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Pioneers! O Pioneers! (A Call To Arms)
Well, its time for another blog post. This is once again written for my 6th semester blog in which we have to talk about our internships. Im never able to write just about the day to day happenings, so heres another one thats maybe too introspective for the situation.
Remember, this is opinion based, so please dont respond with some obvious point about how film will never die. I know that. Anyone with any knowledge about film or television knows that.
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Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings,
we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!”
-Walt Whitman
Firstly, I’d like to say that at this point in our collective careers and lives, we are all pioneers. There is a turning point in our industry. Be that film, television, commercials, etc. Past generations had the industrial revolution, the atomic age, the space age… but we my classmates, find ourselves on the outer brink of something new. The digital revolution that is slowly taking over every production.
The Varicam, anything that Silicon Imaging has released, and of course the camera that really took the digital revolution by the balls, the REDone. Yesterday I read that ARRI, Panavision, and Aaton, have all stopped production of they’re film cameras. THATS BIG!
Some of you may be moving your mouse towards the “X” to get away from another Keaton gear rant, but lend me your ears, and I’ll tell you how important you really are (YES YOU, THE INTERN).
The industry finds itself in a weird position. Many productions still shoot film, but as time goes on, more and more are shooting digital. But what I am talking about stretches past video village, it continues on past the “post”, and even the SMPTE guys.
This digital revolution is lead by us, the lowly front line infantry men and women, the ones with dirt under our nails, crawling through the proverbial “Shit”. We bring a fresh new look to everything we do and see. Whether thats due to in-experience, is up to you to decide. But remember, we are here to learn, to ask questions, to do it so much that the officer in our unit sends us to clean the toilet with a toothbrush.
A lot of us sit in front of our computers all day, working or doing otherwise (So much of the time it seems to be the latter). But that is a driving force behind this revolution! The knowledge of the world is at our finger tips. Never before has there been a moment in time where one could read all the works of aristotle, and then seconds later jump to the instruction manual from a piece of equipment we have never used!
“For we cannot tarry here, we must march my darlings!”
Forge ahead blindly, show the officers in this army that we aren’t going to give up. When the mortars loaded with stress and the insults of that burly grip on set come crashing down- show the officers who we are! We are part of this revolution, we lead it! We must march! We must ask questions!
WE MUST LEARN.
At the base of it all, thats what the digital revolution comes down to. Learning. The Corporals, the Warrant Officers, heck even some of the Privates are going to have to accept the fact that digital cinema is here to stay, and learn how to utilize it. Thats why we are so important.
“We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend”
Its strange to think that we, the most taken advantage of, the lowest rung on the ladder right now, hold such an important tool- our growing level of knowledge. We must learn so that we can teach the coming hoards of revolutionists just like us. From the video bloggers on youtube, to the 3rd AC taking his/her first job data wrangling. We are all one and the same.
We are pioneers, we are the front line infantry, we are the driver making sure your director gets to set on time. We are the ones who through so much turmoil and personal loss come out on top, because we know how to learn.
I remember reading an article on our generation that mentioned we no longer know the phrase “I don’t know.” Is this such a bad thing? That we can take out our smartphones and almost immediately know the answer to whatever the question may be?
No, most definitely this is a good thing.
“…All the rest on us depend!”
We can teach so much to all those around us, including our peers, because of our capacity toLEARN.
This revolution will indeed be televised, because we are the ones deciding the programming.
I will end this before I become a broken record.
Once again, here is a quote, or rather an excerpt, that should inspire you. It’s taken from whats now called “The wave speech” in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson-
“You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning ….
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave ….
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark —that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
Hunter S. Thompson is referencing the last time he felt like a generation had the ability to over come whatever was put in front of it.
The wave he speaks of may have broken and rolled back by the time he wrote that, but I don’t think that even Thompson could have predicted in one of his forward thinking acid trips that there would be another wave. A wave so big, so full of hope, that not even one of the most prosperous industries, so rooted in tradition and customs couldn’t help but be over come by it.
So, just remember. Don’t lose hope, the proverbial wave hasn’t broken yet. Ride it to the end, to the point where it feels like there is no more to overcome, and no more to learn. But, there always will be.
We are the pioneers Walt Whitman speaks of, we are the front line infantry men and women, constantly bringing new ideas, and techniques into our projects, we are the positive energy that overcomes “the forces of Old and Evil”. And to all of the anti-revolutionary forces that stand in our way, I say-
DON’T TREAD ON ME.
