Richard Bugg

On going your own way Friedrich Nietzsche had this to say: "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." And on differences, this: “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Once, on a long walk in the mountains, an elderly gentleman echoed the sentiment when he told me that "Everything is opinion", to which I opined, "That's your opinion". Now that I think of it, he was probably paraphrasing Nietzsche at the time. Walk your own path. Who cares about the others.

Creating something that I'll enjoy watching in 10 or 20 years time and be glad I took the time and effort to make. The story will resonate internally from the outset, and the end product will get to the heart of a matter that feels important. Reaching a wider audience would be a bonus.

Not really. Deception may be a common tendency, but as consumers it is reasonable to expect and to demand transparency and truthfulness in advertising. Consequently this expectation is reflected in the laws of many jurisdictions. See here for example, and here, and here. However, many of these laws do not apply to political advertising - hence the resultant nonsense. The notion that nothing said can be trusted leads to cynicism. And I suspect that people who think they are too smart to be conned by false information are often quite vulnerable to exactly that. Indeed, we all are vulnerable to being deceived by misinformation. That's why we need to point it out and not be tolerant of it.

It's easy to assert that brand money doesn't influence critique, rather more difficult to substantiate. As a media consumer looking for unbiased information how would you convince me that I can trust what is said in a canon 80D review that appears alongside the 80D infomercial rather than a fluff piece that will make sure that canon sends another cheque with the next advertisement? What are these firewalls you speak of? I'm genuinely interested.

The most seductive and largely useless information about equipment (or perhaps anything that gets touted) is the hyped up apparently 'good' stuff that makes us want to buy, buy buy. But the most meaningful and useful to the end user is more likely to be the realistic appraisal of limitations and failings. Few want to hear about the bad stuff (advertisers, readers etc) and so advertisers and sites looking to get people excited and spending money (including via affiliate links) are more likely to include hyperactive fluff. But it's probably the well considered 'bad' stuff that is most relevant to prospective buyers. A careful appraisal of limitations might make you decide to keep your own gear, or pick another product, the limitations of which are more acceptable. Advertising will corrupt the ability to deliver that careful appraisal, because it runs counter to the preferred narrative of the advertisers and changes the business model to one which is dependent on receiving the revenue of vested interests. Their interests become your interests. There is no skirting this impact, even at a subtle level. Over time, it is the continued delivery of good quality information that is actually helpful to the prospective purchaser that will engender trust. It is that trust which will become the distinguishing feature and which will become the foundation of a possible business model. Hence, it must be fiercely defended and clearly articulated. Advertising will necessarily corrode that trust, thereby undermining the whole foundation upon which this particular enterprise is built. It isn't all about ideology. Trust is hard won, but essential for any business. Pretty much all corporations and businesses rely on developing trust with their consumers. However much of that trust is not well deserved, and a lot of businesses go to great extremes to obfuscate and hide how their apparently trustworthy viewpoints are in fact sullied by vested interests. Their great saviour is a sufficient lack of scepticism and attention to detail by the receiving public, and frequently a public who would prefer to get excited or angry rather than to expend the time and energy to think things through.

You can simplify only so much. Having done a few interviews as a one man band I like having a couple of audio options - wireless into camera, plus XLR into separate recorder. There's too much going on when you are running by yourself so mistakes are more likely and if I'm totally reliant on a single setup there's no redundancy. I can set and forget the separate XLR system, leaving it to run throughout, then concentrate on getting the camera and wireless audio up and running. If I need to switch the camera off at any stage, the separate audio is still running and can pick up useful dialogue that can still be used with cut aways or B roll. Having only one camera, or one audio source seems a little lean to me if you are getting paid to come up with the goods.

Thanks jcs. I doubt that Trump would - nay, could hear your message. The leaders of these movements seem inoculated against such. Instead, reaching out to those who have the power to remove them from office is probably the more productive. So as you suggest, self-healing is in order, as is reaching out to others through literature, film, music, discussion and so on. Here's a potent article that addresses the current ideological and political pestilence from an Australian perspective. It talks about the power of decency and literature, amongst other forms of expression. https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2016/october/1475244000/richard-flanagan/does-writing-matter This is a widespread phenomenon.

Trump has taken this to new levels. But in the normalisation of Trumpism we are expected to overlook the fact that he is acting like a blithering idiot.

You're only saying that because you misunderstood his metaphors. When he said it's a "hoax", he meant... http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/22/13715236/donald-trump-climate-change-statement-ny-times-meeting

Good luck America.

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. You have an interesting take on the matter. However, it might not surprise you that I don't agree with your conclusions. In the first instance, the timing has no relevance as to wether or not an assault(s) actually took place. It either did or it didn't and the timing of the publicising of the matter won't change that one iota. What will matter is evidence, both Trump's apparent confession, the evidence of the women involved, and any other relevant evidence. There would undoubtably be political relevance in making the matter public, but not legal relevance. Second, I don't concede that his apparent admission has been debunked. It is neither bunked, nor debunked by your opinion, or mine. There may be other explanations, such as he was trying to impress the reporter with his aggressive machismo by making things up, but I find it more likely that he was trying to impress the reporter with his aggressive machismo simply by describing what he has done and felt that he could get away with when he thought he wasn't being recorded. Your alternative suggestions seem a little too creative and forced for my mind. It will be interesting to see if the matter makes it to court. I was hoping the Trump University matter would proceed to trial, but alas not.

Now I can't really speak for anyone else, but in regard to the "white supremacist" statement made above I wonder if the author was simply establishing an 'opening position'. He might have done this in the same way that a respected leader might initially say that he will build, I don't know - let's say a 2000 mile long impenetrable "wall", but later say that "wall" really meant a bit of a "fence". So the author might have said "white supremacist" but in following the footsteps of noble and respected leaders, really meant something like "isn't too keen on Mexican criminals". Not so silly after all.

In many western jurisdictions sexual assault is considered any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Forced kissing and grabbing women by the genitals would appear to fit that definition. There seems to be a line-up of women claiming to have been groped and kissed forcefully and without consent - therefore sexually assaulted - by Trump. These claims that appear to be reinforced by his own words. Are you saying that in your view these claims are baseless and that DT was not speaking the truth on the bus?

I don't think anyone would dispute that there is hardship in the rust belt. But did Trump really speak to that reality with his economic policies? Has anyone seen a credible economic analysis of how lower personal and company taxes, higher spending on defence and infrastructure, and trade barriers with Mexico, China etc. will actually help the rust belt? I've seen plenty of economists predicting the exact opposite recently, pointing to ballooning debt, a rising US dollar, higher interest rates and retaliatory trade wars, but without a return of manufacturing jobs. See here for example for something typical: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/henry-ergas/trumps-tax-and-trade-policies-could-hurt-australia-and-the-world/news-story/fb76d755cfa68e3f29e9f4048e410a0e Most economists (well pretty much all that I have seen so far) seem to be saying that Trump's economic policies as articulated, will cause more harm than help. I'd be interested if someone could ferret out some rational economic commentary that has a different view. Could it be that the rust belt might be even worse off under Trump than the alternative? They may have given the middle finger to the establishment by voting for Trump, but also shot themselves in the foot at the same time.

If we look at environmental impact, climate change, disparities between the wealthy and the poor, access to medical care, the proliferation of guns and gun-related violence, and so on the picture is less clear. And how many of the political class in the US are not in the highest few percentile regarding access to wealth? These issues are a product of the system of government and its implementation. There may be other models of democracy that are superior to US style government in many regards.

I also wondered about discussing politics on a site such as this and what effect it might have on the audience. But I'm not so sure about it being a bad idea completely. I wonder if it really is a bad thing to discuss important matters related to society as a sidebar to the main course. Where there is a strong emotional drive, it will be discussed. Politics is frequently a taboo subject, but if we want to progress to greater understanding then we need to be able to have the discussion with people who might have a different view. Perhaps the problem is more in how we have these conversations - personalising the issue through labelling each other, or lecturing one another, rather than approaching the problem more inquisitively and journalistically in an attempt to tease out the underlying issues by gaining another person's perspective. In this regard, Jonathan Pie (other thread) was right - have a respectful discussion with those who have different view. It's easy to have an opinion; much harder to empathise and get to the underlying issues instead of leaping to judgment. I'm not so good at this myself, but when there are important differences to discuss, instead of remaining silent on these matters within a community, I'd like to get better at having the discussion, but in a manner that is non-alienating to others or descending into argument. Is this too utopic? Possibly. But this forum is populated by some pretty intelligent and good natured people, so I expect it is possible.

Markets will fluctuate, regional politicians jostle for position based on nebulous inferences about what he will do. Everyone will hang on his every inane Twitter utterance. He has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and this narcissistic supply is exactly what he wants. Nobody knows what Trump will do; least of all, I suspect, Trump himself.

Thanks themartist, and others. As you suggest there may be a correlation between getting paid producing video content and having technical knowledge and being able to formulate a useful technical opinion, but that is not necessarily the case. Therefore it is probably more useful to look at the actual substance of the opinion, the premises upon which the opinion is based, the methodology used, the results from which the conclusions are based, how the reported results compare with other similar results and so on, rather than on some poor proxy, such as that person's business income, or even the quality of their artistic work. Many working artists are not particularly technical and may only know the basics of how their camera functions on the way to producing great work that sells well. Conversely, if I'm after technical analysis, I'd tend to look to someone who has good technical knowledge. In that case I don't really care about their artistic ability, or wether they make money selling photos or videos. Does anyone care what sort of images the people at DXOMARK or lens rentals or Thom Hogan produce when reading their reviews. I don't.

I'm sorry but I use curtains. I'm also no technical expert, though at times I've been professional, so I'm happy to look at a range of views and pleased that people make the effort to share their experiences from a variety of perspectives.

It's probably not a wise thing to lead yourself to ruination based on one person's opinion. The benefit of a review is that it kicks off meaningful discussion. It would be a pity to attack the person who took the time to start the discussion, simply because you might not agree with their opinions based on their own personal perspective.

I'm not sure that wether or not someone commercialises their work is particularly relevant, if that's what you meant. I have seen low quality output from people who charge for what they do, high quality output from people who do not, and a lot of stuff in between. So I'm not sure that commercialising your work is a necessary pre-condition for being able to express an opinion. Nor is it necessarily a good indicator of quality. Hence, not particularly relevant.

The following piece about the writing of "The Art of the Deal" reinforces your point quite well: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all This whole things seems a bit like the Ebrahim Saadawi fiasco on steroids.

The DSLR is dead. Long live the DSLR.

Pie's critique is from the point of view of The Shocked Left. But what about the Trump voter who now thinks they may have fucked up and are looking to rationalise their decision by blaming The Left for not giving a good enough alternative? To them I say: credit where credit is due. It wasn't The Left who was responsible for putting Trump into power; they voted for someone else - it was the people who voted for Trump who are responsible for elevating him to power. For those who voted for Trump, you now have him. For those who voted for him but now think that vote may have been a mistake, you can't shirk the uncomfortable responsibility by saying The Left made me do it, or that The Left didn't discuss sufficiently how you shouldn't shit on the dining room table at dinner time. Every vote counts, and you now have what you voted for. But with the benefit of new information and a fresh perspective you are always free to change your mind at any time and help fix up the damage. That is a perfectly acceptable and reasonable thing to do. It is a necessary thing to do, not least for your own sanity.

It has taken a while to get my head around but I'm really warming to the post Trump world. I've reset my calendar to 1 AT, a time that future generations will see as the moment language formally lost the age-old constraints of boring predictability. He wasn't the first to be so creative with his discourse, but he was certainly one of the best. Imagine the creative possibilities for the documentarian, now able to use any word to mean almost anything. It's very liberating. So when someone says, for example, that HRC is 'nasty' and 'corrupt' and should 'go to jail', you can have it mean that she and her husband are 'really nice people'. This linguistic dynamism is to be appreciated and rewarded. Consequently, if a 5 year old is caught telling metaphors of their own, don't admonish them; instead, put them in charge of the household. BTW the best camera to tell the story of the world AT is currently the C100 II with a standard zoom that never comes off. This combo will allow rapid recording of fervent rallies, riots, and the hurricanes that are likely to increase in frequency and severity. The zoom-that-never-comes-off should decrease the likelihood of water getting onto the sensor. Audio recording in the field is less relevant because sound doesn't really mean much anymore and you can just do a voiceover later. For that you can use the EV RE20 which will sound warm and authoritative.