| Posers ?? Not the program
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 | Posers ?? Not the program
by Tom D on May 29, 2003 at 8:58:52 pm |
Kinda slow again at work (Overnight edit session coming up on Monday though) so I figured I'd throw a thread down.
Currently work in post wing at a production company in NYC doing mostly broadcast stuff. I still keep in touch with my former boss and place of employment which is a small post house in the burbs around New York.
Anyways he recently put up an add on mandy.com for an avid editor. He got tons of resumes and had a bunch of them in. What he would do during the interview would be to actually put them on the system and have them edit a clip. Basically he would try them out for a day or so.
So I recently asked him how the interviews were going and he told me that the majority of people who claimed to be editors or avid editors were totally inept. They could barely use the system and edit competantly. One guy he said took two hours to lay down a few audio tracks under a wedding video.
So it gets to my long winded point :) It seems that our industry have an influx of people claiming to be editors, compositors, cameramen etc. But really how many these people are competant enough to really work "efficiently". It's one thing to throw some clips together ,but it's another when you got a few people breathing over your shoulder needing the video "yesterday" What upsets me is that probably alot of good resumes of legitimate people will either not even be looked at or passed over because of all of these pretenders.
Thoughts ?? Experiences??
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• | | | |  | Re: Posers ?? Not the program
by grinner on May 29, 2003 at 10:50:51 pm |
I commented on a previous post on how new blood was sooo0 awesome and highly marketable. It is. Sometimes years make the difference though. By that I mean the ability to unconsiously cut a dialog-driven feature or be able to cut music in realtime by tapping on the beat.
Sure, there are many who have purchased a copy or this or that and made some great things with it but to pull off a happy relationship with an ad agency, you'll need an exeperienced and savy editor with an understanding of more than what is on the tapes that be.
There will always be ones who pretend to be in the know.
There will always be those who just know.
Heavy... sorry
grin
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• | | | |  | Re: Posers ?? Not the program
by Charlie King on May 29, 2003 at 11:25:16 pm |
[grinner] "unconsiously cut a dialog-driven feature or be able to cut music in realtime by tapping on the beat. "
how many times I've heard, "Damn it King, even when there is no music you cut to the music." It is a totally unconsious thing.
Charlie
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• | | | |  | Re: Posers ?? Not the program
by Jim Cookman on May 30, 2003 at 1:57:46 am |
Don't let the kids get you down. I remember a few years back, the woods of CT where I live were full of kids whose Dad bought them a betacam camera. NONE of 'em are still around. Now every little munchkin wants to be an editor.
Most of them will weed themselves out in a year or so. And end up selling insurance. I'm one of those saps who believes that if it's good for the industry, it's good for me. So a little GOOD new blood is a good thing, and the bozos will drop away quickly. Don't fret.
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• | | | |  | Re: Posers ?? Not the program
by Tim Kolb on May 30, 2003 at 4:45:01 am |
I think a large part of this issue comes from some of the education these people have. There seem to be precious few colleges and universities in the country where the faculty is comfortable enough with the technology to forget about it and teach editing (or shooting or whatever). I think many of these people came out of school believing that they did know how to edit...because their instructor gave them a passing grade on the quiz they took on a software manual.
When you pass your first typing class...do you get a book deal?
TimK
Class On Demand Premiere Power Workshop
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• | | | | | Re: Posers ?? Not the program
by William Watts on May 30, 2003 at 6:19:33 am |
"What upsets me is that probably alot of good resumes of legitimate people will either not even be looked at or passed over because of all of these pretenders. "
Just a thought : my resume got me lots of interviews.Going for a beer and having a chat got me jobs.Crass though it may seem I believe networking is the key to employment.On this basis the resume becomes the irrelevance it should be.
Will in Bangkok
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• | | | | | Re: Posers ?? Not the program
by grinner on May 30, 2003 at 12:49:00 pm |
I still think it's odd when people request a resume in this industry. Doesn't seem to have much to do with anything to me.
The only resumes I've even bothered to print in the last 10 years, I have made sure went onto tie-died paper. Guess that's my little way of making some sort of statement. Even in a tie-wearing business where a resume may mean somthing more, it's still just a glamorized list of where one has been. Seems easier to just ask that question.
A quick thought about posers:
If the greatest in any field wasn't a poser at one time, they wouldn't be the greatest today.
More heavyness...
grin
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Grinner, I totally getcha. We young folk have to learn to walk before we can run, but we also have to be taken seriously in order to ever get to where we want to go. I think it's unfortunate that in this industry there is a percieved causal relationship between age and talent... and that experience is categoricaly better than enthusiasm and an ability to learn and communicate well.
That sounds silly, so let me clarify. I like to note the difference between experience and GOOD experience. I once worked for a fellow with decades of experience in video. But the guy's work looked canned, hokey, and not even up to the quality standards of the early 90s. He used presets for everything. He didn't make shot lists, and even tried to do a big-time marketing video shoot BEFORE the script was written. He said "we'll travel 3 days to a out of state shoot, get a shot of everything we could potentially need, and come back and make it into something."
Now this guy has experience, and an AVID, but what else? He seems to lack the simple pragmatism that it takes to be an effective, efficient producer. He wastes the client's money, delivering a product that is not what it could easily be were it done intelligently.
But us young 'ens, with our book and internet-forum-learned ideas of intelligent workflow, customer service, and quality/aesthetics/innovation tend to get sat at the "poser" table whilst greyhairs like him are much freer to rip people off because they are "experienced."
Ok, so my point is this. Yes, most posers are probably young people. there are a lot of newbies who are really just wannabes, or haven't really figured out what they're good at and think that playing in I-movie will make them a career. I get that. But please be aware that there are plenty of people in the poser category that have scraped by on the basis of their technology ("Looky here, I have an AVID and a BETACAM, thus making me a professional"), claiming years and years of "experience" that I would challenge isn't worth half of some of today's up-n-comers' passion, enthusiasm, and progressive thinking.
just food for thought on a friday morning :)
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• | | | | | Re: Posers Old, Posers New
by Charlie King on May 30, 2003 at 5:27:30 pm |
There are many ways to look at newcomers. I remember when a graduate of San Diego State came out of the university with the brain washed idea that they were immediately qualified as a Movie Producer.
Then again I love the old saying "Hire the inexperienced, they have not yet learned 'You can't do that."
Resumes are those fictitious stories written about oneself to send to a prospective employer that won't believe a word of it anyhow.
Charlie
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HAHA, i couldn't agree more, Charlie :)
Down with resumes!
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• | | | |  | Re: Posers Old, Posers New
by Mark Suszko on May 30, 2003 at 7:18:14 pm |
You can find them on either end of the spectrum: hoary-headed old guard types who can't figure out anything with buttons on it, and over-indulged kids with the worst work ethic I've ever seen. I must be somewhere in the middle, myself;-)
(successfully posing now for 15 years and counting)
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• | | | | | Re: Posers Old, Posers New
by R Carr on Jun 6, 2003 at 8:00:06 pm |
I don't know whether this is relevant or not, but what the hell, I'll just start typing and maybe something good will come out . . .
Seven years ago (as a rash 18 year old!) I applied for a job with a small-ish promo/corporate facility. Although I had been editing on VHS for several years, and thought I had a reasonable "eye", I had no practical experience (they were editing on 3/4inch and Beta at the time.) Nontheless the guy in charge decided to hire me, largely on the basis that I was a)cheap, and b)willing to learn.
Well, to cut a long story short, here we are seven years later and I was not only responsible for taking the company into the digital age but I now oversee the entire post-production process from capturing and logging to final output on VHS, CD and (very soon!) DVD.
So it just goes to show that giving the "no hopers" a chance is the best way of bringing in new blood. And you're right - those with no talent will show themselves quickly, but those WITH talent deserve a chance to prove themselves.
------------------------------
Robert Carr,
Shropshire, England, UK
robertcarrd@yahoo.com
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• | | | | | Re: Posers Old, Posers New
by Mark Tyson on Jun 7, 2003 at 6:43:08 pm |
I do some post work and consulting for my city's communications dept. Been doing this stuff since 1970. Worked with quad through FCP and AE. City is looking for a production person...good money, good benefits, good work environment, good equipment (BetaSX & Discreet Edit). I've been helping with the search. We've finally found a couple of people with potential after months, but it has been a struggle. Like most of you, I've seen the post facility business die with the advent of desk top video, so I assumed there were a bunch of newly minted, kick-ass kids out there. I fear the new democratic tools have actually taken the craft out of the biz. Good people still emerge, but I don't think there's any more REAL competition out there than in 1978!
Mark Tyson
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• | | | | | Re: Posers Old, Posers New
by Mark Suszko on Jun 7, 2003 at 7:44:53 pm |
Ask them if they can do an effect without a plug-in, and it's like asking the kid at McDonald's for somthing his cash register doesn't have a button for;-)
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• | | | | | Re: Posers Old, Posers New
by grinner on Jun 8, 2003 at 5:54:57 pm |
But these plugins are readily available and the craft is alive and well. No doubt quality just keeps improving as technology and skill level increase. Poise your board in front of this wave and paddle like hell. Theres a wave of new surfers that will run right over you if you don't.
grin
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• | | | | | Re: Posers Old, Posers New
by Mark Tyson on Jun 8, 2003 at 10:36:03 pm |
Agreed, the craft is alive and well...more fun now than ever before. Just don't think there are more good ones out there than there have always been, be they in their 20', 30's, 40's 50's, 60's or older. Bunch of old guys haven't kept up and a bunch of young guys haven't bothered to actually learn story telling. No better, no worse than it's always been...just different.
Mark Tyson
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• | | | | | Re: Posers Old, Posers New
by grinner on Jun 9, 2003 at 8:58:15 pm |
This has and always will be the case.
We're on the same page.
grin
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What upsets me is that probably alot of good resumes of legitimate people will either not even be looked at or passed over because of all of these pretenders.
After reading all the responses I'm surprised you didn't get the obvious answer...
Your former boss' experience is more a reflextion of Mandy.com, where the Lo/No editing gig for a 3 month job makes regular appearances. I suspect Shoot, or even Editorsnet will get a much better signal to noise ratio.
--
Patrick Inhofer
editor, compositor, nice guy
applePi Editorial, nyc
Cow forum leader: Kona
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