open mouth, insert foot...

[studiomprd]

at the risk of offending:

" There's a big difference with your post -- it could actually be helpful to someone "

I take offense!  taking the advice I frequently have dispensed should be and would be helpful to getting the questions answered quickly and correctly.

[John Blankenship]

at the risk of offending:

" There's a big difference with your post -- it could actually be helpful to someone "

I take offense!  taking the advice I frequently have dispensed should be and would be helpful to getting the questions answered quickly and correctly.

Mike,

You're an intelligent person, so I'm really not buying the shocked innocence.

Curtly telling anyone and everyone what they already know tends to discourage discussion and is NOT helpful.  The first time you said it, maybe a little helpful to some, though less curtness would make people feel more welcome and fit the intent of a discussion group much better.

But, fast forward to the ten-millionth time?  You've gotta be kidding!

When you back off of your obsession, you have a lot to offer and that input is certainly appreciated.  When you give in to your obsession, it's really annoying and IS NOT helpful -- it's detrimental.

To put it another way, we love you, but we hate your disease -- please, Mike, get help for the OCD!

And... although this is beside the point of this particular response, MANY times I have learned more about a particular piece of equipment from other users than I have from talking to a manufacturer.  I've even received wrong information from manufacturers on occasion.  I've even given manufacturers information about their own gear that they were unaware of.  The dialog in all directions is valuable for everyone.  So, all pursuits are valid and all are important avenues to being fully educated about our toys and their implementation.  Quite often it's the combination of a manufacturer's feedback and that of other users that yields the full picture.  I find both valuable.  Neither should be discouraged -- either outwardly or tacitly.

So, in case you missed the point:  Curt, patronizing responses discourage discussion.  A repetitious and annoying mantra discourages discussion.  They both appear to exist solely to draw attention to the poster rather than the topic being discussed.

It would be so great if you share your knowledge but not your obsession.

John B.

[Marc Wielage]

Not to take sides on this...

But when I used to wear my writer's hat in the 1980s and 1990s, I handled the Q&A column for Video Review magazine, among several others. Often, we'd get batches of questions that were essentially, "hey, my such-and-such doesn't seem to work. What can I do?" And of course, the answer was usually, "it's broken! Get it fixed!" We'd try to say it as nicely as possible and not be patronizing about it, plus sometimes we'd make some educated guesses, but about 40% of the time, that was the right answer.

Diagnosing complex questions with technical gear is almost impossible unless it's in your hands. We could make an educated guess, but it often boils down to calling the manufacturer's service department and/or sending it in.

Where I see Jeff's forum as useful is when somebody asks for an opinion, as in "hey, I have to record in this situation, and can either choose this or that. Has anybody done this before, and what solution worked for you?"

And there's also those questions that boil down to RTFM. In fairness to users, though, sometimes there's some arcane menu buried three levels deep that you can't figure out how to find, and maybe it's not exactly covered in the manual. Or there's no index to the manual (a big pet peeve of mine). Or there's error messages that aren't covered anywhere in the manual (a bigger pet peeve).

For that stuff, it's great when the manufacturer pops up here and says, "oh yeah -- it's just that little chromium switch, right here." Sure, a phone call to the factory might get you an answer, but my luck is always that it happens on Friday night at 8:30 or on a weekend before a shoot.

Me, I'll hesitate before answering a question when I'm not 100% sure, or I'll actually check the manual or the net if I can. Otherwise, I just pull the old "weasel word" trick of saying, "I think this might work" or "to the best of my knowledge, this won't work" and suggest a workaround.

The bottom line is that sometimes there are no easy answers. The older I get -- and the younger the directors get -- the more I'm astonished by the lack of knowledge among filmmakers. Maybe they're used to just doing a quick Google search and getting a superficial explanation and going with that, instead of getting actual experience or asking the right person.

One thing that scares me is that I seem to encounter a lot of filmmakers who are too insecure to just admit, "hey, I don't know anything about this. What's the story here?" I'm reminded of that quaint old expression: "we're all ignorant... just about different things."

--Marc W.