@cnoellert - but why do something properly with best case scenarios, when clients are a bunch of cheap hack bastards that want something for nothing, fast…
I do it because it pleases me and simple pleasures can be hard to come by…
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i agree with outsourcing to a specialized vendor most of the time but clients can sometimes change things at the last min and you won’t have the luxury of waiting 24 hrs to turn around match move. i find it super handy to be able to pull off my own camera solves at times… even for stabilizing shots that are not easily solved with a 2pt track
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Some interesting numbers on the AI race. Staggering amounts of money, which is why they’re all hell bent to force it down our throat whether we like it or not. No reasonable person stands a chance against this tsunami:
Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, investors have added a staggering $8.2 trillion to the market valuations of tech’s Big Six firms: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and Nvidia. For context, the 2024 federal budget was $6.8 trillion. Companies that referenced AI during their earnings calls registered a 12% increase, on average, in performance, compared to a 9% increase for those that didn’t mention it.
The AI ecosystem is settling into three layers: applications (Duolingo, Netflix, Tesla), AI models (Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI), and infrastructure (AWS, Google Cloud, Nvidia). Two companies dominate. OpenAI has doubled its annualized revenue to $3.4 billion in the past six months. And its ChatGPT accounts for 56% of premium LLM subscriptions, i.e., people pulling out their credit cards. Over the past 12 months, Nvidia has reported $96 billion in revenue — 4x its 2022 total. I look at peer-reviewed research to evaluate whether a technology is enduring: Nvidia chips are cited in 19x more research than those of its competitors combined. For two companies to dominate a technology this early is extraordinary.
From Scott Galloway’s newsletter, 2025 Prediction issue.
love me some Prof G!
I’m wAIting for bAItcoin.
Thanks for all of this guys, I’m back to work today, will have a crack at all your suggestions! 
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If AI is a solution in search of a problem then, my friends, we have reached peak AI:
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And here I’ve been reading this thread for a year, kicking myself for not investing in NVIDIA…
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Utter non-sense.
If this were just some tech bros self-satisfying in their office, I could care less. But if you invest in excess of the US GDP, risk job security for a sizable part of the population, and bring old Nuke power plants back to life and say screw global warming, then we have to have a conversation. This is not ok.
As the saying goes - if someone wants to shoot themselves in the foot, stay way back. But if the blast radius encompasses most of the world, bros, gotta chill it.
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Didn’t know ultrasonic proximity sensors were called AI now.
this is a game changer for VFX. incredible if we can get our hands on this.
Cant AI just do it all? so why would I need a keyboard or a trackpad if AI was really that good to begin with?
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This reminds me of a funny story a friend of mine told me. He does real time projection mapping (like when they project vines growing up the DisneyLand Castle and stuff like that) and he’s been fighting off a very regular, very boring job.
Basically he’s been hired to project rooms, like kitchens or living rooms on a cylinder someone is standing inside of while they are filmed performing a repetitive series of mundane actions. Like they’ll project a series of different kitchen backgrounds behind someone and they are instructed to pantomime cracking an egg over and over again, or vacuuming, or whatever. The talent does this over and over until they think they’re good and then they move on the next scene.
They’re doing this with multiple cylinders per location, apparently at multiple locations around the country for 8 hour shifts in five week chunks.
He said it is mind numbingly boring for everyone involved PLUS it’s not local so he has to stay at a hotel for the week for 5 weeks at a time. If he has anything else going on or even might have something else going on he turns it down but they keep asking and the money isn’t bad. They told him/didn’t officially tell him it’s for training AI.
We’re really heading for the most boring dystopia ever.
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I was thinking the projections would be some kind of robbery prevention for people’s second, third, eighth homes: project a guy cracking eggs in your kitchen while you are away so people think you are home.
Either way, most boring dystopia for sure.
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