I should be writing and re-writing a communications paper at the moment as well as starting to tackle the assigned reading for my classes this week. Instead, I'm taking a quick mental break to share some of the photos I finally developed plus a couple of videos that kept my attention this past week.
If there's been anything helping me balance out the mental load of school and the actual work I do to pay the bills it's been healthy doses of solitaire using physical playing cards and occasionally sneaking out with my RB67 to rip through a roll of film or two. Back in December, I started leaning heavily into Tri-X, one of Kodak's black and white film stocks that's been around since the 1940s. It's typically rated at 400 ISO, but I normally push it two stops and expose it at 1600. This past week was wildly taxing and to deal with the nonsense, I mixed up a new batch of D76 developer and processed a few rolls I'd shot over the last few weeks. There are still plenty of photos from that batch of negatives that need to be scanned in, but at least I got a few from those rolls I was immediately pleased with.
AI-Generated Video
This past week also had some WILD advancements in the world of AI-generated video. OpenAI's Sora is "an AI model that can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions." A good deal of my filmmaking peers are going through an existential crisis and claiming the "end is near." I'm not quite in that camp, but I'm certainly paying attention. There's very good reason to be concerned about the potential of tools like this being used for online disinformation. There are also legitimate warning signs going up for those of us making a living with stock footage sales. Marques Brownlee released a solid video this week on what some of this could look like moving forward.
Conducting Better Interviews
Another video I caught this week that's worth your time is from my communications class. It's a May 2015 TED Talk from Celeste Headlee: "10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation."
My three biggest takeaways from her talk:
- "You need to enter every conversation assuming that you have something to learn."
- "Don't equate your experience with theirs... All experiences are individual. And, more importantly, it is not about you… Conversations are not a promotional opportunity.”
- "Be interested in other people."
St. Anne the Wife and I made our way through Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the new Amazon series from Francesca Sloane and Donald Glover. It's a remake of the 1996 TV series and 2005 film and freakin' outstanding. I'm here for about anything Donald Glover does (Atlanta, Childish Gambino, Community, etc.), so this series was must-watch. Watch the trailer below and then head over to the New York Time's article with co-creator Francesca Sloane.
Surely I'll need another mental break from my classwork this coming week – along with what I actually do for a living – and I'll have more nonsense to share.