[Tim Wilson]

[Mark Suszko] “Find out what you don’t yet know you love.”

Following up on both Mark and Steve’s advice, keep your head clear. The biggest job I ever got – producing a TV show that ran for several years, over 100 episodes – came down to three things.

1) My willingness to work in “nature” – ie, mosquitos, heat, swamps. I beat out a lot of people who were more experienced, and frankly, better, than I was because I was willing to get dirty.

2) My deep knowledge of biology, geology and history. It probably won’t be those for you, but in general, the stuff that I have used most is EXACTLY the stuff I said I’d “never need.”

Think big, but also think WIDE.

Along those lines, you’ll be shocked at how often you work with word problems. Pretty much every day.

3) My ability to smile, shake hands, and look somebody in the eye AT THE SAME TIME. Watch your peers. I can almost guarantee that they don’t do this. People with money expect this.

Now, of course I had to have the goods to back my play, but that was the easy part. If I didn’t have those first three, it wouldn’t have mattered how shiny my reel was.

You can learn what you need to learn about production quickly enough…if you learn how to learn. Yes, spend your free time sharpening your skills beyond what you are taught, but also spend it expanding your mind in areas that have nothing to do with lights, cameras or action. You’ll have a longer, happier career, and give yourself more ways to succeed.

Learn to WRITE. I’m not talking about screenplays. I’m talking about words in a sensible order. It’s a mental and physical discipline that will sharpen you in unexpected ways.

Consider learning Spanish. There’s a ton of Spanish-language production all over the US, and bunches of bilingual folks on crews. Your job options will EXPLODE.

One thing about college that many students miss – this is the time to meet people. Dig deep with classmates who seem to have a clue, including those outside your primary discipline. Spend time with professors outside of class. Don’t pass up the opportunity for internships. Make sure that guest lecturers know who you are.

Ditto school administrators. You’ll be dealing with people like this as bosses and bankers, in rental houses, and in government offices and hospitals, and every place there’s somebody whose job includes filling out a lot of forms, for the rest of your life. Learn how to make them your allies instead of your obstacles.

Hopefully you won’t need this any time before you start having kids, but ESPECIALLY hospitals. And bankers. That is, the people who will loan you money, the people who will make your job easier, and the people who can make a difference in your loved ones lives when they need it most.

You get the idea. You’ll never have a better opportunity to meet more, different kinds of people, and learn how to relate to them. You’ll never have a better opportunity to start building a business network. As those people move on, your network will automatically expand across the country, maybe even around the world. You’ll have more places to look for a job…no matter what kind of job it is, as your career meanders and morphs into patterns and shapes that you never imagined.

The fact that you’re asking these questions a couple of years before you hit the streets tells me you’ll land running. No need to limit the places you can run just yet.

Just a few observations from a lifelong liberal arts nerd, 30 years later…

Yr pal,
Timmy

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

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[Tim Wilson]

See also this thread, below.

tw

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!

[Tim Wilson]

[Winston A. Cely] “Maybe one of us needs to email Steve about his company’s apparent lack of interest in pro-apps/machines”

But he HAS responded, to both. There’s a thread a while back in this very forum, from a customer email from Steve saying that there would be an awesome pro apps update before the end of the year.

Although you’d never know it from some of the posts here, but that would actually be AHEAD of the recent schedule – NAB 2005, NAB 2007, July 2009.

In fact, going back to the beginning, you’ve got FCP 1: 1999, FCP 2 and 3: 2001 — I think that calling the second release version 3 was bogus, but still, two years until — FCP 4: 2003, then, as I mentioned, the rest in 2005, 2007, and 2009.

In other words, with one (bogus) exception, they’ve ALL been two years apart. And they’ve all been in odd-numbered years! NAB 2011 would be right on time. Anything earlier is a rare exception…which Steve has said will happen. So there you go.

Look, say what you want about Steve and the reality distortion field – and I do, frequently 🙂 – the fact is that he has never, ever said that something is coming, and then it not show up.

Which brings us to what he said in an email to a developer re: no news about new desktop or laptop news at WWDC, that something was coming soon. For desktops, it has, with laptops expected to follow later in the year.

Which brings us back to the ATI. My biggest disappointment with Macs over the years has been the poor, sometimes outright pathetic, range of options for high-end graphics. This looks like a step back. As disappointed as I’ve historically been by Mac graphics, I’m still kinda surprised by this.

Anyway, Apple’s idea of “interest” and yours might differ, but based on Steve’s recent correlation between words and actions, I think he’s earned the benefit of the doubt that something will indeed be happening before the end of the year.

Unless, as with the white iPhone, Apple says around then that it will be delayed. 🙂

Even so, itchy or not, we’re still at least NINE MONTHS ahead of the next “regularly scheduled” Pro Apps update.

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

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[Tim Wilson]

Somebody on a similar thread in the FCP forum pointed to this article about Light Peak – a connection to replace FW, USB, DisplayPort….

The article is from last year, and said that we’d see computers with Light Peak available by now, but hey, another connector is always a good thing, right? I mean, if there’s anything we need, it’s one more connector that’s incompatible with everything else.

Kidding aside, Apple may look at USB 3 as transitional enough that they can skip over it….

tw

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!

[Tim Wilson]

[Ola Haldor Voll] “I was in touch with…about a training series or introduction to Resolve for Mac”

Ours will be better. 🙂

Don’t tell anyone I said that.

tw

[Tim Wilson]

[Peter Berg] “Wasn’t Apple a leader when it came to new technologies? USB 2.0 and Firewire 800? Those are like 7 years old.”

Apple has rarely been first in line. They developed FW of course, but USB came out in 1996, and the first Mac to support it was the iMac G3 in 1998.

MP3 was developed in 1993, but wasn’t supported until QuickTime 4 in 1999. My memory is fuzzy on this, but I think that the first Apple software to support *ripping* to MP3 was iTunes, introduced in 2001.

Heck, Macs were out for 3 years before the first model to support to COLOR was released! Not the software – I mean anything besides black and white. This was back in 1987.

Even though the timing in the article Victor links to is way off, it suggests that Apple is thinking of USB 3 as transitional enough to choose not to deal with it at all. Hmmm….

That is in fact what Steve reiterated about Blu-ray in another of his recent customer emails, that BD is a transitional format, already well along the way to being replaced by streaming and downloads.

I don’t think it’s that simple, but I agree more than I don’t. As noted earlier in this thread, though, Walter is right. You could have had a Blu-ray drive for your Mac years ago. You can have one today. No excuses. If you want one, get one.

tw

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!

[Tim Wilson]

re: USB 3, it took Apple 2 years to support USB after it came out.

The first computer it appeared on was the iMac G3 in 1998, so when (if) it shows up, don’t expect it to be on a Mac Pro first…even though a pro customer can really make the best use of it!

tw

[Tim Wilson]

Be sure to talk to AJA about this. It’s one thing for Blackmagic to open the software to other people’s hardware. Those other companies have to write drivers.

It’s never going to happen until they believe that supporting DaVinci will make them more money than some of the other things they’re already working on.

You have to also consider that, for existing customers, it’s actually a tougher sell. I’m speaking as a former developer, and not being at all cynical, but you have to persuade them that there’s NEW money, and new sales to be had, because that’s the only way that they can recover their development costs.

In any case, it’s never going to happen unless you persuade them that it should.

tw

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!

[Tim Wilson]

Ben Bova’s book, a thinly-veiled satire of his and Ellison’s experience on Ellison’s series of the same name. Easily confused. 🙂

You know my opinion by now – as with HD, everything will become 3D that reasonably can be. Not that everything will, any more than everything is HD….but certainly everything that CAN be, will be.

And as with HD, the 3D-ness of a thing will have no bearing on whether it’s worth watching, either way.

…but yeah, while I wouldn’t say NEXT, 3D telenovelas are coming, count on it. Why wouldn’t they?

For what it’s worth, even though the vast majority of TV is SD, and probably will be until the day I die, I haven’t watched any of it in a couple of years…and I watch a LOT of TV….

[Tim Wilson]

My thanks as well for the specifics, Hunter. Very helpful.

More generally, we strongly agree with you. I wrote about this at some length, in an article called “Hello. My Name is Tim. I am a Newbie.” It brings up a host of issues around the very ones that you raise.

Be sure to read the article comments, where I and others elaborate even further.

Thanks for hanging in there as we keep trying to shift the signal-to-noise ratio in the right direction.

Best,
Tim

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine

My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”

Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!