Your friendly, neighborhood Gizmo Guy
By Gordon Meyer
When I was a film school student, like so many of my peers I wanted to direct. I had visions of that gloriously impressive screen credit, “A Film By Gordon Meyer” shining fifty feet wide across the Cinerama screen of my mind. But the folks who ran that film school (USC, if you must know) were wise enough to require that all students get at least some hands-on experience in writing, lighting, editing and sound as well as directing. As a result, many people who started out wanting to direct, ended up falling in love with one of the other crafts.
I bring this up because, a few years after graduating from USC, life happened and I ended up taking a detour into the world of consumer electronics, first selling things like computers and home theatres and then writing about them for publications like PC World, CNET and sadly defunct publications like Home Office Computing, Equip and a syndicated radio show called “Internet Insider,” where I was their “Multimedia Mogul” and “Tinseltown Titan” where I talked a lot about convergence and communications technologies. You could say I fell in love with all those “techno-toys” just as many of my SC classmates fell in love with film-making crafts other than directing.
Since the years when I wrote for all those publications, I have never forgotten my roots in film and TV production and am now developing a number of projects as a producer that, initially, are on the low budget side of the spectrum, including a talk show that will be taped in front of a live audience and feature top above the line talent talking about specific films or TV shows they made.
As a producer, like so many P3 Update readers, I am constantly challenged to balance quality and budget. On the one hand, it’s critical that my team be able to deliver network caliber production quality so that we can maximize the ways we can monetize our content library. At the same time, we have to be extremely cognizant of the bottom line.
Here’s where my expertise in consumer electronics comes into play and what this blog is all about. While the first impulse when looking for professional tools may be to go to the big equipment houses or specialty dealers, very often you can find valuable tools at your local Best Buy or Office Depot and that’s what I’ll be telling you about.
Some of these may be directly related to one of the 3 Ps of P3 Update, like the new class of pocket-sized camcorders that I’ll be writing about in an upcoming blog entry. I’ll also be looking at some of the cooler “pro-sumer” products out there that are on the high end of the pricing scale of consumer products, while at the same time can often deliver fully professional results.
Some of the gadgets and gizmos I report on will be more generic productivity tools and not P3-specific, they will always be tools that many, if not most P3 Update readers can benefit from – like the latest smart phones, netbooks or productivity software. One way or the other, I’ll show you why these products are worth considering and how you’ll be able to use them effectively in whatever aspect of the biz you’re in – all in plain English.
Now let’s go have some fun.
Gordon Meyer
P3GizmoGuy@gmail.com