Friends, let me tell you something...a technophile I am certainly not. More often than not I tolerate technology as the natural advancement of our species continues but honestly my interest goes no further than that. I couldn't care less about the latest ipod, nanobot, natural wind fueled solar paneled toaster, whatever they bring out next. It's just not something that interests me, and probably never will. While I admit it's nice having all my music in one cigarette box sized place, I'm still a sucker for sitting down and actually putting on an album, allowing it to play from start to finish. I'm old fashioned, I know.
All of this cute nostalgia seeking, however, is well and good unless one plans on entering the world of indie film-making, where my Neo-Luddism (real thing, look it up) is as useless as a chocolate fireguard.
However, did I learn my lesson and invest in a new hard drive? Did I balls. I decided to plough on with my geriatric machine in the vein hope that all would somehow be well. (What was it that's said about the definition of insanity being 'doing the same thing twice and expecting different results'?.....I digress.) Remarkably, for a while at least, everything was well. Until yesterday when finally it crashed. And I mean crashed. A spectacular meltdown sending all of my hard-earned work into cyber oblivion and leaving me once again with a bible in one hand, a gun in the other.
In my naivety, I somehow assumed that shooting things in digital would be an altogether easier, cost-effective, less time consuming process than shooting on, say, film. Indeed I have no doubt that for most people, as in people who actually have a grasp of the technology, it is precisely all of those things - I'm sure for them the process is simple as a soft fart on a warm summer's eve. However for simpleton's like myself, it is a bloody nightmare.
My problem of late has been hard-drives. You see, if planning on shooting anything of substance, a solid external hard drive is essential. This I learned very quickly after my fisher-price, bargin basement model crashed a month after filming, subsequently wiping all of my precious raw footage. To say I was a little disheartened would be understating it a bit. In fact, it was at that precise moment when I questioned whether God wanted me not only to not succeed as a film-maker, but to actually die instead. Thankfully, in true "Trainspotting" style, I chose life and as luck would have it my DP had everything backed up on his hard drive. Bullet dodged.
However, did I learn my lesson and invest in a new hard drive? Did I balls. I decided to plough on with my geriatric machine in the vein hope that all would somehow be well. (What was it that's said about the definition of insanity being 'doing the same thing twice and expecting different results'?.....I digress.) Remarkably, for a while at least, everything was well. Until yesterday when finally it crashed. And I mean crashed. A spectacular meltdown sending all of my hard-earned work into cyber oblivion and leaving me once again with a bible in one hand, a gun in the other.
Seriously, I don't know, nor would I ever care to know, the difference between at 7200 bit-rate firewire device and 48 tagentagen double piledriver foreskin USB drive. I didn't sign up for this. All I want to do is make films, make some people laugh, and go home and watch Lord of The Rings. It's not much to ask, is it? The last thing I consider "fun" is sitting, as I am right this second, watching the hours tick by as my destroyed files restore themselves on my new (THIRD) hard drive. Last count - 3 hours to go. However, in this day and age, it is apparently essential to doing things on the cheap so I have had to sit through many embarrassing sessions with people far more savvy than myself, gawping out things like "What's a codec?" to some very worried faces. It has certainly been the least appealing part of the film-making process but one I am at labour to learn. I'm sure all of this shite will be useful at some point in the future. Yet I can't help but hope I get successful enough that people will handle all of this for me and I can go back to dicking around and telling mildly amusing stories. What a pleasant dream.
I suppose times like this call for an inspirational quote from someone far more successful than yourself. In the absence of said quote however, I will settle for something funny:
"Weaseling out of things is an important life lesson. It's what separates us from the animals....except the weasel."Homer J. Simpson
Must...plough...on......career in the arts worth striving for....even though destitute and on verge of breakdown.....technology is not the enemy....technology is not the enemy.....technology is not......the enemy....
Peace.
JB.
P.S - My newest hard drive looks alarmingly similar to HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I can only hope it isn't reading this and tries to kill me in the night. Fingers crossed.
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