We’ll fix it in post…

Posted on August 22, 2007

Many people reading this won’t know what the phrase, “Don’t worry, we’ll fix it in post,” means or why it draws so much ire from film, video, and television producers, editors, and most anyone else in production. It’s a cop out. It means someone wasn’t prepared. It’s passing the buck.

I cringe whenever I hear someone mutter those seven dreaded words. It’s really a reflection on the production when I hear someone say that phrase. You’ll usually hear it uttered by a new director who has not planned for anything on his or her shoot. They didn’t get a shot they wanted because they wasted too much time on getting another shot ‘just right.’ Perhaps they didn’t storyboard their production and can’t figure out what to shoot next (movies usually aren’t shot in sequential order). Most times I hear it said sarcastically by a crewmember who’s trying to lighten the mood. Sometimes I hear it when the crew is goofing around off hours. It’s those times when I hear it coming from the leader on the set, said in all seriousness, that makes me want to scratch my eyes out.

I apply this phrase to daily life too. My generation lacks strong leaders. Scratch that. All generations alive today lack strong leaders. In America, we have a President who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow, who ran into a war without the slightest idea of how he would get out. At my current job, I have bosses who tried to start a television network without even coming up with a plan as to how they would do it. Instead of creating original ideas, they cut/copy/paste from others. They have the ‘great idea,’ then pass it on to others to figure it out. That doesn’t fly with me.

If you’re going to go to war, you damn well better know why you’re going, what you’re going to do, and how you’re getting out. If you’re going to start a TV network, you damn well better know who your audience is, how you’re going to pay for all the gear and people you’ll need, and how big you actually plan on being.

I talk a lot about planning. I’m constantly deriding people who don’t plan. I’ll be honest, I’m not the most organized person in the world, but I never go into a situation without a plan. They say the best laid plans are bound to fail, and that’s very true. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have one! The key to a great plan is flexibility.

Things change. It’s a fact of life, so you’d better be prepared to go with the flow when they do. That job becomes so much easier when you have a plan to back you up. That way, you don’t need to think about the basics; you can just move on to the things that matter, the things that will help you move forward. When you pass the buck - when you leave it to be fixed in post - you’ve revealed yourself to be an unprepared fraud, someone who really doesn’t know what they’re doing. And on a film set, that can sound the death knell for your career. Think about what it could do to you in your daily life.

As Clarence would say, “Let it marinate.”

TMI

Posted on August 5, 2007

With my last post on the web for all to see, and with a lot of Twitter posters and bloggers posting about how much information is too much, I think I’ll throw my two cents in here.

I don’t know.

I really don’t. I’ve had my identity stolen before, and that was well before all the fraud protection was available. Fortunately, my bank caught the strange activity in my checking account and notified me. It was a lot of work and documentation, but I eventually got all my money back. It scared me that someone could do that to me, and so easily. I don’t know where they got the information, but it did cause me to look more carefully at what I put out there.

And yet, I still do things like my “8 Things…” post. I post lots of personal information to Twitter, I make a lot of forum posts, and I use my check card for online purchases. I’m on LinkedIn, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, DeviantArt, Last.fm, my various blogs, etc. And yet, I seem to have avoided theft for another 5 years. I’m no Dick Cheney, but I think I’ve done a satisfactory job of keeping my personal info safe. And yet….

I think many of us post much more info than we should. Geotagging makes me very nervous. Whois queries make me very, very nervous. Even posting pics on Flickr still makes me nervous. It’s a shame there are those people who would take advantage of this potential community building information for nefarious purposes. Let’s face it, though: There’s no stopping it. You can fight it all you want (and the fight is a noble and important one), but it’s not going to stop. Just like movie and music piracy isn’t going to stop, and just like pickpocketing isn’t going to stop.

So what do we do? How do we protect ourselves and still remain open to others? There is no easy solution. Besides, don’t we want a little privacy, something to call our own that no one else knows? Chris Brogan throws his phone number out there for the world to see. Kroosh has more info available than I do. C.C. Chapman is one of the more famous people in the New Media world, and he has a family. How do these people give out so much information yet protect themselves and their loved ones. Let’s face it, even the people they’ve supposedly become friends with online could be ubercreeps in real life. Kroosh and I met in real life recently, but she didn’t know if I was some crazy person intent on hurting her (I very much wasn’t, but you get the picture). You just never know.

Then again, you just can’t live in fear of that. Maybe that’s their answer. You can’t live life without taking some risk, and if something goes wrong, you deal with the consequences. The best defense is a good offense. If you put yourself out there as a good, helpful, kind person, you may be less likely to attract the nut jobs, and more likely to find people who will help you, protect you. Maybe that’s why New Media is more than just video and pictures and social networks. It really is a community that looks after its members.

8 Things…

Posted on August 1, 2007

So, I’ve finally been tagged, now by Mark Forman. Here it goes:

1. In fourth grade, I played the clarinet and the drums.
2. I am an Eagle Scout.
3. I think I have RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome).
4. When I was young, I was hospitalized with an unknown illness, which to this day remains a mystery.
5. I procrastinate compulsively. I do my best work under the pressure of an impending deadline. But I don’t like doing it that way.
6. Apparently I have a passing resemblance to Paul Sorvino.
7. I don’t like cats. Not because they make me sneeze, but because they’re so arrogant.
8. I admire and respect Kevin Smith and Robert Rodriguez, not because they’re good directors, but because of their innovative minds and independent spirits.

And just because I’m feeling vain today, here are a few more:

• I once worked at a newspaper taking classified ads.
• I can curl my tongue.
• I love my Italian heritage, but I don’t know enough about it.
• I love 80’s movies and music.
• I was born breech with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck.
• I’ve never smoked marijuana or cigarettes, or done any illegal drugs, and I never intend to.
• I have a very sensitive sense of smell and I have 20/13 vision.
• I got into filmmaking because of a TV show I watched when I was 8 years old called “Movie Magic.” It was about movie special effects. I fell in love with the amazing looking cameras and the squibs.
• I’ve had some type of camera since I was 2 years old.
• I taught myself the basics of video editing and audio dubbing on my mom’s tape deck and VCRs when I was 12.
• In 2004 I took a 10 day road trip from Arizona to Connecticut with my then girlfriend. Great trip. However, my ex, who is a seasoned traveler and never gets sick on trips, somehow got sick with 3 different things immediately upon landing in Phoenix. By the time we reached Santa Fe, NM, I was ready to bring her to the hospital when I realized what the symptoms were and did some frontier medicine. She hardly remembers any of the trip, which has always bothered me.
• While I’m a traveler at heart, I’ve been out of the U.S. only once, and that was to Canada for a day. I don’t even have a passport.
• I used to work at ESPN.

Not going to tag anyone because no one reads this!

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