crew Why is it so difficult to find collaborators for a project?

[Nate North]

I have to assume that I'm not the only one on an independent film form that wants to make an independent film. If you've ever tried making one, you know that it's nearly impossible to have any type of success without a larger group involved. My question is, why are people uninterested in joining teams or groups? As a lone individual, your fate is sealed, if 1000 of us worked together, there is no question we'd get something published. I bought a product yesterday. 12 people got together and worked full time on it for 3 years. It was great, I paid full price for it. They now have funding for the next product, and everyone is happy and headed for a profitable carreer in the industry.

Here's the clip I watched about their team and project. It's just a simple top down shooter, innovation level 0. It was great, no issues, everyone is happy.

I live in a small town, and neighborhood garage bands are common. People get together and practice for years, travelling 50 miles to a practice spot, to split up 200 dollars a gig, once they are good enough. They spend thousands each on equipment, and hundreds of hours just getting to that point, and everyone shows up for that.

If people are as passionate about making film as they say they are, why is the willingness to team up and commit so fractional in filmmaking, compared to music, which is arguably hundreds of times easier to succeed at (at least in terms of getting a set written and playing it for an audience)? Do you think it would be strange to watch 6 people collaborate and spend for years to build a lemonade stand, and then go over to a skyscraper construction forum and find everyone trying to do it solo with no money?

 

[Nate North]

Nate's project is unique. He markets it as something bigger than a film, a project that is ongoing, and can be a springboard for careers (according to video promos). One where you can join and receive help on your own projects as well. So I think his surprise in low join rates is not that people don't want to help him, but that people don't want to help themselves by joining this new idea. I think that is where he is at, but he can correct me if I am wrong.

That is exactly it. I try to just ask general questions and listen to the responses, but on occasion my emotional nature gets the better of me and I start ranting. I was never a very "Professional" person, and always favored genuine friendships, and when I was younger that worked well, but 20 years down the timeline, I'm a bit out of my depth trying a cold approach to a world I hardly recognize. As a kid I would go down to a local coffee shop, and reliably leave with a new friend or two, until I was one of the most popular and well known people in my city. I went back to that same coffee shop 20 years later when I came home, and all of the tables where people once gathered to meet had been pushed into seperate corners. Each one was populated by a single person, eyes locked onto a phone screen. Any attempt to meet a new person was a forced interruption by a stranger (me) rather than the old way where I'd join in a conversation already taking place.

I guess that's why I like this forum, in it's way, it feels a little more like what I'm used to, a place where people get involved in conversations that consist of more than a two sentence tweet about a celebrity. I've recently tried going to the new types of forums, discord channels, etc. Frankly, I've been horrified. Aldous Huxley never had a fever dream this bleak.

This was roughly my experience going onto the new style filmmaker forum, a discord channel with almost 400k members. I thought maybe I had found a place to meet other filmmakers.

Hey I'm new here, does anyone have any interest in working on a project? We could get together and make something great that we were all proud to be a part of!

answers -

You are a SCAMMER

lolzzzszzZZZZZ, 40 year old grampa want to be like make a prujekt, so stoopid

You didn't make no project, you are a fake looser

(post meme of frog face)

(post meme of dog face)

another person joins the conversation to add their 2 cents

UR dum - Nobodddy gone joine up on your stupid thing, you need to vest up on cripto

you want to buy some zerg coin

another joins

No man you need to frunk up on that slork coin, slork is du bombz

(post meme of elderly woman getting hit by a car in a parking lot)

Another joins

I have my own project sir, would you be interested in joining it?

me: what is your project about?

(posts meme of a guy farting really loud)

first guy posts again: I just doxxed you, you aint no project, you just a SCAMMER trine to get us go your web site

me: This is a filmmaking channel with 400k subscribers right? Am I in the wrong place. Is there a filmmaker I can speak to?

them: Try your scam somewhere else, we done seen your fake video that you stole, you didn't make no video, if U made a video that good you would already have money to hire people, I drew a stick figure on an NFT and now I gotz a Lambo

another guy: I have 7k in Florktron coin, you can clang me on telegrak, and I'll send you 500k to start your project. U just tranz me your SS num and I make send it

someone tries to start a new conversation:

U gize see that nu logan paul video? He just got a million dollars in donations, it was tre flang. He straight punched this lady in the face while she was trying to go into a hospital, U shud subscibe that, he aint popular enough for how good he is

(posts meme of ferret screaming)

me: am I the only sane person in this entire room

(guy posts meme of carrot top falling off the stage during a show)

guy posts again,

Sorry gotta go, buying another house with my erklocoin73, U Dum film scammer grandpa

Anyway, after that experience I came back here. lol.

 

[Scoopicman]

Nate, I've read a number of your threads and posts, and I still don't know what your project is about. It's nebulous to me. The only thing that sticks in my head is that you are looking for people to help you, but I never remember what you are trying to do.

People like succinct and defined, like a movie log line. You need to be able to say it in one sentence:

"I would like 20 filmmakers to each make a 5 minute short that we can stitch into a feature."

"I need actors and talent to collaborate on a comedy series."


When you can briefly define something, people "see" it. Hence, they may be more inclined to be a part of it. Also, in both of my above examples, there is a benefit to the collaborator; they're not just holding up your greenscreen or light stand, rather they can see their part in the creative process. "One of those shorts is the one I made."

 

[Nate North]

Nate, I've read a number of your threads and posts, and I still don't know what your project is about. It's nebulous to me. The only thing that sticks in my head is that you are looking for people to help you, but I never remember what you are trying to do.

People like succinct and defined, like a movie log line. You need to be able to say it in one sentence:

"I would like 20 filmmakers to each make a 5 minute short that we can stitch into a feature."

"I need actors and talent to collaborate on a comedy series."


When you can briefly define something, people "see" it. Hence, they may be more inclined to be a part of it. Also, in both of my above examples, there is a benefit to the collaborator; they're not just holding up your greenscreen or light stand, rather they can see their part in the creative process. "One of those shorts is the one I made."

This is why I come here. It's like an oasis of sanity in a world gone mad. Thank you sir, thank you for just speaking in a coherent way that I can understand. You cannot comprehend my frustration at the world I encounter elsewhere.

I'm hearing you, and I'm listening to everyone with valid advice.

A lot of you have taken the time to try and help me, and I thank you for that, so here's what I'd like to do. A long time back, I posted a thread called What is Save Point. I'd like to take a lot of this advice, and try that again. Start over. I think I can do better this time. If that doesn't work, I'll run the cycle again, until I have triangulated in on something that does work.

To those suggesting that I quit, I understand your concern for my welfare, or more likely your fatigue at watching me struggle with a problem any baby boomer could solve with 1% of their savings. Maybe you're right, but I'll never know.

Quit your job and go on a vacation because your killing yourself is not advice I can take. I'm a person imprisoned by poverty, and I see people every day with IQ's under 80, and they are free as a bird. The mayor of my town doesn't know how to type, and is a multimillionaire. His main platform that has earned him money and power is this. We have a jail here, and the state pays the city to imprison immigrant families that didn't have enough money to file their paperwork. That makes money for the town, and he is seen as a hero, with a mansion to show for his brave support for throwing poor families in the local jail. I invented a Turing test capable AI when I was 22. I can't come to terms with playing second fiddle to evil morons for the rest of my life. I'm not ok with being in the bottom 1% of earners nationwide. It affects every moment of my life. I used to be a happy person, and I'm not going to give up until I get there again. I've made a promise to myself to chip on the stone wall of my prison cell every single day until it gives, that's what's going to happen. I have had some health problems, but I feel the stress of my imprisonment is greater than the stress I'm putting on myself to solve it creates. Time keeps going by faster and faster, and at 40, people are already telling me I'm too old to bounce back. I know for a fact that they are wrong, but I also know for sure what they are going to say when I'm 50.

 

[Scoopicman]

A long time back, I posted a thread called What is Save Point. I'd like to take a lot of this advice, and try that again. Start over. I think I can do better this time. If that doesn't work, I'll run the cycle again, until I have triangulated in on something that does work

There you go! It's like re-writing a script. The first draft is so you can get the idea out of your head. That one's for you. The final draft is the one that beautifully communicates that idea to everyone else.

 

[Sweetie]

After reading your incoherent ramblings, I feel it's appropriate to say covid may have taken more of a toll on your mental health than you realise. It's a good idea for you to seek professional mental health help.

 

[StoneJack]

I have to assume that I'm not the only one on an independent film form that wants to make an independent film. If you've ever tried making one, you know that it's nearly impossible to have any type of success without a larger group involved. My question is, why are people uninterested in joining teams or groups? As a lone individual, your fate is sealed, if 1000 of us worked together, there is no question we'd get something published. I bought a product yesterday. 12 people got together and worked full time on it for 3 years. It was great, I paid full price for it. They now have funding for the next product, and everyone is happy and headed for a profitable carreer in the industry.

Here's the clip I watched about their team and project. It's just a simple top down shooter, innovation level 0. It was great, no issues, everyone is happy.

I live in a small town, and neighborhood garage bands are common. People get together and practice for years, travelling 50 miles to a practice spot, to split up 200 dollars a gig, once they are good enough. They spend thousands each on equipment, and hundreds of hours just getting to that point, and everyone shows up for that.

If people are as passionate about making film as they say they are, why is the willingness to team up and commit so fractional in filmmaking, compared to music, which is arguably hundreds of times easier to succeed at (at least in terms of getting a set written and playing it for an audience)? Do you think it would be strange to watch 6 people collaborate and spend for years to build a lemonade stand, and then go over to a skyscraper construction forum and find everyone trying to do it solo with no money?

I will be willing to contribute as much as I can. I can do some script work, also soundtrack work, if you don't mind guitar based music.

 

[Nate North]

I will be willing to contribute as much as I can. I can do some script work, also soundtrack work, if you don't mind guitar based music.

Thanks, I'd really appreciate the help. I actually play guitar on the project myself, though in many cases we use more conventional cinematic orchestra score. I'd love to show you around the project a bit if you have time. You can message me here, or just go to the discord link on the right side of the indietalk home page. We have developed a lot of assets to share (about 4,400 at last count) and I hope that we can find a way to help you as well. I recently made several music videos for crew members as an example.

 

[sfoster]

erk. This can be true in theory but in practice, it isn't the case. I knew someone who volunteered on anyones project who asked. He did this for years. He worked full time, but most of his spare time was spent on someone elses set. When he was putting his own projects together, no one was willing to step up.

I never said that people would work on your project if you work on theirs.
All I said was that if you dont want to work alone and you want collaborators, then volunteer to work on someone elses project.

The title is that its difficult to find collaborators for a project, but there are all kinds of projects that would welcome collaborators.
My fav living writer/director chris mcquarrie talks about this in some interviews online... he wasted like a decade of his life trying to get people interested in his projects after he won his oscar and he never gained any traction in all that time.

It's only when he set that aside and started working on other people stuff that his career took off again.

 

[NickClapper]

In my time (scarcely over a decade, so pinch of salt here) doing film (and other media) I've come to have a really good eye for people who are going to succeed. They need a mixture of qualities – talent, sure, but they also have to be in the right place at the right time, have the right attitude, have the correct balance of confidence without arrogance, and, most importantly, track their careers or projects through manageable, realistic steps. I used to run an indie filmmakers meet-up and mixer event here in London and I can tell you that 90% of people who came would just transparently not have what it takes. The most common issues were i) unrealistic ambitions that often involved wanting to skip several career steps, ii) delusional self-confidence, and iii) a reluctance to take other people's advice.

Part of the reason I stopped trying to make films a few years ago is because I knew that I suffer from i) – I want to do the exciting stuff now, and I don't want to spend 20 or 30 years building up a resume and connections and learning (yuck!) so that I can do those things. So I switched over to a different medium that gave me more immediate gains. That's just me.

I'm not trying to accuse you of any of these things because I've never met you – I can only guess at things based on how/what you post here. If you're struggling to sell your vision to collaborators then I suspect the problems are:

• It's such an idiosyncratic project, for which you have a vision that – no offence – you have struggled to communicate very clearly. It's obviously all there in your head but I don't think other people understand it. Almost nobody here on Indietalk seems to really get what you're trying for and we're all pretty literate in the language of indie filmmaking ambition.
• You come across as very defensive but, more relevantly, you never seem to admit to learning anything from anyone. You never say "that's an interesting point, let me think about it" or "good idea, I'll give that a try". You either defend yourself and counter them, or you say "I agree with much of that" or similar, so that you take ownership of the good advice. Rightly or wrongly, it makes you come across as arrogant and, I suspect, not a fun person to collaborate with.
• You have real faith in your project – great. Other people will not instinctively have that faith, and if you want people to give up time and energy for free, you need to sell them on tangible benefits. Like, for example, we'll have lots of fun and learn a lot. People can smell the bullshit of non-professional ventures claiming to have professional benefits.
• You may not like this, but I'm not sure you have the CV or showreel or IMDB page to be making any bold claims about your own experience. Be humble, start afresh; there are very few true indie filmmakers who aren't, at least to some extent, beginners. And people like humility – you can treat collaborators like peers, not like subordinates.

Anyhow, these are just a few thoughts and I apologise if they're harsh. I hope you take them as what they're intended – constructive ideas for how you might reboot your project/career. I don't live in California and I don't work in your creative area, so perhaps the answer is as simple as "go on Craiglist". But I feel like you're over-thinking this problem and treating it like it's some riddle to be unravelled.

 

[Nate North]

After reading your incoherent ramblings, I feel it's appropriate to say covid may have taken more of a toll on your mental health than you realise. It's a good idea for you to seek professional mental health help.

I think that one of the limitations of the written word is that you can't always determine the spirit in which they are written. I do tend to rant a lot, even angrily at times, but I find a type of humor in it that may not always come across to audiences. Was Robin Williams insane? Maybe a little, but I think that over time people came to realize that there was a highly rational mind behind what could have appeared at first glance as a multiple personality disorder.

If you actually got to know me, and had real conversations with me, I doubt you would feel that way. I'm literally one of the most logical and rational people you'll ever meet. I get exited and enthusiastic about the possibilities that are available in life, and I get frustrated as I'm boxed in on all sides by unimaginative people that can't see anything beyond that grey factory punchclock. I'm sure at one time people saw that punchclock as a "real job" and told the mentally disturbed dreamer Jonas Salk to quit fantasizing about finding some kind of magic "polio vaccine" inside of his microscope. Resources in my area are given freely to anyone with no imagination, and creatives are treated as second class citizens, at best. Yes, you may see me tearing my hair out once in a while, but I'm not sure I've lost my mind. I mean, I don't think an invisible person in the sky is sending me coded messages through an ancient book or anything like that. However, if I did, I'd have support, money, and no one around here would question my sanity for a moment.

As far as Covid taking a toll on my sanity, it has, but not in the way you likely think. You see, I used to have a lot of faith in the intelligence of other people. And during the last administration, and the covid pandemic specifically, that faith was shattered. I saw people you would probably call sane killing their own families because they wanted to go to a party, or because they wanted some money, or because they felt like wearing a 2 oz paper mask was "worse than Nazi Germany". I saw a reality TV star with severe narcissism and a very public penchant for nepotism and self aggrandizement become king of every scientific, intellectual, and military resource in the worlds most powerful country. Religious people who had spent their entire lives judging others for using a "bad word" suddenly began groveling at the feet of a man who didn't believe in their faith, and had once appeared on the cover of a porno magazine. Mike Judge, the man who wrote the film "Idiocracy" did an interview where he explained in a depressed voice that his film had come true, and that the world had become stupid and shallow in a way he had only envisioned as a joke or parody. I've watched over the years as the music awards became dominated by people that couldn't play a single note. I've seen professors of aeronautical engineering living in cheap apartments next to a mansion owned by a fake wrestler that dressed up in yellow spandex and pretended to hit people with folding chairs. What makes a person insane? Is it that there are fewer of them saying X? I remember that Copernicus was very much alone in his belief that the earth revolves around the sun. They say that if he hadn't died right after publishing his now famous academic papers, he would have faced a life of severe persecution from a religious populous that deemed his writings to be heresy, an affront to the "Smarter and saner" people they favored, who got their astronomy knowledge from the aforementioned ancient book of coded messages. Do you know how many people thought Joseph Stalin was a great man? A lot. Falling in line with conventional thinking isn't necessarily a good measure of sanity. The simple fact that people have repeatedly awarded horrific monsters like Stalin huge resources, and I have to struggle daily to try and bring some happiness into my life, and the lives of others, is a pretty good indicator that I can't necessarily trust the advice of others an matters of worldview.

I'll tell you the thing about mental health that no one ever seems to realize. Every person in this world is at least a little crazy. I've never once met a completely sane person. Maybe George Carlin. Maybe Joseph Campbell. Explain to me why I shouldn't be frustrated in a world where I've seen people that think the earth is flat given more resources that lets say, Norman Borlaug.

 

[StoneJack]

I think that one of the limitations of the written word is that you can't always determine the spirit in which they are written. I do tend to rant a lot, even angrily at times, but I find a type of humor in it that may not always come across to audiences. Was Robin Williams insane? Maybe a little, but I think that over time people came to realize that there was a highly rational mind behind what could have appeared at first glance as a multiple personality disorder.

If you actually got to know me, and had real conversations with me, I doubt you would feel that way. I'm literally one of the most logical and rational people you'll ever meet. I get exited and enthusiastic about the possibilities that are available in life, and I get frustrated as I'm boxed in on all sides by unimaginative people that can't see anything beyond that grey factory punchclock. I'm sure at one time people saw that punchclock as a "real job" and told the mentally disturbed dreamer Jonas Salk to quit fantasizing about finding some kind of magic "polio vaccine" inside of his microscope. Resources in my area are given freely to anyone with no imagination, and creatives are treated as second class citizens, at best. Yes, you may see me tearing my hair out once in a while, but I'm not sure I've lost my mind. I mean, I don't think an invisible person in the sky is sending me coded messages through an ancient book or anything like that. However, if I did, I'd have support, money, and no one around here would question my sanity for a moment.

As far as Covid taking a toll on my sanity, it has, but not in the way you likely think. You see, I used to have a lot of faith in the intelligence of other people. And during the last administration, and the covid pandemic specifically, that faith was shattered. I saw people you would probably call sane killing their own families because they wanted to go to a party, or because they wanted some money, or because they felt like wearing a 2 oz paper mask was "worse than Nazi Germany". I saw a reality TV star with severe narcissism and a very public penchant for nepotism and self aggrandizement become king of every scientific, intellectual, and military resource in the worlds most powerful country. Religious people who had spent their entire lives judging others for using a "bad word" suddenly began groveling at the feet of a man who didn't believe in their faith, and had once appeared on the cover of a porno magazine. Mike Judge, the man who wrote the film "Idiocracy" did an interview where he explained in a depressed voice that his film had come true, and that the world had become stupid and shallow in a way he had only envisioned as a joke or parody. I've watched over the years as the music awards became dominated by people that couldn't play a single note. I've seen professors of aeronautical engineering living in cheap apartments next to a mansion owned by a fake wrestler that dressed up in yellow spandex and pretended to hit people with folding chairs. What makes a person insane? Is it that there are fewer of them saying X? I remember that Copernicus was very much alone in his belief that the earth revolves around the sun. They say that if he hadn't died right after publishing his now famous academic papers, he would have faced a life of severe persecution from a religious populous that deemed his writings to be heresy, an affront to the "Smarter and saner" people they favored, who got their astronomy knowledge from the aforementioned ancient book of coded messages. Do you know how many people thought Joseph Stalin was a great man? A lot. Falling in line with conventional thinking isn't necessarily a good measure of sanity. The simple fact that people have repeatedly awarded horrific monsters like Stalin huge resources, and I have to struggle daily to try and bring some happiness into my life, and the lives of others, is a pretty good indicator that I can't necessarily trust the advice of others an matters of worldview.

I'll tell you the thing about mental health that no one ever seems to realize. Every person in this world is at least a little crazy. I've never once met a completely sane person. Maybe George Carlin. Maybe Joseph Campbell. Explain to me why I shouldn't be frustrated in a world where I've seen people that think the earth is flat given more resources that lets say, Norman Borlaug.

Hey don't give up, remember what Steve Jobs said
“Here's to the crazy ones — the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently — they're not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things."
He made his garage enterprise the most valuable company on Earth, after all, with this mindset , so a good example

 

[sfoster]

I invented a Turing test capable AI when I was 22.

What? you created artificial intelligence???

 

[Nate North]

@NickClapper

ok, kind of a lot to respond to there. lol.

From my experience with you, you appear to be what I would call "one of the sane ones"

What you have said here is well reasoned, fair to a large degree, and backed up by experience. You also lack my penchant for emotional responses, which does make your input much easier to read. Clear and concise I would say.

I'll try to respond in kind.

• It's such an idiosyncratic project, for which you have a vision that – no offence – you have struggled to communicate very clearly. It's obviously all there in your head but I don't think other people understand it. Almost nobody here on Indietalk seems to really get what you're trying for and we're all pretty literate in the language of indie filmmaking ambition.

That's a fair assessment. I discovered a path that I think is a solution to a problem I've tried to solve for a long time, and it's incredibly complicated. I'm a natively verbose person, and I could learn a lot from the people here, including yourself, about communicating in a way that's easier to parse, and therefore more effective. I'll try to improve my approach in the future, which of course is the goal any time you test an approach for feedback

• You come across as very defensive but, more relevantly, you never seem to admit to learning anything from anyone. You never say "that's an interesting point, let me think about it" or "good idea, I'll give that a try". You either defend yourself and counter them, or you say "I agree with much of that" or similar, so that you take ownership of the good advice. Rightly or wrongly, it makes you come across as arrogant and, I suspect, not a fun person to collaborate with.

I think that's a valid read on one of my more agregious personality flaws. I'm aware of it, I try to counteract it, and I'm learning. I am defensive, and I see it as a weakness in my own persona. I try every day to be better than I was the day before, and depending on my mood, attitude, and sleep amount, results vary. I appreciate your candid take, and I think that's good advice. No offence taken.

• You have real faith in your project – great. Other people will not instinctively have that faith, and if you want people to give up time and energy for free, you need to sell them on tangible benefits. Like, for example, we'll have lots of fun and learn a lot. People can smell the bullshit of non-professional ventures claiming to have professional benefits.

I understand what you are saying. But this point I do have to defend. There are significant and tangible benefits to working with me on this. It's simply that you don't really learn too much about them until you interact with me within the project. I see where that's a problem, and I should find a simple and easy to understand way to communicate those. I'll give a brief example. I've created and organized an asset pool of well over 4000 modular production assets for use by any team members. I know from years of experience what it's like to be stopped at every turn by the lack of such assets, and I'm trying to build something here that allows us to pool our resources in a way that's practically advantageous. In a very simple example, Save Point foley artists have immediate access to over 200 professional recordings of footsteps. Many scenes need these types of foley sounds, and we provide a library of them at no cost to any member interested in working on a scene. I personally spent many of my earlier filmmaking years getting very poor results, only to realize that I simply didn't have access to quality assets to work from. Many up and coming creators are financially limited, as I am now, and sharing assets is a practical and effective way that we can all help each other reach our potential. In addition, I actually sit down and teach people skills that they are interested in learning. I have never in my life found anyone that could be bothered to do that for me. If I see someone struggling with AE, or Davinchi Resolve, or 3ds Max, etc. I call them up, ask them if they would like some help, open a screen share session, and take hours of my time helping them get on their feet. I get accused sometimes of offering a one sided deal, but it's not the reality. I care about others and I understand their struggle. You just don't find that out until you take the time to work with me.

• You may not like this, but I'm not sure you have the CV or showreel or IMDB page to be making any bold claims about your own experience. Be humble, start afresh; there are very few true indie filmmakers who aren't, at least to some extent, beginners. And people like humility – you can treat collaborators like peers, not like subordinates.

I understand your comment, but in reality I do have a great deal of experience in some fields of filmmaking. I don't put every project I do on IMDB, and here's where I'm going to sound arrogant again, because a lot of indie film projects I've worked on have been embarrassingly bad. I have a feature selling on amazon prime right now, where I demanded to have my name taken off of it. The many others invloved in that project are incredibly proud of it, a 90 minute film filled with their cousins, and bland tripod shots of their living room. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I really can do better than that, and I just don't have the financial opportunity. I do publish what solo work I can and I invite you to judge me on any of that if you like. It's not amazing, but I've done ok sometimes within the admittedly confining circumstance of a zero budget, zero help situation.

Anyway, you have made some really valid points here, and I appreciate your input. I will try to learn from what you've said here, and implement changes that reflect the areas where your experience surpasses mine.

 

[Nate North]

What? you created artificial intelligence???

I created AN artificial intelligence. There are many variations that train models on various datasets to accomplish different tasks. I made millions of dollars by the end of the Mobius Engine project, but sadly infighting amongst the development team brought a premature end to a promising technology. I use GAN AI today, on the very project we're discussing, on a level I never would have dreamed possible as I put together a primitive expert system based technology in 1999. You can post memes if you like, but I bought a mansion and an Aprilia once from this development, so it was real enough for me.

 

[sfoster]

I created AN artificial intelligence. There are many variations that train models on various datasets to accomplish different tasks. I made millions of dollars by the end of the Mobius Engine project, but sadly infighting amongst the development team brought a premature end to a promising technology. I use GAN AI today, on the very project we're discussing, on a level I never would have dreamed possible as I put together a primitive expert system based technology in 1999. You can post memes if you like, but I bought a mansion and an Aprilia once from this development, so it was real enough for me.

Applying a neutral networks pattern recognition to a dataset is an entirely different thing than passing the turing test.
Just yesterday I asked siri to tell me I was pretty and she got all confused, she didn't know what I was asking.

but apparently you created something smarter than siri 18 years ago ...
pardon me for being skeptical but never in my life have I ever interacted with an AI that could fool me into thinking its a human

 

[Nate North]

Applying a neutral networks pattern recognition to a dataset is an entirely different thing than passing the turing test.
Just yesterday I asked siri to tell me I was pretty and she got all confused, she didn't know what I was asking.

but apparently you created something smarter than siri 18 years ago ...
pardon me for being skeptical but never in my life have I ever interacted with an AI that could fool me into thinking its a human

you make assumptions. the AI I created was not interactive verbally. It was a music AI, where we created an exhaustive tagging system to help the computer identify sound samples. as I said it was primitive by todays standards. it essentially worked in a similar way to a human DJ, normalizing tempos and constructing music based on compositional patterns. you could interact with it in much the same way you can interact with sylegan or similar. You could tell it to compose something with more blues, more techno, slower tempo, etc. It worked well. we considered it a Turing test capable AI because people could not differentiate it's output from human musicians. It passed for human on the surface. I wish I still had those recordings. It could write a pretty convincing blues album in about 2 hours. As I said, this was in 1999, and unfortunately, (or perhaps fortunately given how much I drank back then) media didn't always last forever like it does in the youtube era. Hard drives went bad, CD's were lost or scratched. I do still have the source code. You can see a very similar engine at work in the 2020 release "Fuzer" just took someone 20 additional years and 20 times the funding I had, and Voila! Except that ubisoft's version is missing the part that writes music on autopilot.

 

[CelticRambler]

I just live in a very regressive area ... I am literally the only person I am aware of in a two city area that aspires to any goal greater than just taking care of themselves, and I'm incredibly poor now.

Then it's not going to help you in any way to stay there. I work in several different parts of France, and there are some areas I refuse to go back to, because the local population is exactly as you describe. OK, not everyone, but enough of them to make it a miserable experience to work or play there.

People are as they are. As I've mentioned before, I tried to set up a project in the same spirit as yours - one where I'd provide the infrastructure and project management expertise. To get the pilot project off the ground, I needed a group of artists and craftsmen from my local area to act as ambassadors for the region, and a reasonable number of local artisanal and specialist food producers to commit to selling their product in the space I made available for them. I had thirty six artists sign up within a week; I couldn't get one single food producer to agree to come in at the start. Even when I pointed out that they could earn three times as much selling their stuff overseas, with no additional overheads on their part, compared to what they were getting for it in France, they just didn't want to know. "Maybe when it's up and running, we'll consider it ..." was the usual reaction. Without the "shop", the rest made no sense, so I paid off the lease on the premises and mothballed the rest.

To those suggesting that I quit, I understand your concern for my welfare ...

Quit your job and go on a vacation because your killing yourself is not advice I can take. I'm a person imprisoned by poverty

Quit? Who said quit? Taking a break is not quitting; and "going on vacation" is not the same as taking a break from it. You are not imprisoned by poverty - you're simply not seeing what options are available to you. Maybe - maybe - because you've allowed your bad experiences and negative thoughts about money and those who have it to overwhelm your thought processes.

In Germany, there is a tradition amongst craftsmen where - to qualify as a mastercraftsman - they embark on their "wanderjahre". They are required to leave their home town with 5€ ($6) to their name, take no mobile phone with them, not set foot within 50km of their home for three years, and when they return, have no more than 5€ to their name. If ever you met any one of these people, as I have, you would find them to be some of the most creative and resourceful people you'd ever come across. A few years ago, I gave a lift to a bedraggled trio (a tailor, a baker and a flute-maker) who had just walked through the snow, over the Jura mountains from Switzerland to Chambéry in eastern France ... because they were saving what little money they had for food, not train fares.

If you stay exactly where you are, do you think SavePoint will be a thriving community in three years' time? If you are surrounded by "regressive" people, and making no significant progress in bringing SavePoint to the world, what have you got to lose by putting on a pair of boots, getting the hell out of there and into a world where you'll have more chances of meeting people who might actually take more of an interest in what you're doing?

 

[Nate North]

Thanks for your reply. It's thoughtful and relevant. I think your experience there is a fairly close parallel to mine. I'm building an infrastructure system with the goal of providing universal benefit, or let's face it, as close as I can get to that in reality.

I wanted to reply to an earlier post, where you or someone else mentioned that all benefits wouldn't be equal. That's of course true, however, there are some things that I can explain simply that will work. Let's say that I can hire Sam Jackson for 10 grand to be a character voice in an episode. (not a real number) and I have 100 guitarists and editors and animators working on the project part time. I can hire him, increase the success potential of the show, and simultaneously every one of those people can go to their next film job interview and say, "I did some work on a show starring Samuel L Jackson" IRL, that sentence alone will go a long way towards getting a candidate hired, often simply because the hiring team remembers them better. It's hard to remember each of the 23 people you interviewed, but they remember "the guy who worked with Sam Jackson". It's basic, it's even stupid, but by spending 100 dollars per person, I can double bill that expense as a show improvement, and give each person an advantage they can take with them.

Advantages run a LOT deeper than that though. It's an area I feel like I need to explain, not to you specifically, but just in general. I've been on a very long journey in learning about film, and I look back and now understand so many of the things that perplexed me for years. Trial and error sounds great on paper, but I've found that you get the most experience gain from doing things the right way. Repeatedly trying wrong approaches does teach you things, but getting it right once teaches you way faster. Mentorship from a distance like you see on this forum accomplishes a little, but where you really gain traction is if you can sit down and work directly with someone more experienced. That's an opportunity I never had, and from what I see I think that's common. I try to do that with people. I'm not paying it forward, and I'm certainly not paying it back. I just feel like it makes no sense to waste years of their time to save hours of my own. I see the lives of others as equal in value to my own. Such a simple thing, missing from most of the world I've known.

Yesterday one of the project musicians sent me a track and asked me for a no BS opinion. It was bad, and I told him so, as nicely as possible. And in most setups that's where it would stop. I hang up the phone and he's sitting there thinking, oh, that's bad, I'll try "something" different next time and hope that works. But I already knew what was wrong and how to fix it. His problem was that he didn't have the right programs, instruments, etc to work with, and it was taking his good ideas, and turning them into junk. Even if he had the money to fix the problem, he would never have been able to find the name of the things he needed to buy. So I sent him a complete kit on the spot, all the information, the resources, literally everything he needed to permanently fix his issue overnight. His next product will be better, I don't have to hear it, I already know. I've been down that road, solved that problem, and there's no need for him to struggle for years finding it on his own.

A highly relevant issue you bring up is the imbalance issue. The people I'll need most are the people that least need me. There's a partial solution in place, but ultimately, there are puzzle pieces missing. Certain key roles early on require hard work by educated specialists, and while I've learned to fill many of those roles, like you, I'm going to need some of those food vendors, or all the artists in the world wont break even. I've recently found myself building skeletons, sewing dresses, wrinkling curtains, exploding buildings, and a lot of other physics simulation stuff that takes a lot of time and effort. I'll need a stellar recruitment campaign to fill some of those difficult and boring jobs.

About moving, and going on vacation. I think my earlier reaction to you and sweetie was a bit of a knee jerk affair. I'm actually sure you're right. I guess you'd have to know me to understand, but as much as I complain, I'm really exited about all this. There's just not enough hours in the day, and I'm trying to cram more hours into each 24 by getting people to join and work. Somewhere in my lizard brain, the idea of giving up work hours feels crazy. I should think about this more though, it's hard to fight burnout 7 days a week, and there would likely be real advantages if I eased up a bit, maybe cut it down to 50 hours a week or so. I don't have the money to travel, and I don't think the 6 dollar lifestyle is for me, but I could take some time and visit friends, or just play some golf. That's achievable.

I am tied to this area because my parents have become elderly, and they need me around. The other aspect is financial. I can't leave to find money because I don't have the money to leave. In example with some funding I could hire people to look after my parents while I spent a year assimilating into the scene in a larger city. The large team of varied specialists I need can't be acquired from any local source. That's why when you see a studio film, even based in LA, a creative nexus, there's a guy from New Zealand, a guy from Paraguay, and a guy from Texas, etc. The talent you need to make a film work well is typically drawn from a global pool. My real issue is that I can't get seed investment in a rural area, angel investors work with people they meet face to face. I never ever see the face of an angel investor now that I live in the Midwest. If I did get funding by some cosmic accident, I'd hire a guy in Spain, one in Poland, one in Germany etc. I mainly rant about my frustration with this area because there IS funding here, but it's rednecks funding rednecks, and absolutely no other permutation. To my knowledge no artist has recieved significant funding in my area, ever. If you want to buy a monster truck and your friend has a corn silo, you can go to your friend and get funding. Every scientist and programmer has long since left.

Anyway, it's good and interesting advice you gave. I wish I was younger or better off so I could hire someone to take care of my parents for a while so I could go hike across the mountains of Europe.

 

[indietalk]

Yesterday one of the project musicians sent me a track and asked me for a no BS opinion. It was bad, and I told him so, as nicely as possible. And in most setups that's where it would stop. I hang up the phone and he's sitting there thinking, oh, that's bad, I'll try "something" different next time and hope that works. But I already knew what was wrong and how to fix it. His problem was that he didn't have the right programs, instruments, etc to work with, and it was taking his good ideas, and turning them into junk. Even if he had the money to fix the problem, he would never have been able to find the name of the things he needed to buy. So I sent him a complete kit on the spot, all the information, the resources, literally everything he needed to permanently fix his issue overnight. His next product will be better, I don't have to hear it, I already know. I've been down that road, solved that problem, and there's no need for him to struggle for years finding it on his own.

A lot of us still don't understand your project or what the team does but one thing I did notice is an open call. There does not seem to be any vetting process or application process. All of your posts say come join a team. And your website allows anyone to join. So do you think you could have avoided this scenario with proper vetting? Or at least, been able to address the lack of tools earlier?

 

[Nate North]

A lot of us still don't understand your project or what the team does but one thing I did notice is an open call. There does not seem to be any vetting process or application process. All of your posts say come join a team. And your website allows anyone to join. So do you think you could have avoided this scenario with proper vetting? Or at least, been able to address the lack of tools earlier?

what happens is that you run into the vetting process upon response to the open call. And there's no need to avoid a minor problem like that, we just solve it. In this case the guy was using really out of date violin patches, and using them in a very basic way. That's part of the value here, is helping develop people. In this way we help them while they help us and both parties benefit. That having been said, the whole thing works best with intermediate level people who are having some issues on their way up the ladder. If someone knows nothing at all, they need a lot of enthusiasm and self motivation to join, since it would be too inefficient to raise creatives from the egg, but there are a ton of mid skill people out there that we can help, and that can help us. This was a perfect example, where this guy had gone to music school, bought a keyboard and a DAW, and was already on the path. But he was loosing paying jobs because his sound wasn't up to grade. Also, it wasn't up to our bar. So we solved both problems at once. Now he has a better shot with employers in the future, and we have a better team member. The open call is because I don't want to deter certain people. A girl just came in today, and said she didn't know how to do anything, but was ready to learn everything. We can provide benefit there from the sheer enthusiasm level. Anyone can be worth your time if they really care about making it!