Got my MBA. Now What?

Oh man, if only I had an actual answer to this one. The whole reason I went to business school was this idea that as creatives, we cut ourselves off at the knee because we don't understand the business end of the creative work we do. It's not like business school was a golden ticket or anything, but now that I've done the thing, I've got a diverse set of new business tools that'll carry me through the rest of my career. At least that's the plan – and what I told St. Anne the Wife.

Being the analytics nerd that I am, I kept track of my time as a graduate student in fifteen minute increments. I'm proud of those 1,700+ hours of class and studying these last 18 months though I'm still bitter about that one B I got in Managerial Accounting.

About two years ago I got serious about pursuing this MBA nonsense and it's been a dead sprint ever since. I finished my last classes this past week and it's now the first Monday I've had in 18 months without a load of classwork. It's wild trying to realistically get my footing again as a working professional now that I'm not also a full-time student.

In addition to wrapping up my graduate work at OU, I was in the DFW area this past weekend with the OU MBA program. We heard from a handful of Dallas-based businesses like Texas Health Resources, 7-Eleven, and PepsiCo. I headed down early and got some face time with a couple of my contacts in the DFW area. Sai Selvarajan is a documentary filmmaker and an editor with Camp Lucky. We had lunch Thursday and talked shop about a few of his recent and upcoming projects. In 2021 he released The Unlikely Fan, a short documentary about his mom and her wild love of basketball. The film got accepted to the 2021 SXSW Film Festival and landed Sai some additional opportunities. He's got another film in the works and I'm looking forward to seeing what that leads to. I also met with Micah Austin who's been my go-to at Filmsupply over the years. Seem's like he's just as much an analytics nerd as I am, so we got deep in the weeds with that nonsense.

There are several creative works I'll start spinning back up this week in addition to pre-production work on a couple of client projects. Surely I'll have more updates on those as they get going again. Since I don't have any of my own nonsense to share at this point, here are a few recent podcasts and news articles I've gone through that are worth your time:

Phoning in Last Week's Highlights

In the time that I'd be normally working on a weekly blog post, I was instead getting my tail handed to me in finalizing last year's tax prep and the homework for my last two MBA classes. So that looks like me sorta phoning this one in and sharing some of highlights of last week.

Anne and I got to watch American Symphony, the documentary film by director Matthew Heineman that follows musician Jon Batiste and his wife Suleika Jaouad as he's having an incredible period in his professional career and she's once again battling leukemia. Filmmaker Magazine has an interview with the film's director and the wild lengths they went to in creating the work. If you've not already seen the film, make sure you do.

This past week was bursting at the seams now that I'm back in full-on MBA mode as well as Anne and the boys being back in school as well. They've had an unusual amount of "snow days" in getting started with their spring semester, so that's certainly smashing into the idea of me working from home. I'm also training for the OKC Memorial half-marathon, which is the first one of those I've done in quite a while. The weather hasn't been kind considering the deep freeze we're thawing from this week, so I've been dodging ice, sub-30° temps, and generally rough conditions. On Saturday I got in a six mile run, which is the furthest distance I've done in years. This morning I got in a short run before starting the day and felt like a sack of potatoes trying to be a real boy.

There's also a couple podcasts from this past week that I'd pass along. The episode about The Hybrid Worker Malaise from The Daily by the New York Times was an interesting one, especially considering how I've worked from home since 2011. There were quite a few issues discussed that I've personally had to work through myself.

There was also the "Surviving Our Lowest Lows" episode from The No Film School Podcast. Filmmaking isn't for the faint of heart and it felt like the two episode contributors had been reading my mail.

The third one I'll leave you with was from the Harvard Business Review's IdeaCast episode "Making Peace with Your Midlife, Mid-career Self". I'm in my early forties and certainly never made it into the cool kids club during Vimeo's golden age. There was also something in this episode about exercise and "how much more expensive a six-pack is" now.

If you've not noticed a theme, it's the first of the year, seasonal depression is a real thing, and from personal experience, I know things get better. Hence me training for a half-marathon this April.

I'll leave you with this last one just drilling graduate business school and the recent flood of MBAs. If nothing else, I'm totally at peace with not taking myself too seriously. Crazy thanks Good Work.

I swear I'm still a Cinematographer

Already starting week three of this first MBA summer module. That's shorthand for "good lord I'm antsy to get back to focusing on being a professional creative again."

I've been flirting with the monthly issues of American Cinematographer magazine that just keep coming with my subscription. I've also started back to reading the American Cinematographer Manual I'd bought back in early 2022. The physical book itself does remind me of my younger days and the well worn and highlighted Bible I'd spent so much time with.

This ASC manual is basically the cinematographer's bible. I'd been wanting to buy a copy and dig into it for years. It's not a textbook per se, but it's easily an authoritative work.

"Producers hire a cinematographer to create art, to be the guardian of the image, and to press for quality and beauty at every turn, but remember, they hire a cinematographer to do that on a budget... Never convince yourself that money is no object – money is the main object. Remember, it's call the movie business. Cinematographers must be concerned about saving money, or at least concerned about spending it wisely." - David Stump, ASC. “Criteria for Evaluating Digital-Cinematography Cameras.” American Cinematographer Manual, 2021

...bit of a hat tip to me still being eyeballs deep in the world of business school...

Another solid find this past week was David Kruta's guest appearance on the Cinematography Salon podcast. He's a good dude and one that I'd consider as a friend. I've been part of the Cinematography Salon for a few years now and met Dave at one of the group's NYC holiday parties. I've also been in a private Instagram DP/Foodie group with him and a handful of others that's helped us all get through these last few years of Covid.

In this episode they cover a handful of topics, but they dug into how artificial intelligence (AI) is making its way into our creative industry like everything else. I know I'm already behind the ball in terms of Midjourney (sad day for the end of free accounts) and other AI image generators, but I've been using ChatGPT more and more since early April. After listing to this podcast, I started thinking about how I could use AI in terms of the interview transcripts I have from my rubber stamp documentary project (yes, it's still in the works but somewhat gathering dust). I fed ChatGPT one of those transcripts and asked it to provide some of the themes we'd covered in the interview. Hot dang, seconds later it spit out what would've taken me days to do on my own. I'll for sure be using it more down the road.

I've been hoarding money lately due to this wild economic season we're all in right now instead of following my typical "I should buy more gear" impulses. Some of that fiscal responsibility can be blamed on a group I've followed for awhile, A Photo Editor. Lately they've been on a tear with their Instagram account in posting some real-life examples of photographers and what their business revenue looks like. One post in particular hit hard with the dude saying "stop buying gear; just stop."

No question as professionals we need to stay on top of our nonsense, but – in another hat tip to business school – buying more gear just because you can is a terribly short-sided business move. There's some legit purchases I could be making right now with some potential projects coming up. I've done the math and worked out the details using my newly minted business school super powers, but I'm not convinced it's time to melt my credit card just yet.

That said, I'm pretty sure it's way past time I sprung for some new C41 developing chemicals. I'm way past tempting fate with the crusty chemistry and the 20-30+ year expired film I've been using in my RB67 lately.