Categories
Career Item of Interest

The Terence and Philip Show Episode 81: Are Editor’s Introverts

Or more importantly, why do introverts make good editors?

Episode 81: Are Editors Introverts?

Categories
General Lumberjack

The Terence and Philip Show Episode 80: Should Apple (or anyone) go to Trade Shows

In a new Terence and Philip Show we start with the question “Should Apple be present at Trade Shows like NAB?” and then extend discussion to question whether there is still a role for big trade shows like NAB and IBC.

http://www.theterenceandphilipshow.com/episode-80-shoul…o-to-trade-shows/

Categories
Interesting Technology Random Thought The Technology of Production

Looking back on 2017 on the Digital Production BuZZ

I was honored to be invited – as one of many – to provide my thoughts on 2017: what technologies were important, what major changes happened.

Here is a link to the full show -  
http://www.digitalproductionbuzz.com/2017/12/digital-production-buzz-december-28-2017/
Here is a link to the Transcript -  
http://www.digitalproductionbuzz.com/2017/12/transcript-digital-production-buzz-december-28-2017/
Or if you want to go direct to my segment:
http://www.digitalproductionbuzz.com/interview/philip-hodgetts-2017-in-review/
MP3: 
http://www.digitalproductionbuzz.com/BuZZ_Audio/Buzz_171228_Hodgetts.mp3

Categories
Artificial Intelligence Item of Interest Metadata Nature of Work

Wimbledon use IBM Watson AI to “Serve up Highlights”

The report isn’t clear on exactly how Watson’s “AI” is being used but the article says that they are “now curating the biggest sights and sounds from matches to create “Cognitive Highlights,” which will be seen on Wimbledon’s digital channels.”

Apparently using Watson cognitive services to recognize a significant moment, and pull it together with cheers and social media comments to make a 2 minute video.

The AI platform will literally take key points from the tennis matches (like a player serving an ace at 100 mph), fans’ cheers and social media content to help create up to two-minute videos. The two-week tourney at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, complete with a Google Doodle to celebrate Wimbledon’s 140th anniversary, began Monday.

 

Categories
Item of Interest Nature of Work

Preparing for the unknown ‘Jobs of the Future’

I’ve written here before, and Terry Curren and I have discussed repeated on The Terence and Philip Show, that many jobs are likely to be replaced by the combination of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics/Automation. It’s good to see people thinking and writing about these things, as does Caitlin Fitzsimmons of the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), in an article - How to prepare for the jobs of the future when you don’t know what they are – that features an interview with Pulitzer prize-winning author and New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, who writes about the age of acceleration in his new book, Thank You For Being Late.

The whole article (and likely the book, which I’m about to buy) are worth the read, but I loved this paragraph from Ms Fitzsimmons:

That’s because the only way to equip children for the future of work is to develop their imagination, creativity and emotional intelligence. If the world is changing, the best thing you can do is equip them for change. They need to be emotionally resilient with a habit of self-directed lifelong learning.

Categories
Business & Marketing Distribution Item of Interest New Media

Kids Just Want to be a YouTube Star

An article on Tubefilter caught my eye: The Most-Desired Career Among Young People Today Is ‘YouTuber’ (Study).

The top 10 jobs kids want, per the First Choice study, are as follows: YouTuber, blogger/vlogger, musician/singer, actor, filmmaker, doctor/nurse, TV presenter, athlete/teacher, writer, and lawyer.

The one thing that the top jobs have in common is fame!

The thing is, it works. Not for everyone but it works.

Categories
General Interesting Technology

NAB 1998 in Retrospect

Because I am researching my journey through my earlier writings on metadata and interactive story telling I came across my ‘review’ of NAB 1998 thanks to the Wayback Machine. This was the year everyone was coming to terms with ATSC – digital broadcast – and how it was to be implemented. From my review it seems my attention was on interactivity and QuickTime 3, neither of which is surprising.

Categories
General Interesting Technology Nature of Work

In Just 10 Years

While projecting the changes that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) might bring about in the future, it was interesting to look back and see just what didn’t exist 10 years ago. Keep in mind that the Internet itself is only just over 30 years old.

Categories
General

Twelve Years Ago Today I Started This Blog

Obviously the 10th anniversary blew past without me noticing, but the question came up the other night and it turns out I posted my first article “Why aren’t there workstation class graphics cards for Mac?”  I concluded that article with:

Until we get support for these tools, there remain good reasons to go with Windows for true power graphics users.

Who would have thought we’d be having the same discussion 12 years later! Also that week I wondered whether HDV would “be something” (and for five years it was); discussed DV, HDV and ‘good enough’; the problems of transitioning 4:3 material into 16:9 and NAB 2005 rumors. Apparently I started being “officially jaded” about NAB in 2005!

I chose the theme of “The present and future of post production business and technology” and – apart from some dabbling into production itself – the theme seems as relevant now as it was then.

Final Cut Pro was at version 4 and Premiere Pro wasn’t available on macOS/OS X. We’ve come a very long way. I’ve discussed an enormous range of topics: from predictions about Final Cut Pro X to recent writings on artificial intelligence. Along the way I’ve talked business, marketing, and wondering who would buy YouTube!

That was one of my big predictive misses suggesting copyright issues would kill any purchaser, and dismissing Google because of their existing (at the time) Google Video. But overall I have been remarkably accurate along the way.

In that first month I wrote about the rise of video as another form of literacy, a theme that had been constant for at least five years before that, and one we’re seeing come to fruition now. When there are over 2.5 million seats of the best-selling NLE it’s obvious that professional video production is now serving many more roles than just movies and television!

The evolving nature of the production industry has been another regular theme, with broadening platforms, evolving business models, and the ‘threat’ (or is it an opportunity or business model problem) of unauthorized distribution also being regular themes.

In that first week, technology issues like Using Scopes to measure video levels mix with articles like Can you compete with free (yes).

This blog has been one of the few constants in the 12 years since I started. When I started Intelligent Assistance was still in the training business, with our series of Intelligent Assistants. They too had evolved from the groundbreaking DV Companion for Final Cut Pro in 2000, to more creative topics like the first color grading tutorial series (if not the first) for Final Cut Pro called Practical Color Correction, or our Killer Titles series.

In February 2005 the DV Guys hadn’t finished their five year run NAB 2000-NAB 2005. Greg and I had not created The Digital Production BuZZ to replace it, which we sold to Larry Jordan and Associates in late 2007 and is now part of the Thalo Artist Community.

We used the proceeds of the sale to Larry Jordan to preview our first piece of software: First Cuts for Final Cut Pro, which was a practical application of my strong interest in metadata for story building – now under my ‘Content Metadata’ umbrella – and an attempt at a knowledge system. First Cuts essentially embodied my style for creating edits, built around a very large number of interactive ‘rules of thumb’.

As software developers the upheaval that was Final Cut Pro X hit us very hard at first. The preview demolished half our business for three months. We saw the benefits of Final Cut Pro X very early – in fact I published Understanding the Metadata Foundations of Final Cut Pro X five minutes after Final Cut Pro X was released.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, apparently my little book influenced Glenn Ficarra toward experimenting with Final Cut Pro X for Focus.

Final Cut Pro X – for all its disruption – has been good to us, and I think we have benefited the Final Cut Pro X community.

Because Final Cut Pro X was so controversial in 2012, we took the opportunity to be part of a reality TV show on a solar powered boat. While that didn’t work out quite the way it was planned it lead directly to the development of Lumberjack System, which is increasingly unlocking the power of metadata for logging and pre-editing. Lumberjack became the second company in our small portfolio.

That project also lead to my subsequent interest in small production kits. How small can we make a production kit while still maintaining quality. The confluence of audio synchronization for multicam clips, small cameras, alternate mounts and small, affordable storage lets us create without the back breaking load.

We use the small production kit for Lunch with Philip and Greg, The semiSerious Foodies (occasionally) and my ongoing family history project.

One of the most consistent themes throughout the blog with 84 different posts on the subject. How we acquire and use metadata – particularly metadata about the content of shots – is my primary focus these days, which has lead to an increasing interest in what the evolving field of Artificial Intelligence with 20 related articles so far. Overall, I’ve written 1377 articles in 12 years, or about one every three days on average.

Personally Greg and I moved from Woodland Hills to Burbank in 2006 where we spent 10 happy years in Avalon Burbank. The easy walkability of Burbank and great pool in the apartment complex helped in my transition from middle-year sloth into a more healthy version of myself.

2008 I was granted Permanent Residence as an Alien of Exceptional Ability, and many readers helped with submissions for that. In 2016 I became an American Citizen

While in Burbank we married after only a 17.5 year ‘engagement’ and moved into our own little house a year ago in February 2016.

There’s a lot of interesting material in that 12 years. I sometimes return to older articles and get surprised by what I wrote at the time! Hopefully I will continue to be interesting over the next 12 years.

 

 

 

Categories
General

The Terence and Philip Show Episode 76: Creativity

In Episode 76 of The Terence and Philip Show, Terence and Philip tackle the very broad subject of ‘creativity’. Settle in because there will be tangents!