience at a fraction of the cost by going elsewhere, but to each their own. And I’m sure my friends/acquaintances that teach at film schools would disagree with my opinion. ???? There is certainly something to be said about a structured environment that forces you into learning situations that you wouldn’t otherwise experience if left up to your own devices.
Secondly, looking only at successful people (or in this case super successful people) and then tracking backwards from there to see what ‘made’ them successful is inherently flawed because we are cherry picking the results we want to see. What percentage of child actors are as successful as Ron Howard? What percentage of USC grads are multimillionaire titans of the film industry?
It’s a logical fallacy called Survival Bias.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias -
[Oliver Peters] “Understood. I’m sure that BMD probably did some research to back up this selection. After all, you are appealing to a subset of laptop users. If you drive the total system price up too far, then why not simply buy an iMac/iMac Pro? Most likely they feel that they are hitting a sweet spot.”
I think the eGPU market is going to grow to be more than just a subset of laptop users. Especially on the Apple side where sealed box systems are becoming the norm. For example, in 2020 if you need more ‘oomph’ out of your 2017 iMac Pro you can just plug in an eGPU.
The BMD unit is $700 and uses a Radeon Pro 580. For about the same price you can get a Radeon Pro 580 and a Razer Core X enclosure to put it in. Or you can get a Razer Core X v.2 for $200 more and get ports similar to the BMD unit. Down the road instead of having to buy a whole new BMD unit (assuming they will release new models) you just have to buy a new GPU. The Razer units are also PC and Mac compatible where as the BMD unit is advertised as Mac only.
I know BMD was trying to hit a sweet spot but I don’t think it’s going to age well as the as the eGPU becomes more mainstream/mature and competition increases. Unless of course Apple blocks all ‘unapproved’ eGPUs and you suddenly have a super small selection of Mac compatible eGPU units that are all priced artificially high compared to their PC counterparts.
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[Oliver Peters] “Except – double the price without any of the extra connectivity nor adequate power to also charge the laptop.”
Price is dependent on the GPU used though (in this case a more expensive GPU which got killed BM unit in terms of the performance), and you can upgrade down the road. Presumably the insane spike in GPU prices caused by cryptomining won’t last forever so the cost difference will most likely shrink over time.
The BM unit being able to act like a ‘hub’ thanks to it’s extra ports is certainly not a feature to gloss over.
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Just to add to the mix:
“Razer Core X with RX Vega 64 vs Blackmagic eGPU”
https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/02/2018-macbook-pro-amd-vega-64-egpu-video/