Category: Commentary

Documentary filming

Met a friend for dinner, and old mentor who has become a dear friend, and the discussion, after the usual formalities turned to recent works, in this case photography and film-making. I updated him on my experience after having visited the Sphere in Las Vegas, which I documented on the podcast in Episodes 20 and 21.

And he had some great advice. We spent a bit of time discussing beginner photography equipment (or which more in the new year), and then shifted to film.

I know it’s hard to tell by all the images I have on the blog, but I’m a pretty visual thinker, and often have an image or film clip in my mind of what I’m trying to tell.

The challenge (for me at least) is to coax that out of what I see in the real world. AI-assisted art tools can help, somewhat, if you’re comfortable with the “prompt engineering” that goes behind creating the images you want. There are some significant drawbacks, however, including the sourcing of the training data, and the power that is used to run these algorithms.

The other option is to make it yourself.

That old adage of “if you don’t see what you want in the world, then you need to make it” (or “be the change you want to see”).

But that can be a whole other set of challenges. Gear, learning to use the tools, time, energy, travel, tools for editing, and the time to do it, and a whole host more.

But it is do-able. Thousands do it every day on the online video platforms.

And in this case, the goal of what I want to see is a documentary film.

So let’s document that process, and see what we can create.

Crunch time

Missed a deadline for a class, and now I’m a bit under the gun, racing against a hard stop this week. Whoops! It’s do-able, but tricky, and I find I need to re-learn how to ride the metaphorical bike just to get going again.

Also whoops!

The lesson, obviously, is never stop.

Or at least try not to let a short gap (due to a vacation, illness, or injury) turn into a longer one. Especially when trying to learn a new complex skill or develop a new habit.

This is… recoverable (I *will* meet the deadline), but it’s harder and more stressful than it needed to be, and takes away from other fun activities around this time of year.

And also, needed activities. Like the transcripts for the last couple podcasts, or the third Dr. Who 2023 special episode discussion (stay tuned; it’s a long one!).

And also the other kinds of crunches. Not the Cap’n. Just the gym kind. Managed to get in a couple sets of core workouts today. I don’t talk about working out much here. suffice to say that I go to the gym regularly (if not frequently). Weekend Workout Warrior here.

Gotta get back at that too.

But first, Crunch Time.

Learning to build

I was asked today what my first Lego set was, and I sent them a link to the image shown above: Lego set 375, the original yellow Castle set. A classic, a collector’s item, if I still had it, or all it’s pieces, or even a fraction of it.

Now it wasn’t 100% my first, as we had other sets without the figures before that, boxes of colored blocks and shapes that we would have to figure out how to put together in ways we wanted, using our imagination as best we could.

We did okay; of course we did, we were kids.

But the Castle set was the first set I got, that felt like a whole thing, and I still remember it fondly.

The reason this came up today is that someone I care about built their first set ever today, at the age of 39.

And it was magical!

And I hope they remember it as long as I’ve remembered the Castle. 🙂

Content (it’s all content)

There’s a post that pops up on occasion on Mastodon or the other socials from time to time, where an artist or creator chafes at their work being labelled as ‘content’.

And while I can sympathize, I hate to break it to them, but the genie is out of the bottle.

It’s all content.

It has been since the late 1900s.

I was reading Jenkins et. al. (2018) recently while prepping Episode 16 of the Implausipod, and even there “content” was being referenced.

So for future reference, let’s cover off why ‘content’ is fine.

Imagine, you have a pizza shop. You make some fantastic pizza. Best in town. Maybe as a customer I’m feeling like a pizza, maybe deep dish, maybe thin crust, maybe even a calzone. I’m not being picky.

But sometimes I’m feeling like a steak, or a stir fry, or a pho, or a Reuben, or breadsticks, or whatever. (Clearly I need to stop writing this before dinner).

And maybe, just maybe, I want to make something myself. At home, or on a campfire in the mountains (or whatever).

Regardless of what I’m having, we can all agree that we’re talking about food.

So too with content: it doesn’t matter if it’s a video or a blog post or a podcast or a digital comic, or even traditional art. It’s a bit of a mouthful to spell it all out, listing each and every type. Especially if we’re really interested in talking about food (sorry, content) in general.

And if someone objects, and says “I don’t make food, I make pizza!“, well, you go, you do you. But it comes across as weird to deny that what you’re making counts as food too.

So, yeah, let’s not do that. We used to call it “media”, and while that still holds true, in the 21st century we refer to it as “content” too.

So enjoy! Mange! Dig in. Find something tasty.

FAANG is dead; fear the MAAMBA!

Today, September 6th, 2023 the EU designated six “gatekeepers” under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which will require additional steps by the named corporations in order to comply with EU regulations.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4328

These firms include: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, and Microsoft. (they listed Samsung as well, but left it off the infographics).

This acronym, listed as AAABMM, captures the major players in the internet and computing industry. Previously, this was known as the FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google), but with the shifting fortunes (as well as corporate name changes) in telecom, an update was required.

Of course, AAABMM utterly fails as an acronym. But we can Scrabble this (or Wordle it in 2023) and arrive at something a little bit better.

ABAAMM?
ABAMAM?
BAMAMA?
MAMABA?
MAMBAA? Oh, there we go, that’s close. a little sheepish at the end though.
MAAMBA? Not bad. I like it. Rolls off the tongue.

“The EU has just designated the cyber-MAAMBA overlords as Gatekeepers…”

There were a couple other options of course: BBAAAM was right there. But MAAMBA works well in communicating the threat level, and the other metaphoric associations one can draw when dealing with the “Artists Formerly Known as FAANG”

(Thought I guess you could use BAMAMA if you need to defang them (pun intended)).

Anyhoo, update your lexicons accordingly. I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more about the MAAMBAS in the near future.