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IFH 255: Behind the Curtain of Blackmagic Design with President Dan May
By Alex Ferrari | July 24, 2018
Behind the Curtain of Blackmagic Design with President Dan May
If you are an avid listener of this podcast you know how much I LOVE Blackmagic Design products. From giving away Davinci Resolve for free to releasing a 4K Pocket Camera with RAW, Blackmagic is truly in the corner of every filmmaker. Their motto is…
I always wanted to know how and why they make such amazing products for filmmakers at such ridiculously affordable prices. Today's guest, Dan May – President of Blackmagic Design, would be the man to ask. I go deep into the weeds on how the company works, why they make their products so accessible to so many people and why they care so much about the little guy.
Just to clarify, no I was not paid for this interview at all. I really wanted to get into the mind of one of my favorite camera and post production companies. We also talk a little bit about gear.
Enjoy this rare look behind the curtain at Blackmagic Design with Presient Dan May.
Blackmagic Design – Official Site
Blackmagic 4k Pocket Camera
Davinci Reslove 15 (Download for FREE)
On the Corner of Ego and Desire (SHOT on BMPCC)
Studio Unknown Audio Post – Mention the IFH podcast, and you'll receive 50% off one day of ADR
How to Shoot and Direct an Improvised Feature Film in 24 hours
Filmmaker in a Box – Learn How to Make an Indie Film
Martin Scorsese Film Directing Masterclass (WATCH FOR FREE)
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Welcome to the indie film hustle podcast episode number 255 a little progress every day adds to Big results anonymous. Podcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the indie film hustle podcast where we showed you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film business.
And here's your host Alex Ferrari welcome my new film Hustlers to another episode of the indie film also podcast. I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Box black box is a new platform and community. That is all about Financial Freedom for filmmakers like you.
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It's really quite revolutionary with black box. Baker's can concentrate on making great content while Black Box takes care of all the business BS just visit w-w-w Today's Show is also sponsored by Studio unknown Studio known as a crack team of audio post professionals known for Quality sound on any Indie budget whether you need a lush surround sound mix or a quick Festival submission pass Studio known can help you with all of your posts sound needs from sound design and mix to.
ADR and even a custom score contact Studio known and mention the indie film also podcast and you'll get 50% off one day of ADR or 10% off your complete post sound package. Just go to Studio unknown now today on the show. I have a treat for you. We are going behind the curtain. Of Blackmagic design anyone who's listening to this podcast knows how much I love black magic designs cameras.
They're editing systems color grading everything they have to offer just the general company culture. I just love what they're doing and no I'm not getting paid for this interview. I actually reached out to them because I wanted to bring on someone who can really show us an inside look at the company at this.
The corporate culture and you know, what makes the company tick because the products that they're putting out is honestly revolutionising filmmaking and revolutionising, uh, you know tools for filmmakers to use to tell their stories and I'm a big fan and I wanted to get somebody on the show that could do that for us.
I was able to get the president of black magic design Dan met who I met at uh NAB this year and it was the most unassuming guy. He was like one of the many guys with black magic design shirts walking around and they bee I had no idea who I was talkin to what I talked to him for the first time. It was absolutely crazy.
Then someone told me hey that was the president of them like what he's just out here like mingling with the commoners and I was really. Blown away and I do call uh, Blackmagic design the biggest mom-and-pop company I've ever seen dealt with spoken to because they have their monster company. They're very big company, but they have a very mom-and-pop kind of mentality behind it.
And the one thing that I really loved about talkin to Dan is he came up with he said one really crucial thing? Unlike a lot of other companies in this space. They come up with a product they come up with a price that they have to match and then they create a product for it as opposed to uh, Blackmagic design who actually creates a product because it's going to be cool and it's gonna help people.
It's gonna take things up to another notch and then they figure out what they're gonna charge for. And they always keep it at a price point that is accessible to everybody and sometimes they give stuff away for free like DaVinci Resolve. So without any further Ado, I want you to enjoy this rare Insider's look at Black Magic design with President Dan.
I like to welcome to the show Dan met Dan. Thank you so much for taking the time. I know you're a very busy man. No problem. I'm happy to be here. I was I had a pleasure of meeting you at this year's NAB and you were you were uh, you were like the prom queen or King? Yeah. Well, I'll take either way.
We were busy busy good, uh, you know babies for us are always exciting. We generally tend to have a number of new announcements out and this year was no different. So it was great to be there. He talkin to, you know, folks that are using our products people that are excited about what we're doing and.
You know, we were really pleased with all the whole show went as a whole it was it was insane because I had never been to NAB before and when I when I drove up to the convention center, all I saw was black magic like yeah, it's a good place where we're at right now, you know, obviously the company's grown massively over these last two years and uh, you know, we've had a I mean a lot of our enemies had been great shows where we've had great product announcements and uh, you know, some of the standards were obviously the first time we came out with DaVinci Resolve.
Thousand dollars and you know, when we you know what that first camera it was like Earth shattering news was Rippling through the whole. Um, so we've got a number of just n ABS that have been really, you know outstanding for us as a company and. Uh, you know, we really try to make the most of that opportunity to be there engage with users face to face.
But also, you know it is it is really one of the few shows that globally is kind of seen. No, it's not just those people that show up in Las Vegas, you know, there are you know, plenty of media folks that are there the reporting from all over the world. So we definitely try to make the most of that opportunity and and go big, you know, go big with announcements and with our presence and you know, just try to help uh change our industry.
And shows a big piece of our ability to do that and you guys are definitely doing that. So I wanted to get I wanted to first ask you. How did you get into the world of black magic? Because obviously you weren't born into it out of the womb. So how did you get into black? I was created in a lab.
So, you know interesting for me. I actually my background was in music. I have a degree in music and I uh been doing some some work just you know, as you do after University trying to find your way in the world and uh, Ended up landing at another video company and transition quite smoothly into into video for a manufacturer because you know while audio and video are different certainly, you know, like hey, it's a timeline things move.
This is how things edit and kind of did um started working for manufacture their started doing just some side, you know, like here's how you work on video project type stuff and just had worked for a couple other manufacturers for a few years and eventually, uh, when Blackmagic design decided they want to start.
Start an office in the US, uh, you know, I kind of got that call to say Hey, you know, we want to we know we sold some product into the u.s. I think black magic was about getting on to about 4 years old as a company. Um, they had essentially no full-time employees in the US and they said look we want to start this office in the US.
Uh, what do you think and I was like, yeah that sounds like a great, you know a great opportunity to basically be employing number one. This is you know, The time when we were selling Declan cards, and that was pretty much it. I know Amber those Declan cars have a great car great products and you know, you kind of I kind of looked at the landscape and said look, I think this is a great opportunity kind of believed in the vision of what um grandpa dceo, uh wanted to do and uh and came on board is basically employee number one in the u.s.
So when you're president of. Magic design in 2018. That sounds incredibly impressive when you're when you're president of Blackmagic design in 2000 and was at six. Uh, yeah, it's less impressive your employee number one in the US and you kind of build from there. But uh, you know, it's a lot about black magic other than some Day cards.
I think card what we wanted to do. So so, you know, obviously it's been a quite a transformation and and obviously be a part of what black magic um been able to do, you know play my role to help in the the company and uh and help Grant with his vision. You know, it's been a it's been a fantastic run and like, you know, 2018 some 12 years.
Later, uh, yeah, if you had told me 12 years ago, this is where we'd be you know, it sounds crazy. These are the stories that happen when companies. Do you know figure out the kind of the the magic? The black magic what they want to do when people latch onto you know, what we were all about and the fact that we continue to kind of push the envelope, you know, that's all led to growth and success and and um, hopefully continued growth and success as we continue to, you know, have any of these like when we had this last April, so in 2006, you joined black magic, how was the digital landscape then compared to now mean the big thing then what?
As you know, what what black magic had had been able to kind of figure out was you know, uh, Things like Final Cut Pro and what what that application was able to do was was able to really take a major crack at that kind of glass ceiling as far as the democratization of of, you know, professional video production right before before I mean look DV existed on kind of what was the consumer prosumer.
I hate using those terms but it was it was a way for people to have some um capabilities. That didn't really. Just before you know, obviously personal computers were getting um, right more powerful to be able to do some amount of processing a video DVD was compressed enough to where you didn't necessarily require the crazy crazy, um Computing processing power, but and that's where final kind of had gotten its, you know, almost start as a look we know we can.
Be this other great DV editing software, but when you start bringing in uncompressed capture cards, like black magic design head, uh developed, you know, you're talkin about now being able to have this uncompressed video quality. That was really limited to the Hollywood hate say this Hollywood Elite, but really those you know that had the big budgets to be able to do, um that professional quality.
He and and gain the benefits of working in uncompressed video and suddenly Final Cut became a tool that folks in Hollywood could use immediately because hey, look I have the same uncompressed video capabilities at this much lower price point now, of course, what ended up happening there was every other independent filmmaker or student filmmaker, you know anybody else at well, wait a minute for a few.
Thousand dollars I now have the ability that took hundreds of thousands of dollars to do in that Hollywood post-production facility. So that was already on the table. That was what was changing the game. So when I went outside of that piece looked at it said look that's really fascinating and uh, you know, feel like I can help with some of that, you know little did I know the entire road map and the opportunities that we were able to tackle as a company.
Uh as the last, you know kind of decade-plus has gone by to help to where we are now. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I remember when Final Cut came out and basically allowed me to open up my post facility because before then um Avid basically was the dominant factor of editing and it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for editing system.
Um, so Final Cut did open that door and did the uh, democratize. Thank you. Yeah, that's the word that is the word. Uh a lot and you guys very black it is very black magic. Um, and you guys do that not only with. Um software but also with digital cameras in cinema cameras to be specific. When was the first time you guys decided to look into creating the first Cinema cameras.
So we we had like many people that are looking around the industry and we hadn't seen that there was a gap in kind of that camera space and you know, you know, we had at that point we had already made The DaVinci Acquisitions. We had already had kind of resolve cooking the long. Um, you know, we had kind of uh, Diversified our products there.
And we had made um these hyper decks for this video recording purposes where we were seeing that you know, the dslrs had come in and shaken up a bit of a landscape as well where you had these amazing photo cameras that also did video and they did video pretty well. It was compressed. Um, when it looks good and it suddenly put kind of professional video into.
A lot more people's hands again the democratization of having this great looking video now coming from the post production side of things. Uh, we also realize the trouble with that highly compressed HD format that you're seeing out there, you know, it was just problematic wasn't super high-quality.
It didn't give you the Real Time Performance, you know, just some problems on there. And then from there when you when you said well, let's solve those post production problems. Well from there in your jumping up into 40,000 plus dollar cameras that are in that cineworld which are amazing cameras, you know, they obviously function at the highest level that give you that great post production capability.
Um, they're very flexible and they are largely unattainable by many many people most people Sorrento cameras. Most people that can even get them at that level but they're not cameras that are largely owned by people and certainly aren't something you're going to go out and shoot on the weekend or do student films on you know, there's there's a big gap big gap there.
So, you know, we had we had said like everyone else will look someday some one of these one of these n of the spectrum is going to. You know make a decision to move up or down stream, right? We're gonna find dslrs that suddenly have that workflow capability that's going to be very post friendly or we're gonna find these high-end Cinema Camera manufacturers have figured out that this is how they're going to make that sub $10,000 kind of camera that gives you a sub functionality of their premium brand.
I guess you could say and we would heard Whispers of that for years, right? We'd heard people say that we're gonna have, you know, 4K 4K or what? Lots of different rumors that were out there never seemed to come and pass year after year kind of went by and I remember we were sitting there and this must have been you know sometime in 2010 if I want to say and we were we were talkin about our next version of what the hybrid decks were going to be and you know, these are little SSD recorders of the time.
It just had some button function and we talked about adding a monitor and acting things like that and eventually what became what the video assist later became and that kind of became the. But you know if we just put a sensor on it, basically a camera and literally a few months later sitting in Australia and having these Engineers come out and this has been you know, December November December timeframe having them walk out with this giant PCB with a lens on it and them going well.
This is a working camera and we could show this in April and you go there is no way we're going to show that in April. That's insane. Of course. This is what we do all the time. We all the time dream up these ideas we have these brilliant. Here's and lo behold, you know a few months later. That's the first cinema camera to K and it was you know, it was brilliant, uh for what is basically our first camera.
I still love the image that that camera, uh, you know makes and while many many things we've done in the years since then have helped build upon that camera in the camera speaking of is the and wonderful. I shot my first feature on that. It's again, Now you would call it an old camera by black Magics standards five years old.
It is sold. Uh, it it's that image is still amazing 13 stops of dynamic range. If you're really just doing 2K or or HD, you know, that is a beautiful image that creates now, we've added to our kind of subset of like here's how you build a better menu system and here's. Are these ergonomics maybe more what people want to see but for a first camera, I mean that I tell you that NAB it was like aftershocks had just rippled through the industry.
And I remember that was an amazing moment to be a part of black magic and to say wow, we've really changed things because even if that camera sold, you know, five thousand or fifty thousand five hundred thousand or whatever was going to end up doing we had realized that at that point. We had entered a place that black magic hadn't been before that.
It was a very big stage we were. Rapping on to and that even if. You know regardless of how we did with that camera, which I would say we did well and have continued to do well with that camera that was going to change the way that people looked at cameras in that space forever. There was never no one was ever going to be able to say well I'm going to buy this other camera and not say but how does it compare to what a black magic is doing over there?
Right and that's a really cool thing to be a part of when you know, you know when you can actively say this is a moment in time. We are helping shift this industry what we believe for the better. The users out there and how much and how much was that camera? The price point was also another big thing $3,000 I want to say is time there.
So it was it was it was but there's a lot of things that go into the thought of what we're doing, right? And and and when you look back at that camera, it was the idea of and we need to be able to convince someone that using a DSLR already why they would want this camera. Look it's using the same EF glass.
You probably already own you're interested in doing better post-production work anyway, Uh, this is the camera that's going to give you got more a post-production friendly or flow having things like prores having things like raw capabilities that you don't have on your DSLR. If you're really serious pursuing the you know, the cinema style of uh of post-production heck we're going to give you Dimension resolve as part of that package because we want to pull you into the abilities that resolve offers.
Um, And kind of Step Up your game that way and and it was a great opportunity for us to help pull people over there. And then at the same point, I remember like one of those first conversations at NAB talkin to us cinematographer and then going look I'm still going to rent that other camera package for that week long BMW shoot or whatever, you know commercial work on going to do but this is the camera I can own for the other three weeks of the month where I'm shooting my Independent films where I'm working on my pet projects, you know, these are the this is the type of product that I would want to to have.
So, you know, we left that NAB feeling like we had ticked off a lot of the boxes. Now, of course, you get lots of other feedback like well, you should have done this and you should have done this into the mat. That's great. We want that feedback. That's what's helped us. These last five years continue to refine our camera development shape the products that go every year and you know every year you've seen kind of new developments from Black Magic, but that's another big shift.
When we started coming out with more cameras people were like, how could you make another Camera 12 months 18 God I know you kind of go. Oh look black magic tends to pursue a model. That's more like say your cell phone or your graphics card, you know, you don't necessarily buy a new graphics card every year just because there's a new graphics card.
It's more powerful. Maybe there's new features. Same can be said for your phone. If you want to great if you've got the capability or you've got the return on investment. We would say look we hope that $3,000 camera has served you well for the last 12 months or 18 months or two years. You don't have to buy the new Earth's of mini or the new Ursa Mini Pro or the new pocket Cinema 4K, but you know, you spent twelve twelve hundred dollars or $2,000 or $5,000 at some point.
You're going to decide you want to make that step just like you wouldn't figure cell phone. I may not upgrade my cell phone every year. I may have graded every three or four years, but right that's much different for a lot of folks that were coming from that market where you buy a DSLR. You use it for the next five years or ten years because maybe they haven't come out with so many quick things or if you were going to buy a uh, a higher-end cinema camera.
It's an investment that clearly you're going to hold on to for five years years and maybe you would sell it and you get some type of return on that. Well, that's not really the Black Magic model. The Black Magic model is going to be we are going to price that thing as afford as humanly possible so that we can get out to the most people we can possibly get it too and we're right back into the kitchen to work.
Something that's going to be two years down the road. You know, hopefully even better maybe you need it. Maybe you don't but you know, we're gonna continue to push to get engineering done because you know, that's what's going to best serve our customers. Well one thing I love about um, working with black magic products is that you are the only company currently that has the full ecosystem from camera to final deliverables, uh and post-production and so on.
Um, you haven't done lenses yet, but I'm sure that's probably. Right always discussed definitely, uh trepidation. It's along with that a tough. That's a tough one to crack. I've seen many I've seen many companies come and go in the lens game. It's a really tough tough place to go into but with DaVinci Resolve, you know, first of all, what made you guys go after a color grading system, which is basically the color grading system that cost $300,000 before and then now buy it and then basically give it away.
So there's lots of I mean look like everything in life a lot of things come down to opportunity right recognizing what the opportunity is when something does come across your way. For some of our products you can look at say like live production switchers and you can say that something that was on black Magics roadmap at that point in time when the opportunity to go out and buy a collabo company that did switchers came along.
So you say great that makes sense. Let's get it that's uh closer to Market to do that than to continue. The development that we're already working on DaVinci was probably a little different DaVinci was our first acquisition. Um, obviously it was a time when we were growing we had made that clings.
We had moved in the converters and. Video problems and we were thinking about what our future and how to diversify uh was going to be. And Along Came this opportunity for us to acquire DaVinci. And you know as you say, you know, the Vinci was kind of like the Coke brand of our industry, you know, it was such a absolutely and when you when you walked into a post-production facility if they had a color grading a sweet usually was like the Crown Jewel of the facility and you know, it was a lot of times in Hollywood was DaVinci and you know was just kind of this amazing.
Um, Product that was out there that was was a big standard of Hollywood essentially and um, I remember trying to explain to you know, like my mother and people that aren't part of our industry and it was right at the time when uh, when uh Disney had bought Marvel Ryan I said imagine if Marvel bought Disney it would seem weird and I think in our industry people were like, how did Black Magic this company that makes very nice widgets and I say that lovingly doing just fine selling widgets products.
How are they buying this company DaVinci, which is this, you know, 25 something year old. Company that's building these you know, half-million-dollar million-dollar systems. You know, what are they doing? And that was a large leap of faith. I think for us to go in and say like look this is what we could do.
If we do this and you no hear me out because it sounds crazy, you know, we could um, we could continue to be a great partner to partner to all these software planners that are out there because obviously we were partnered up with you know, all the guys out there making software, but we also take a bit of control of Our Own.
Destiny by doing this because we can have a software platform that we can build around that we can kind of have as a piece of a workflow. That kind of fits into our vision of where we want to go as a company and you know, what ends up happening there is you end up not necessarily being completely beholden to other partners that you may have.
So again, we want to we want to have that great Partnerships with. All the other software platforms out there. It's incredibly important for us to make those declan's and Ultra Studio products work with those companies to make sure that our cameras, uh have great work flows through all of their platforms, but we're also not completely beholden to you know, like well if they if they were to go away or if they were to withdraw support from us as a company, you know, we're not left out on an island.
And so it was it was good for us. Um, but we also decided. You know look this is going to continue with our mission of being able to provide. These incredibly uh, powerful platforms and solutions to as many people as possible. And um, you know, clearly when you look at what we've been able to do with that over the last eight years, you know, it feels like we've Advanced I think we've Advanced back Mission along, uh, considerably well, you might have a little pat on the back for that one.
I ain't no I mean what you guys were able to do with resolve. I mean, I was one of the I think I was one of the first guys to jump on seriously as an editor on it, uh a few years ago because. Uh, when you guys switched it over to think it was the 12 or to 12 5 when editing became a really or 11 even but I think 12 is when it really kind of took off.
Um, it was a really solid nonlinear editing system. When I edited my first feature on it, then I did huge shows and you know Hulu shows and um other big projects on it and then I started preaching about I'm like guys you don't understand this is amazing and I started like preaching from the top of the of the of the Mountaintop.
Like everybody it's free jump on it and if please use this and then it's just been getting better and better. Um, it's fascinating what you were able to do with that software. And now I swear to God when I when I showed up to NAB actually I got the email a day or two before I flew up to NAB that then you have now added not only color not only sound but you added Fusion.
And that and that goes back to building out that platform to be as the best platform. It could be and I think there's two important points that you know, we always try to kind of reiterate the folks is that you know, we want, uh, like I said, we want to work with everybody out there, right? So if someone comes along and says, look, I'm using this other camera.
We want to say great we've got resolved. It's a great platform for you to use if someone comes along and says, look, I'm married. To this other software platform. That's what I use. We say no problem. You know, we've got these declan's for many converters or camera has a great workflow, you know part of the great black magic plan has always been don't force people to use what they don't want to use right don't use proprietary media.
Don't use proprietary lens choices Don't say Great once you've gotten into our solution you have to use all bar solution because that's not what anybody know said nobody ever know buddy boy. I hope they. Me to use everything that they make because that's just disastrous and we've seen it be disastrous in our field and we've seen it be disastrous and other fields.
So we want to be really upfront about the like look you love your product other brand product by all means if we can make that work within our ecosystem. We want to make that be the case and if you want to stay in a black magic ecosystem, these are goal. Like what you should be able to buy a camera from us use DaVinci Resolve use our.
Hardware um, you know stay across that platform use all that, you know as much black magic product as you're comfortable using with hopefully will provide a lot of incentive to do that price will be one of those other workflow capabilities will be others but look don't feel like we're going to come and say like that.
Well, you're not a true black magic person because you know you decide to use that other product like they are just tools and we all recognize they are just tools and look we want to obviously do well as a business getting those tools out there, but you know, we we don't. Little bit forcing people to stick within an Eco structure is is going to lead to that.
So, you know that is a big piece of what we do, but you know how great is it to be able to go to one software application and say look I've brought in my uh, Blackmagic camera files with a prores Iran and whether I'm one person and I've got this one tool to go. Yeah, great edit color VFX audio, you know basically don't have to worry about conform where everyone pulls out.
Yeah. And be done with it or you know, I'm a post-production company that says look I can have multiple people working on the same product at the same time. Same project on the same product at the same time and I again don't have to do the conform where again everyone loses their hair and is up at 4:00 in the morning.
Wondering what's going to go wrong next like these are great workflow benefits of being able to have that so, you know, we feel like not only did we just go out and say like look we're going to take this great platform and and give it away, you know, we can actually do something. Not been done before right and put this all into one tool do it.
Well and and and hopefully, you know, the fears are always like look don't add this in suddenly make color be terrible or you know, like don't try to overdo one thing. So we you know, we've had to take it slow. Like I said, you know, 11 12 12 everywhere between 14 to 15 was not that slow because I just updated it to 14 and then all of a sudden I'm like son of a doubt just got 50 literally like within.
Month when I updated it and it is Data so it's still still exactly but it goes back to what I said is like we're never going to stop or rest on our Laurels and and and do that kind of like cool. We're done now. Let's just collect checks the next three years and just. You know kind of messes with the plan like it's always going to be about us going.
Okay, that was cool. You know, we when you go to a show like NAB, like I said, that's where you get all that grave feedback. This is amazing. But you know, what else you could do? Oh, yeah, you're right. That would be cool. How cool would that be if we did that or you know, we still like how many of our Hardware products have we gone out more like.
We're building all these racks. We're doing all this live production stuff. Like why do we keep buying these other audio switch? Are you no audio monitors that aren't made for video either expensive and be I can't select What You Know audio tracks? I want over the SDI. Yeah, we build that like I mean we are, you know granted champion of like the nerds in the workshop that are just going like this is cool and we can do it.
Let's do it, you know business model. Okay, let's figure out what that is. Okay, cool. That should work. Uh, but you know for us it's about kind of. It always comes back to what's best for the users if with we think this is a good idea because we would want it or we're going to use it or we think it empowers more people and that's pretty good.
Like let's start there instead of you know, how do we build a really expensive camera like that's useless. Like there are other folks out there to do a fine job with that. You know, how do we sit down and say how do we build the best thousand dollar cinema camera, which was that first pocket camera.
You know, how do you how do you do that? Like, what does it take? You know, how. Much. Can you shove into a product like that and still make it be great at $1000 and proper much and profitable. Well, that's a much different approach than we built this product. How much can we charge for it, which is a very typical kind of uh manufacturing approach to things.
So it's just a very different. Way by Magic approaches a you know, Building Products Building Solutions and hopefully helping what we consider the most amount of users out there what I find fascinating I have told this to people a lot since I've been, you know working with you guys over the years is like you are the biggest mom-and-pop operation I've ever seen I mean, it's just like you have that mom-and-pop beautiful like small.
I mean like, you know, I I can have access to I can get access to Someone Like You uh, you know, there is no big. Towers everyone's just like this small little Community but it's not it's a massive competition and look to be honest like it's hard like these are hard things to do and there is a reason why you don't see this, you know out there often because as a company grows, you know, you get more people you have more processes you have more things and the risk ends up being there that you you.
Kind of get diluted from your main goal. What is the thing was the main goal to be stuffed full of bureaucrats to make things be easy. Is it about uh, you know profitability and how much money can you know, we're all going to drive, you know fancy cars and have oats and whatever that what is the actual goals and the fact that black Magics been able to maintain that goal of empowering the most users out there.
That's the single focus and the you know, the thing that drives us every day and the rest of it becomes a look. Let's make sure that look we obviously want to grow and we do have to have processes and we do have to have profit and those are the things but that's not actually the first of all the first goal is empowering people and then down the list becomes.
Okay, let's make sure that this process makes sense and is efficient because that efficiency is going to help us keep. That cost down but that is an incredibly difficult thing to do and and and look I'm glad to Black Magics grown the way it's grown. I'm glad it didn't grow necessarily overnight, you know, because that obviously would be you know, like jumping into cold water, you know, just just shocking we've been able to kind of have that organic growth that's allowed us to stay focused on what we're doing to still have that kind of like you said sort of mom-and-pop feel even though the company has gotten a lot bigger because.
The core values in the company are still there and um that hunger to still. Succeed at whatever level of success you want to kind of put down there whether it be growth or whether it be empowering people or whether it be, you know, just building out a product line that we think is exciting. You know, those are the things that keep us kind of keep us going and and the other stuff important obviously want to keep the lights on that's great that is important part of it.
But you know, all those other things have to be about does that help Empower more and more users out there now are what are some of the. Television shows that use Blackmagic cameras because I think a lot of people don't realize that you've at the highest levels. Yeah. I mean the thing that's hard with the camera stuff is that you know, uh, you know, I'm not the store name dropping but you know when you go into a major.
Production company that does Hollywood type stuff, you know, I can think of a distinct example where we're sitting there and they're showing us these tests and they are so thrilled with how the Blackmagic cameras are standing up to, you know, the very expensive cameras that they they use on on all of their Productions and they said look, you know, we we do this because um, You know we have you know being who they are, you know, of course, they can afford to use whatever camera they want to use and they'll say look we're going to use brunette continue to use those cameras because we can on all of these highest level things but you best well be sure we're taking Blackmagic cameras on every one of those shoots because the last thing we want to do is put that camera in a situation that you know, it shouldn't be in whether that be in a tight corner or in a car or in danger zone where we can use those Blackmagic cameras almost.
Flippantly because they're almost disposable at that highest level. Um, but at the same point when we have, you know, smaller projects, they can be a cameras and we have other behind the scenes things we can use them for all of that. So, you know, that's how they generally get used on the highest level.
And when I use a lot the Mad Max example of you know, of course, they used to think it was too Ari's as their primary Hammer all depends all the things were doing with a beautiful press story. You can find our website about this but they use some 30 or 40 other Blackmagic cameras. Because the last thing they want to do is run all of those stunts over and over again, you know, a lot of those are we're doing this once let's put all these Blackmagic cameras out there because they cut so beautifully when they do if they camera ends up getting blown up or run over Hollywood person is not that concerned about losing their $3,000 camera at the end of the day, right that's craft services for five minutes.
Exactly. They're not worried about that at the end of the day. They have so much footage to then be able to pool. They can run that very expensive stunt. Once in the cameras are just a very small small piece of that and that's a great example of at the highest level. And why would they not want to use other beautiful expensive cameras?
They're all custom to it that give them everything in more than they'd ever want, but they can use our cameras in ways that um really give them new capabilities that they would have had before now when you move back from that you start talkin about television and work when you talk about commercial work when you talk about you know, and that's where you start seeing all the.
Magic Camera starting to show up as a cameras and Commercial work and you know, that's that's always exciting to be but you know, what we're always excited is when it suddenly becomes and when you walk I remember well gosh, it must have been 12 boy for three four years ago now going into a university bringing whatever the latest new camera we had and having the university Professor talking to his group of film students and going like how many people were familiar with Blackmagic cameras and every film student puts their hand up and he says, does anybody have a black magic?
Literally half the students raise their hand because they had pocket cinema camera and they had Cinema cameras and even the professor was blown away because that's such a big change for that ownership of a professional camera, right? You know, these are the things that when we look and we say like, you know have cameras been successful.
Yeah, look, I'd love to have the next Marvel movie be all shot with Blackmagic cameras that be great from just again calling up my mom and telling you know what she still does. She's still not impressed with you because still will never be impressed. But you know for me to be able to walk into that University or that film school and say hey how much black magic stuff do you use and they say well I own this camera and I've been learning on resolve and I you know, I've been working on these other products and you go like well that's amazing because that's something that you know again 12.
Ago. You said that's a goal that's a real goal for us to have because that's going to be what helps continue to empower more people go back to that mission statement every time and be going to help the brand going forward because uh, you know, when those films students graduate, you know, they're going to be very comfortable with, you know, black magic as a company as a brand and you know relate to what we're trying to do and that's incredibly empowered incredibly important to us.
It's what you've been able to do with like. Resolve where you're giving it away You're basically creating a generation of filmmakers who are going to be using your product. Just like Final Cut did back in the day when it first came out like that's what because when they were students are when they were coming up when they moved into, you know, full-blown facilities or into bigger companies.
They like hey, uh, why don't we set up DaVinci Resolve? I did that specifically when I I grew up and I grew up. I was an avid editor then I jumped the Final Cut and then. Moved into a studio job. I was head of the deposed apartment and they're like, well we want to get there was one old Avid. I'm like, well, let's set up Final Cuts and and I set up in like 10 Final Cuts for the price of one Avid and they were like, oh my God, and I know that's exactly what's going to happen and is happening today with resolve and then also the cameras and all the other things that you you guys do.
So it is quite genius. What you doing? It's a it's a um, you know, we talked we talked internally look short term long term know what are our plans but our hope for we trying to do when the, you know a few of us kind of think about. Where where the ship is going grants got both hands on the wheel and he's swerving lefties foreman right now the conversations about okay.
What's what's the plan here, you know obviously goal is to empower people. How do you do that? Right, you know, it sounds great. You know, we're gonna we're gonna win we're gonna be successful. How do you and there's the long-term plan in the short-term plan. The short-term plan is. You know, we're going to build X Planet.
We're going to have this launch. This is how we're going to package. These things is how we're going to get out. There isn't going to be efficient and all the doing that long-term plans. How do you be a company in this industry that has had major, you know strangleholds on certain segments by certain brands.
How do you. How do you become someone that's visible at that level as some of those folks that have been around 20 30 40 years as a brand. Um, and how do you do that in a way that can be both disruptive because obviously you can't just come in and be nice but how do we do that without necessarily making everyone your enemy and that long-term plan has to be about that.
Look we have to play nice with everybody we have to be open. Um, you know, we have to obviously have. A stick, you know if the stick is just be very affordable or give it away or whatever, you know, like these are these are important to being able to to differentiate and again, hopefully creating workflow advantages.
Look we don't just build a product because we want it to be inexpensive, you know, that's nice. Uh, but it also has to do something. You also have to do something better than what's already out there. So, you know, these are the type of conversations and we have and we say, look should we build the result?
Affordable panel and for a long time we didn't think that was worth doing because there are great panels out that are very affordable by other manufacturers and we said look we can focus on building other things work on cameras work on switchers because those guys are doing a great job there. Now a couple years down the road you kind of go and you say, you know what those are great panels but one of the things about those other panels is they're great because you can use them for any application out there.
That's kind of the great part about them. The problem with that is is they don't become a resolve specific. Panel, so what we can do is we can create the best result specific panel and that's what led to those micro and mini panels to say amazing. So they are amazing panel for resolved. We're not pretending that they're great panels or anything else.
Those other panels do a great job of that. But here's how we can do something that differentiates be empowers people and see really helps fill out. You know a piece of the overall workflow, but that's kind of how some of those processes come around. Everyone comes in and says again with the lens is a great example.
You should build lenses. Yep. That sounds great. If we could build the really affordable lenses that be awesome, but what do we actually going to do that's not been done there other than being affordable like that may be enough on its own and those are those are the conversations that we wrestle with and say, you know what next?
What are the next? See? We're gonna say all the SS book magic into. And uh and you know, hopefully change our industry, um, you know, it's hard it's tough and it's part of, you know, part of the big the big picture that we're always trying to to look at. So what the speaking of uh, disrupting and the SS black magic and and and and and changing the industry.
Let's talk about the New Black Magic pocket camera because. I I saw it I held it. Uh, we spoke a little bit on the floor about it. I just literally finished shooting my second feature on the original pocket camera, uh, and it was wonderful because I love the look of that super 16 sensor. It is such a unique.
Look that there is nothing else in the marketplace like it. So but of course the one thing that everybody always said about the pocket camera was like oh if you could just be 4K. Yeah, I mean, so this is one of those this is again one of those like, um, You know you get to NAB and people like you know, what you guys should do.
Of course. First of all, let me get out my notepad real quick cuz I want to jot this down. You're the only one who's everything is coming the pocket camera and and look I say that very lovingly. They want that feedback from folks, but and we would tell that. Very passionate individual that I always have to remind our team like it's great because so many people want black magic and succeed how fortunate are we as a company that people come and they they like I love what you're doing and I can't wait for you to make more stuff and I want you to be successful and even people that say I don't use your ex product.
They're like, I I'm so happy with what you're doing because you're changing this case. We are so lucky to be in the position worrying where people are literally cheering for black magic and wanting us to be successful. How we are helping them and helping change industry back to the pocket for camera.
We would tell that very impassioned person that came to us. We say look we get it like we understand why we want it but you know, we had made this production camera 4K that kind of feels like about the smallest we could build the 4K. Camera at that point in time. We know we're not so sure what else we can do or we could add to that.
And of course this is, you know, four years ago three years ago. Sure in about two years ago. You start going. Okay, look we could we could actually do this like we can get in to be a bit smaller, you know, what are the other things that we could do that would improve upon this and it takes it takes time, right?
It's not like we mean is as magical as black magic is it's not like we can just you know, anything out of anything like it does actually take. Um and resources and developments and Technology to be able to do it. So, uh, you know, when we finally kind of started going like look we worked on building smaller.
Kind of electronics, you know, you see some of these crazy little uh, you know, micro converters and Ultra Studio Minis and we have worked on building smaller products and getting compact down and dealing how do you deal with heat and dissipating heat? Um, you know, obviously as Black Magic Grow, we were able to add more engineers and bring more Talent omits able to help with all that so it's not just a.
Like Google, let's get back in the lab and one guy comes out like it does take time. It takes those developments to get done. So we started building what became the pocket Cinema Camera 4K and and you know again when you do have the ability to kind of sit back for four or five years you're able to kind of say, okay cool.
Like, you know, we've Advanced some of our menu systems. We need an advance some of our, you know recording capabilities. Like I said some of the Heat. Things that were concerns when we had not been sure about how to make it smaller and and even still, you know, we're having conversations. D'azyr Lee as I think maybe the beginning of the year going and this is the kind of things when you know, like you're probably very fortunate to be in a situation.
Like should we call it the pocket camera so, you know like the biggest problems you're worried about right, you know having a discussion about like look, you know. You know, like I said, we had started out with that original pocket camera, you know, how do you build the best thousand dollar camera and we're starting to look at this counter going like look this is maybe not gonna be $1,000 like, you know, again, we want to keep the lights up and keep all the brilliant Engineers paid the building products sure very 95 is gonna be a bit tough.
And you know, what are we gonna charge for? You know, we want to you know, we want to get as many of these out there. We don't want price to ever be the reason why someone can't buy a black magic product and should be 12.95 should be 1495 is 1995 to. Eventually the conversation you're having as you're getting it out the door because the price was never really the first problem.
The first problem was what how we going to build this amazing product keep it as low as we want as far as cost can be and eventually that's how we got that. We eventually said, you know resolving come down to 12 295 because that's how we roll and we said well, we're not going to do 995 settle on 1295 and we'll give them resolve for free which we had not given on the pocket camera and that became a very unkind of agreeable line.
Us to be able to stick to so, you know, it's it's the same it's true 95. Yeah. Look, it's always that there is the internal wrestling that goes like yeah. Should we have charged 1495 for that would be an extra two hundred dollars that would basically go to help pay for engineering you wonder would we sell less if we did or would we sell?
More at 1295 and you know, these are these are the question that we do wrestle with but at the end of the day it goes right back to that first mission statement, which is how we going to help our users the most and if we stick to that. We feel that we're more more right than wrong. Most often. So becomes a fallback kind of for us in a lot of ways what I find fascinating about the pocket camera is I do believe out of all the cameras that you've created and you created the Earth and they are some Minis and so on, uh that have been disruptors this product specifically when I first saw and heard about it and like this has the biggest potential to be an absolute industry disruptor because.
Basically, finally giving a DSLR style camera or size of camera, but with raw capability and prores capability which does not exist. Yeah at that price point, uh is in San giving them a free editing software color after they're gonna want that if they're going to be doing any type of overall workflow and you're right.
It is something that you look and you say that is why the price is so important because you want to make that. Right that threshold get this product as low as possible Right you want to make it so that um people look at it and they'll find faults because there's no perfect product out there and they'll say well I wish I had this I have my own wishes, but at 1295, are you willing to overlook that because where else are you getting this kind of price performance not in a product and then and then like in the again why these pricings are so important to us.
Once they do that and then hopefully they open up resolved and they see the some of the benefits of the workflow and then they think about maybe I should get a deck point guard Ultra Studio product to get you know, a video out of the computer into a monitor or in if I have other things I want to get input and you know, and that's how someone becomes if they hadn't been familiar with the Blackmagic brand.
That's how they become familiar and they and they start looking at what we have to offer and hopefully have that experience that says look there's a lot of great things here and and. Never going to claim any one of these products do the same thing that before T thousand raid dollar ones do but there's a reason those products cost at a mountain.
That's great. They should that's what they cater to and they sell 10 or whatever. I don't know what the reason why that model exists. Our model is going to exist to go out there and empower the most amount of people possible with the hope that they're going to turn around and say I got this amazing camera.
I got this free software. Let me buy some converters. Let me buy some Declan car at me when we look at these other products and. The men and wow now I've got this one company that really is helping me and giving me the choices that I don't seem to be able to find elsewhere and hey look Alex seemed to have worked out pretty well.
Well here you guys have been doing good. So basically your products are like door busters on for on Black Friday, you know, but everybody every product is it's like and we've got you now, we've got system. Look at you with the $10,000 a year support contract. We what exactly did this come from.
That's exactly. Every product is a door buster and then So that's its it's genius and then how you guys are still alive and functioning as a company at these boys that goes back to the business end of things about efficiencies, like don't don't stuff yourself with a bunch of bureaucrats and everyone has to be.
Really doing you know, no one can hide it black magic, you know, you hear about these companies where it's like well, I'm employing number 39 thousand seven hundred and twenty-two and what do you do? Well, I have copies hours a day great. No one can hide a black magic because we everyone has to be efficient all of our how we build things how we develop, you know, uh, how we do everything has to be super efficient.
Now, sometimes that comes around where people don't understand, you know, Hollywood customer comes around and says, well what what's my price and you say well, it's 1295. It's the same price as the film student that's trying to scrape together the money to buy their first professional camera. Well, you know who I am.
I don't know man when you get on Southwest you just decide to pay more money so that you can you can write any there have those things out there. But you know, this is the this is the world of democratization and look, you know, everyone pays edu pricing. That's that's that's how we're rolling a black man.
Yeah. I've heard stories off air which I won't repeat names but. Been very famous directors who just like don't you know who I am. Like that's nice. Um, it's 1295 and then like you just made 20 million on your last movie. Can you afford it? Yeah and the problem and the problem with the Hollywood and this is what happens with there's a reason why the Vinci was in the situation where they were in they were catering to Hollywood.
They were Building half-million-dollar Systems and those 10 customers. Using that number because couple you know those 10 customers would tell them what to do. They would struggle to get it done. They would sell one or two systems and that was the business model a problem is no one wants to spend a million dollars anymore or even a half million dollars anymore.
And what we what the terrifying thing for those customers when we did we did when they said you're going to screw everything up by giving it away for free or a thousand dollars or whatever. They perceived it to be it was a you have to realize. You guys are not funding the development that's needed for this application to be successful.
And what's going to fund the development for those applications to be successful is all of these other users. So yes, we realize it's terrifying that we're putting professional color grading software into everybody's hands out there, but you know what? That major film is not going to go to buckos Color Grading Company out in the middle of Noah, they're coming to you because I trust you and your service and you have all those Billet but and look you guys want more.
Capable colorists and and uh people to come to you to work for have that Workforce that's never going to happen. If there's just this Elite product that no one can touch and use but these are the things that you know, like I said, we have to sit down and say look we're gonna Empower users check check that box.
You know, how are we going to make this be as efficient as possible so that we can build a user base we can have we can't just ship a hundred of these things. We got to chip 100,000 of these things to make that. Working it has to be incredibly efficient, but that's how these last 12 within before I even I was here 15 years for black magic has been you know, building a business exists like that and that's very hard to do if you're.
One of those companies that is also in that South Hall or other Halls at NAB and you go. How is this company going to be here in 10 or 15 years? They've built a business around selling what they sell at a model that they have. How do you turn that tank down the winding road and say no, we're gonna do it all over again and give it away for free like that kind of has to be built from the outset or you have to have you know, massive Revolution from within and that's obviously.
That's why I say this is very hard to do and look someday when the black magic book it's written, you know, maybe people will appreciate it more for what it all is but you know, uh for now we are just happy to see the success of the products out there. You know when you again see it may use by Hollywood user or when you walk into that University and the students say, you know, we are so glad that you guys are doing what you do.
You know that that's you know, that's what makes us say great back to the lab. Let's get on with. Building more great products. All right, so and thank you so much for being on the show. I have a few questions that I ask all my guess is gonna be kind of a speed round if you have all right. What advice would you give a filmmaker wanting to break into the business today other than buying black magic products, you know, one of the things that I realized actually doing this job and that I tell filmmakers today is you know, the only thing that separates you from that other successful person you add allies is the fact that they've done it and you haven't yet.
There was a time where I thought look, you know someday. Uh, someone's going to realize I'm a fraud. I have no idea what I'm doing, you know, I don't have any of the same skills that other successful person that I idolize is and you realize once you kind of start breaking through but that's totally a load of crap.
Uh, the only thing that actually separates you is the fact that they've gone and been able to do it. And you have done that yet. So obviously it takes hard work obviously takes discipline to do but that's it. That's it's not that they're brilliant. It's not that they got some special formula. Looks involved.
There's other things that are in there, but you actually have to go and do it. So don't be discouraged by the fact that I'll never be able to be a filmmaker or an audio person or a post production engineer. Whatever that dream. Is it just the only thing that separates you from the person that at that level is the fact they've done it.
So just go do it fantastic now, can you tell me what book had the biggest impact on your life or career? Play book. I don't I got dumped just Audio Man like audiobook then but yeah, I had read a lot about I can't pull anyone up being I had come from music. I had read about a lot of um, you know, composers and musicians throughout history that and so even as I transferred into video like that last bit of advice.
I just remember thinking about the troubles and the tribulations things, especially, you know, when you think about musicians in particular the struggles of. No, I'm not really having a lot of money or obviously lots of folks went through, uh, you know drug and alcohol abuse and the struggles they went one of the reason why I decided I didn't really want to pursue that lifestyle and that's still the same in video.
But, you know reading the biographies of so many people out there and the troubles it makes you recognize that you're not. You know, you know, you're not unique so flake, you know, everyone's got their struggles. Everyone's got their challenges. Um, you know, it helps you kind of say look. All you have to do is is kind of keep going keep reaching and keep at it and you know, that's the plan to be able to get there because if you don't you just won't get there.
What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film industry in your business or in life? Don't be afraid of admitting failure because failure is a part of growth and when you're young. You're so worried that if I do this and I do this wrong and I'm going to fail in everything is going to be over.
Uh, and when you're very young real like if you really think that like life is over and as you get older you realize that that is just all part of the process. So, you know, hey, that didn't work out the way I want. What can I learn from that? How can I do it better the next time and again just get on to the next time and three of your favorite films of all time.
Oh boy. Yeah, I mean look, uh, you can't I cannot ever leave like an Empire Strikes Back the list, of course completely, uh, uh revolutionary, you know, just change how you saw film. Um, you know, Godfather probably to is got to be up on that list, too. Um, Man, you know, here's a weird one. I remember being a little kid and watching Ice Pirates was such a great film.
I like and I think it was at that age where it was just like, uh being the scifinder that I was like, she must have watched that film literally three thousand times because it was just I don't know my parents probably didn't even know that I was watching it that many times but I just remember being a you know, a 5 or 7 year old kid and Jessica.
Yeah, totally not on the normal list of film. Films that remind me if I if I touch that now I'd be like this is terrible. Oh can't you can't have to live in your mind. You cannot go back in my mind. As you know, just something that was very formative as what Adventure meant to add to that list of those kind of movies ice pirate movies Time Bandits is right there, um crawl horrible terrible, but again like.
You know, there's a lot of things that I think I can look back and go like, you know wasn't Voltron and amazing cartoon you go back and look at it. Like it's not the same tropes that every things have look at the time you go like this is amazing and and and that's part of what kind of eye for me built in that sense of adventure that sense of creativity and you know that I mean, even if it's not something that you carry with you day today that is still part of what you who you feel is you so look sometimes you can't deny it.
Just got to embrace. And you know work with it. And now where can people find more about more about black magic. The best place is to just go to our website, which is. Thought Blackmagic design and there's a lot of stuff in that website a lot of stuff you can dig through in there. If you've got the time patients in energy Dan.
Thank you, man. You've been an absolute pleasure to talk to you an inspiration. And again, thank you for doing the good work that you're doing over a black magic with uh with all of those amazing people that work with you. No problem. Alex happy to speak with you anytime. I want to thank Dan for taking the time out of his busy schedule to talk to the tribe and really just give us an insight to what they're doing and how they're doing it and I I don't know about you guys.
I am super excited about the black magic. Pocket camera 4K that's coming out in the fall. I got ready got pre-orders for it because I think it's going to change filmmaking in general. I think it's going to do what the DSLR did when it came out for filmmakers because now you're going to be able to get.
A much cheaper DSLR as far as cost is concern but have much more capability much more power than a lot of those DSLR cameras out there now by be able to shoot raw Pro apple prores raw Cinema dng files as well as slo-mo with I mean, it's just has so much stuff and for 12.95 plus a free copy of DaVinci Resolve.
You can't beat it. So again, I'm always a champion of anybody that was is. To give power to the people who are able to put tools in Creative people's hands that would not be able to afford them. Normally. That's why I'm such a big fan of the company and what they're doing and their whole mentality behind what they're doing.
So then thank you again so much for being on the show. And if you want links to everything we talk about in this episode head over to indie films in the show notes. I have a link that you can download DaVinci Resolve for free. I have a whole bunch of episode. And videos are discussing why I edit.
Strictly on DaVinci Resolve now, and I do all my post production Through The DaVinci Resolve package. It is insane edited two features on it three television shows and it's worked like a charm and if you haven't already, please head over to filmmaking podcast and leave me a good review on iTunes.
It really helps out with the rankings and helps us get more and more filmmakers getting this information. So thanks again for listening guys. And as always, Keep that house with going keep that dream alive, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the indie film hustle podcast at indie film hustle.
That's ilm.
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text:
package com.example.hotel.dto;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import lombok.Data;

@Data
public class GuestsNumberHistoryDTO {

	private List<Integer> numbersOfGuests = new ArrayList<>();
	private List<String> numbersOfGuestsLabels = new ArrayList<>();

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Is Obama Really Winning the Economic Blame Game?
Mr. Law said Crossroads research suggests that Mr. Obama's campaign has started to gain traction among critical swing voters by arguing that Republicans, including Mr. Romney, favor an "economic plutocracy" in which middle-class voters can no longer count on financial security, even though they work hard and play by the rules.
This is nothing new. Even at the low points of Obama's presidency, voters have said they personally like him, but that doesn't mean they think he deserves another term. Whether voters admit it in focus groups or not, they tend to place responsibility for the economy on the incumbent. There are instances when they do not, but I can't say whether liking the President's personality or hearing a lot about his opponent's wealth creates them. So what might Crossroads be seeing in its data?
Here's what we know: Incumbents like Reagan and FDR escaped blame for bad economic conditions when they quickly became less bad — it remains unclear whether that will happen this year — and in circumstances where there were other targets for voters to blame. During an era of divided government, Presidents share blame with Congress for domestic policies, and Obama has a massively unpopular federal legislature to help him shoulder the burden. During the Great Recession, voters in OECD countries have also tended to mitigate their judgment of an incumbent when global factors, rather than local ones, are perceived as dampening the economy. Much of the bad economic news of late has come out of Europe, and if the U.S. economy takes a dramatic turn for the worse before Election Day, it will almost certainly involve the euro zone.
But I think the lingering specter here is George W. Bush. In a January poll, a majority of Americans (54%) still put more blame for the state of the economy on George W. Bush than on Obama (29%). Independents blamed the former President by an even wider margin. Obama spent a lot of time talking about Bush-era policies during the latest two election cycles. It worked against McCain, but it flopped miserably in 2010, when months of "put the car in D to go forward, R to go backward" culminated in a Republican sweep of titanic proportions. Of course, that year, Obama wasn't on the ballot.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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How can I be more descriptive about actions and events in my game?
Whenever I'm running or playing a game, I consistently run into an issue of setting atmosphere. I've realized the best way to do this is through more effective, engaging descriptions of settings, actions, and objects that the characters see and feel.
As a player, I feel that my actions are generally "I attack the goblin," or some variation thereof, but I'm afraid that I'll stumble over my words and further confuse the other players and I'll resort to "I attack the goblin" as to not drag the game out longer.
As a DM, my issue tends to be more with setting atmosphere with settings, locations, and objects. Effectively, the flavor texts that comes with walking into some amazing location that the characters (not necessarily the players) should be suitably impressed by. My goal here is to engage the players with some degree of spectacle, and be more inquisitive in their environment and whatever lies within it.
How can I create more descriptive, concise flavor text for the games I play in?
SevenSidedDie
Nameless NickNameless Nick
\$\begingroup\$ Related, possible duplicate: What techniques can I use to improve flavor text? \$\endgroup\$ – SevenSidedDie May 3 '14 at 21:05
Some Strategies for 'Descriptive' descriptions:
Write down the colors/textures/scents that would be seen/felt/smelt:
The Crimson blood drips from the ceiling turning black as it splatters on the ground.
The coarse rock cavern echoed your smallest whispers, distorting them as the sounds return to you amplified.
The putrid decay assaults your nose, penetrating your taste, even making your eyes burn.
Replace 'feelings' with 'facts':
The impressive majestic mountains: => The snow capped ancient and jagged mountains.
The immense city: => The sprawling city's winding roads hint that you'll never explore every street.
The grand view of the ocean: => White caps blow salt spray that shimmers a rainbow blinding as the sun itself.
Replace ANY instance of the word "IT", "THERE", "THEM", etc. with the actual "IT".
Write down the phrases you develop (as above) for the session so you will not forget them.
Another helpful hint is to engage the players to help make the world descriptive when the scene needs development. Be sure to record the players response so they can come back and have another drink there and find a very familiar face.
"You walk into the bar": => "Whats the name of the bar?" => "The laughing dog!"
"Your served by the bartender": => "Whats the bartenders name? => "Randy" => "What does he look like?" => "Fat and battle scared."
"A fight breaks out": "Out of the corner of an eye you spot someone grab a bottle and smashes it over the counter and cuts the persons throat he was having a drink with! What do you do?" => "Turn the table over and pull my sword", "Grab a chair and throw it", "Hide in the booth".
Always be willing to take a 1-5 minute break and gather your thoughts, its better to be a little bit slower and more descriptive then fast and vague.
Hope that helps a bit.
roscoe_casitaroscoe_casita
Treat places like characters, and word your descriptions with that in mind. Have them act and do things, things that matter to and concern the PCs. Use verbs. When stuff gets animate(d), it becomes interesting, more meaningful, and usually also more open to engagement, be that positive (helping) or negative (an obstacle to overcome by the PCs.)
"You're entering the land of cold, ice capped mountains."
You feel being watched by the ancient, white peaks. Their immense, stony arms seem to reach for you, as if to pull you in and drown you in the icy waters of their myriad tiny lakes, to trap you with root and gnarly branch, and feed you to the nameless beasts roaming their shadowy sides.
"The beach is sandy, with a clear blue sky above, and warm waters."
As you walk down to the beach, a warm breeze welcomes you, a kind servant of the endless waters that murmur softly in their sleep beneath the soft blue horizon. The sand seems shifting here and there in the rising heat, as if it was contemplating hiding or revealing pictures, paths that you may or may not want to walk... or that someone you possibly know have left here.
As for descriptions during combat: stay brief. Combat is fast and deadly. Otherwise it's not really combat, is it? Sure, you can (and sometimes should) vary the pace, put emphasis on more important movements by giving them a longer description. But "The goblin attacks!" is fine. Especially if you raise your voice a bit. Don't be afraid to get a bit (but just a bit) more agitated while DMing combat: instead of wordy descriptions, let your voice and body language convey the stress of the battle. Keep the description brief. [shout:] "Aaargh!" [normal:] "The goblin tries to stab you again! [imitate stabbing with a gesture]; "A gurgling splash of red. His head rolls off!"; "The orc's blade tries to claw your heart out!" You get the feeling... I hope. ;)
OpaCitiZenOpaCitiZen
Combat can be slow as it is, don't bog it down with flowery language
Your impulse to impart descriptive interest to your actions and attacks is well-placed, but you most approach it with the right mindset. When your DM is accurately describing the locals, an important and interesting NPC, or a new race of creatures you stumble upon for the first time they are world building and seeking to impart to you a sense of where your character are and who they are interacting with. The GM is basically doing long, lurid establishing shots with his words. You on the otherhand are in charge of your character and only your character. Rather than trying to showcase impressive vistas, you're trying to communicate the physicality and style of your character. You're the 2nd unit director, covering only the action and your words should be short and to the point
Tips from Screenwriting
The screenplay format is incredibly constrictive in how you use words because they need to effectively communicate scenes and camera movements as succinctly as possible. A page should equal 1 minute of film time. As a result screenwriters regularly use easily read, short syllable words that can effectively communicate as much as possible in as little space as possible. When I was first learning to write screenplays under my professor Ian Abrams he stress the importance of having a wide and simple vocabulary to draw upon and always writing in the active present tense.
Your Example: "I attack the goblin"
In a Novel: "I feinted to the left, moving my sword to the right and struck at goblin with my sharp blade, bringing it down over head repeatedly"
In a Screenplay: "I hack and hew the goblin"
Both the novel style and the screenplay style describe similar actions and tell a much more interesting story than the example you gave in the question. The difference is that the screenplay example communicates it with 5 monosyllable words (except goblin). Focus on brevity and impact vs. pure description. Your actions are only part of the fight, only have them take up a moment so the focus can quickly cut to the next player.
Joshua Aslan SmithJoshua Aslan Smith
My quick and dirty rules on in-game description.
Use all five senses
Don't just "describe a picture." Not every time - but remembering to toss in sound, a smell, a taste, a feeling, adds a lot more. You want the players to feel like they are there, and "the sun is bright in the sky above a sandy beach" is less immersive than "the sun beats down on you as you slog through the sand of the endless beach."
Also, remember to include motion. Movement of waves, grass, people. etc. reminds the players at an instinctive level that the world is living and breathing and going on even without them interacting with it.
Don't just tell them "it's raining" or "it's hot." The rain stings your skin, or there's a pleasant warmth making the smell of the foliage rise up around you.
Keep some brainstormed adjectives around and nice turns of phrase you want to use sometime. I frequently will see some weather or landscape or similar and write down a 2-sentence description to use at some later time.
Be Clear
For clarity, though, don't go crazy with the adjectives and adverbs. Concentrate on the verbs and put important things either at the end or the beginning, don't bury them in the middle (of a sentence, or worse a set of sentences). Remember that actually conveying information is the goal here, and PCs can be cross about having to ask "Wait, what do you mean it's on fire?" even though "you told them..." in the middle of some big ol' infodump. The classic mistake of reading a paragraph of boxed text about the inlay on the fireplace before you find out there's a crazed owlbear in the bedroom is unfortunately common. Lead in with the most important and notable aspects, and bring the rest out over time. A PC looking for situational advantage can always ask for more room description past "owlbear!" as needed.
This is a game - so there are some things that if not mentioned, aren't just lost color but will P.O. the PCs. So many folks don't bother reviewing stat blocks (and cast buffs and whatnot, esp, in prewritten adventures) and note that this ogre is wearing platemail and has an ioun stone whirling about his head. That's "you should have told us that 101."
It can be better to choose the one right word rather than layering on other words. Adding more adjectives to "I swing my sword" is worse than finding a more specific, vivid single word to replace "swing."
Be vivid but not lurid
It's easy to go overboard. We are playing through the Carrion Crown adventure path right now, and in an attempt to make it all "Gothicy" they go way over into purple prose on the room descriptions. "[5 sentences of description...] Whispers skitter like bats' wings through the darkness..." Those who didn't catch all the boxed text are confused about "there's not bats?" for five minutes while we and the GM roll our eyes. So describe, but get to the point quickly. You don't describe in an RPG the same way you'd describe in a novel. Readers have no choice but to wait till James Michener's happy ass gets done describing the turtle crossing the road, but your players generally would like to do something themselves.
Also, try not to info-dump. Rather than five sentences of "boxed text," give them one and then intersperse the other four into resultant descriptions of the PCs interacting with the world; this makes the additional description seem like a reward, not a startup cost.
Use metaphors
OK, with the previous point in mind, it is good to use figurative language and metaphor, it's just so easy to go overboard or to trot out all the usual cliche ones. But this is how you also use the description to set a mood, from jovial to horrific. "The darkness watches you from three identical doorways" indicates to PCs to increase their pucker factor above "There are three identical doorways; you don't see light coming from any of them."
mxyzplkmxyzplk
\$\begingroup\$ Are you sure about 'lead in with the most important and notable aspects'. even when no immediate action is required? I find if you say "you see a swamp; there is the sound of something moving in it" your carefully prepared description of the sounds and smells will be ignored or missed out entirely as the players ask "Wait, is it big or small? Coming towards us?" Better to have the sentence they will react to at the end of the description. \$\endgroup\$ – TimLymington Apr 29 '14 at 8:45
\$\begingroup\$ That's why I also say "put important things either at the end or the beginning"... \$\endgroup\$ – mxyzplk Apr 29 '14 at 11:57
When I am preparing descriptions for locations I usually start with a mental image of the scene where the PCs first see that location. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, once I have that scene firmly in mind it becomes a lot easier to describe.
"A low wind whispers through the cemetery, bringing the dry rustle of dead leaves to your ears."
"As you enter the room the air smells ancient and stale. A thick layer of dust lays over the floor and furniture, undisturbed for countless years."
"The mountains loom above you, their slops bare and their peaks glinting like a diamond in the afternoon sun."
"The bazaar is a riot of motion, colors, smells, and above all noise as vendors hawk their wares, customers haggle, and children run laughing and screaming down the street."
Combat is a bit trickier to describe, but I would agree with others and say that brief descriptions of the action are best. I usually base the descriptions on the type of attack and the end result.
Melee attack misses the AC by a fair margin: "You swing your sword, but the goblin is able to easily duck under it"
Melee attack just barely misses AC: "Your sword connects with the soldier's side, but is deflected by his armor"
Melee attack hits but does low damage: "You swing your sword and manage to cut the bear, but his hide is thicker than you expected and you barely scratch it"
Melee attack hits and does high damage: "Your warhammer connects with a solid crunch as the enemy fighter lets out a grunt of pain"
For ranged attacks I would do something similar, while emphasizing on where the arrows struck. Low damage might graze an arm, while high damage would penetrate a leg and a killing shot pierce the throat. Describing magic attacks takes a bit more imagination, but thankfully most of the spells come with a description you can use as a guideline.
Personally, I would encourage my players to be descriptive when describing their actions in combat, as long as they keep it reasonable. "I do a triple forward handspring into a standing backflip, then dropkick the guard" is maybe a tad bit too much for a single attack, even for a Monk. But "I stab the wizard between the shoulders while he is distracted" is a simple and flavorful way for the Rogue to describe a sneak attack.
As a final piece of advice I would say that reading in general will help you with your descriptions, and reading fantasy in particular is a good way to see how professional storytellers build atmosphere and describe combat.
D.SpetzD.Spetz
Description is one of my weaknesses too. I have no problem imagining how things look, but fail to pass that info to the players.
Here's how I dealt with it. I actually did this for all my description, not just action scenes.
Write it out in your notes. That's all.
Basically what I realized is that description is not something I improvise well. But if I have it in my notes, I have no problem supplying it. It's just a little reminder.
What I'd do for combat is write out some description for each attack option an enemy has. The more interesting an attack is, the more description. Put that in the NPC notes, right next to the attack option. Cross out a description as you mention it.
Sword. "Takes a swing", "Steps inside your reach and thrusts", "Flails wildly". Once daily power (or system equivalent). "BBEG closes his eyes and inhales deeply. When his eyes open, the whites are gone. He turns to face $paladin and let's loose with a savage series of blows."
Etc. (Okay, that last one was pretty over the top. I hope you get the idea though.)
valadilvaladil
The rules that I write here are my guidelines when I describe things in my games, they are by no mean the definitive rules or the ultimate guidelines. I do hope that they will help you, though, so without much more ado let's dive in.
The first thing that one should consider is the different types of things to describe. Each one of them carries a different type of description, and although most of them are kinda close to each other, there are still a few "types" that stand out.
Location description
Describing locations is probably the most common type of description in games and stories. This is the type of description that literally builds the picture in the players' heads and should be addressed as such. There are a few rules that I follow when I describe locations, which I covered elsewhere (this topic also has a few more great suggestions and guidelines that one should consider…), but can be summed with these: 1) Include no more than 3 details in the area, and 2) Limit your description to 20 seconds or less.
A nice suggestion that I read once, is to give an adjective or an adverb to each and every noun or verb that you use. I t may sound as a lot, but it is much easier than it seems.
The short man went quickly to the cheap diner.
Is much better than:
The man went to the diner.
It is as simple as that.
Action descriptions
This is a little bit harder to pull rightly, too much and it drags the game and too little and there's no picture in one's head, we're back to miniature games. For me, the guidelines depend upon the length of the battles in the game. If the battles are short, I give about a sentence after each action. If, on the other hand, they are much longer I keep the descriptions to special occasions.
I heard a great GM who said once that he comes with three action descriptions for each and every battle- a critical hit by the monster, another one for when the monster is defeated and a third one for one of its special attacks. He said that players will want to describe their critical hits for themselves, and that critical fumbles draw their description from the situation, so coming with it ahead of time won't be half as good. I, for once, bring more descriptions to the table, but it surely influenced the actions that I describe with greater detail.
A few general add-ons
With that being said, there are a few other things that should be mentioned, but due to them being relevant to both types of descriptions I'll just write it here. The first one is that one should use all five senses in one's descriptions. Being so hard to pull, I usually come to my games with a list of the five senses and in each description use at least two of them. Then I mark the senses, so I know that in the next description chunk I should come with another set of 2 senses.
Another thing to consider is a trick that I learned from "Alice in Wonderland". When Carol describes the tea party, he starts to describe the things on the table and then comes with "…and all the other things one expects to find in a tea party". This was like a revelation for me, as this is one of the easiest ways to keep the description both short and full of all the details one needs.
Lastly, I generally ask my players to add things to the scene, to describe certain aspects of the world for me. It does for me two very special things. The first one is that it creates a greater emotional bond between the players to the world- they created it too, after all. More than that, though, it gives me an excuse to make longer descriptions without them noticing. I can describe more things and to a greater level of detail in my 20 second-chunk.
YosiYosi
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