Spec Work

We will all be entering the workforce soon, if we have not already done so. For a lot of us this will mean freelancing. An inevitable part of freelancing is doing spec work. Google gives me the definition of spec work as "any job for which the client expects to see examples or a finished piece of design before agreeing to pay a fee or compensation."

Basically you make the video for the client, show them a preview, then they can decide if they want to use you for the full product. Which, personally I think is bullshit, and a lot of people are beginning to agree. To make the preview you are required to do preprod, prod, and postprod, to a high standard. Work you are typically paid for, and work that will cost you money to create. Which you may not be reimbursed for.

This is a pretty standard practice within the film industry. However, when applied to other industries this sounds completely ridiculous. Here's a video that shows just how ridiculous this sounds.

I'm curious to see what other people's thoughts on this are.

GoPro's Virtual Reality Rig and Google Jump

GoPro just announced the release of Odyssey, which will work seamlessly with Google Jump.

....what?

So Google Jump is a hub for creating, sharing, and playing virtual reality videos. Google Jump will compose of three divisions, the camera and the rig, the software that patches the footage together, and the player to view all of the footage. The goal is to increase the use of virtual reality, especially through filmmaking. In theory, Jump will be able to be used with any off the shelf camera compiled into a 16 camera rig. 

When Google announced Jump, they also announced the first production rig for sale that would work with Jump, Go Pro's Odyssey. Odyssey will retail at $15,000 and an application must be submitted and approved before purchase. The Odyssey is a 3-D printed housing for 16 Go-Pro's that is pre configured to shoot video content to be worked through Jump. Google states that Odyssey will be the best tool for a filmmaker who is attempting to enter the virtual reality field but wants to avoid the DIY route. 

Below is a video that explains it in more detail:

Happy Birthday Charlie Chaplin

I just saw on Google that sometime within the past few days marked the 122nd birthday of filmmaker Charlie Chaplin. I have only seen one of his movies (City Lights). When I finally decided to watch it two summers ago I was really skeptical because I remember form my childhood seeing some really stupid/silly short silent films and didn't really like them. BUT when I saw City Lights, I was blown away with how...perfect(?) it was all put together (question mark being that its hard to describe the ingeniousness of this film). Anyways, I would highly encourage everyone in the class to see it, as well as any other Charlie Chaplin film (I've heard they're all really good).

Think before you click

Google's data center, from Harper's magazine, March 2008

This blueprint depicts Google's data center, code named "02 PROJECT" at The Dalles, Oregon.

Google and its nemesis, Microsoft, Yahoo and Ask.com went there lured by the cheapest electricity in North America. And they need it. They are building gigantic server farms on the banks of the Columbia River.

We tend to think of the internet, the virtual worlds, our email and the "paperless society" as somehow a 'cleaner' option than the legacy of our ancestors. We talk of information and the exchange of ideas, as if these concepts reside on the sphere of intangibles that lead us to a gentler, greener world.

People are slowly realizing that driving their cars and SUV's leave a carbon "footprint" for which we will be hold accountable by generations to come. So we telecommute, we email instead of writing a letter or a note (would we write so much dribble if we had to use pen and ink?) and we search or, using the new verb, we google for information, sometimes for its own sake, the new addiction.

Little do we realize that this new industry is as heavy as they come, and like the article in Harper's 1 mentions: "...an energy glutton that is only growing hungrier." Currently Google is estimated to have in the order of a million servers. According to the article: "...the servers require a half-watt in cooling for every watt they use in processing". Some simple math will yield in the order of 103 megawatts for the Dalles plant alone. As a curious note, the Northwest Aluminum smelter across the street form the data center once used 85 megawatts before falling under soaring energy costs.

If you examine the blueprint above, you will see that 18,800 sq. ft. are devoted to the "cooling towers". Perhaps it will become fashionable again to wear the Top Hats of the 1920's to celebrate the new Information Chimneys of the New Millenium?

Can you identify the gentleman in the picture?
C'mon, I'll buy pizza for the first to name him!

And the winner is...Takumi! Choose your toppings (**>

While you are at it, look at the building on the upper right corner and you will see a suggestive label: "Transient Employee Dormitory Building". As with all things digital, employees are simply bits and blips in the flow of the new oil. And the "carbon footprint" is not pretty.

The article mentions that in 2006 American data centers "consumed more power than American televisions" and that in all locations currently active or in planning, both in America and Siberia, Shanghai and Dublin where AT&T, Microsoft and Google are heading in search (pun intended) of even cheaper electricity, most of this energy is produced by the burning of fossil fuels. I gives new meaning to the term "cloud computing"


1 The Harper's article "KEYWORD:EVIL, Google's addiction to cheap electricity", which inspired this post, was written by Ginger Strand, author of Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power and Lies, to be published this spring by Simon & Schuster