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Jason Scott is such a weird and wonderful person. I highly recommend watching BBS: The Documentary. Episode 8 was especially interesting and moving in a way I

Jason Scott is such a weird and wonderful person. I highly recommend watching BBS: The Documentary. Episode 8 was especially interesting and moving in a way I didn't expect. I would say, in brutal honesty, the production values are (unfortunately) low, but the content is pure gold, and well makes up for it. So my thanks go out to Jason Scott and the small crowd of computing historians he unofficially represents. As a modern software and hardware engineer, it is both a joy to watch the old, and a comfort to know our work of today has a chance of being preserved in the years to come.

textfiles 12y ago
Nope, I'm going to do it, I'm going to focus right on one sentence and ignore all the compliments. The BBS documentary was shot across 4 years on my own dime (no crowdfunding, my family helped pay for the camera) and traveling to 20 states, from 2001-2004, and then released in 2005. (10 years ago). This means some footage was shot as long as 14 years ago. "Production Value" is a very specific term - it is almost always used to indicate skill or attention to the final product. All along the way for the BBS Documentary, I had to make choices. Remember, the Canon XL1 I shot with cost me $4000 in 2000, when it was bought. And instead of going with a handful of people, say, under 15, to tell the whole story, I chose instead to interview 201 people. This meant that sometimes in a single day I'd drive to up to 4 different homes, with miles between them, set up all the equipment myself, conduct the pre-interview and interview, and then move on to the next location. In one case I drove 500 miles to grab an hour interview with a figure who had popped up, and then drove back. This was before DSLR became prominent, before HD was the norm. I could have gotten a full crew, but everything else would have suffered: the breadth of subjects, the locations, the variant voices. It's a choice I'm fine with. I recognized, after BBS Documentary was done, that I'd want to move to HD, but in 2006, when I started filming GET LAMP, that cost me $10,000. I paid larger numbers for the new movies - $20,000 for the DSLR equipment. (Both GET LAMP and the new films are crowdsourced, based on the reputation of BBS Documentary.) Choose your words carefully, please. I'll take "Dated", I'll take "SD", I'll take "Videotaped", but please don't imply I didn't sweat bullets over every aspect of the production, and that everything in there wasn't a best-of-all-circumstances choice made with the intent of finishing a project that many (at the time) thought was impossible.
- rwallace 12y ago
  As someone who liked your documentaries, I think you're misinterpreting the previous poster. 'Production values' doesn't refer to skill or attention - those qualities are clearly present in your work. It just refers to those aspects of a work which are simple functions of money spent. To say your work has low production values, then, just means you clearly didn't have a large budget, which is true but nothing to feel bad about - you did a great job with the resources you had.
  - textfiles 12y ago
    I'm hoping that's the case, and I'm sure I'm oversensitive on this topic. It's just that subject was particularly important to me, and any impression that I didn't care so much about capturing that story before the chance to get the story was over just makes me over react.
- rattray 12y ago
  "High Production Values" implies, to me, cameras that cost many tens of thousands of dollars, several cameramen, dozens of other crew, etc. One person working extremely hard for many years with the most expensive cameras available on a high personal budget speaks _quality_ to me, but I would still use the phrase "Low Production Value". So I'd use that phrase reverently in this case, not derogatorily. It's pretty awesome to hear the backstory too, so thanks for sharing =) I think I have a new documentary to watch! EDIT: In other words, at least to this layperson... > "Production Value" is a very specific term - it is almost always used to indicate skill or attention to the final product. ... isn't true for me. I use that phrase to refer to budget and equipment, not skill and heart. I think the same is true of most other people outside of the film world.
  - fpgaminer 12y ago
    Yes, I think you express my meanings clearly. Now I feel bad, because I had hoped to make Jason Scott's day better by recommending and praising his work, but I think I ended up making it worse :(

textfiles 12y ago

Nope, I'm going to do it, I'm going to focus right on one sentence and ignore all the compliments. The BBS documentary was shot across 4 years on my own dime (no crowdfunding, my family helped pay for the camera) and traveling to 20 states, from 2001-2004, and then released in 2005. (10 years ago). This means some footage was shot as long as 14 years ago. "Production Value" is a very specific term - it is almost always used to indicate skill or attention to the final product. All along the way for the BBS Documentary, I had to make choices. Remember, the Canon XL1 I shot with cost me $4000 in 2000, when it was bought. And instead of going with a handful of people, say, under 15, to tell the whole story, I chose instead to interview 201 people. This meant that sometimes in a single day I'd drive to up to 4 different homes, with miles between them, set up all the equipment myself, conduct the pre-interview and interview, and then move on to the next location. In one case I drove 500 miles to grab an hour interview with a figure who had popped up, and then drove back. This was before DSLR became prominent, before HD was the norm. I could have gotten a full crew, but everything else would have suffered: the breadth of subjects, the locations, the variant voices. It's a choice I'm fine with. I recognized, after BBS Documentary was done, that I'd want to move to HD, but in 2006, when I started filming GET LAMP, that cost me $10,000. I paid larger numbers for the new movies - $20,000 for the DSLR equipment. (Both GET LAMP and the new films are crowdsourced, based on the reputation of BBS Documentary.) Choose your words carefully, please. I'll take "Dated", I'll take "SD", I'll take "Videotaped", but please don't imply I didn't sweat bullets over every aspect of the production, and that everything in there wasn't a best-of-all-circumstances choice made with the intent of finishing a project that many (at the time) thought was impossible.

rwallace 12y ago
As someone who liked your documentaries, I think you're misinterpreting the previous poster. 'Production values' doesn't refer to skill or attention - those qualities are clearly present in your work. It just refers to those aspects of a work which are simple functions of money spent. To say your work has low production values, then, just means you clearly didn't have a large budget, which is true but nothing to feel bad about - you did a great job with the resources you had.
- textfiles 12y ago
  I'm hoping that's the case, and I'm sure I'm oversensitive on this topic. It's just that subject was particularly important to me, and any impression that I didn't care so much about capturing that story before the chance to get the story was over just makes me over react.
rattray 12y ago
"High Production Values" implies, to me, cameras that cost many tens of thousands of dollars, several cameramen, dozens of other crew, etc. One person working extremely hard for many years with the most expensive cameras available on a high personal budget speaks _quality_ to me, but I would still use the phrase "Low Production Value". So I'd use that phrase reverently in this case, not derogatorily. It's pretty awesome to hear the backstory too, so thanks for sharing =) I think I have a new documentary to watch! EDIT: In other words, at least to this layperson... > "Production Value" is a very specific term - it is almost always used to indicate skill or attention to the final product. ... isn't true for me. I use that phrase to refer to budget and equipment, not skill and heart. I think the same is true of most other people outside of the film world.
- fpgaminer 12y ago
  Yes, I think you express my meanings clearly. Now I feel bad, because I had hoped to make Jason Scott's day better by recommending and praising his work, but I think I ended up making it worse :(