>
jed> Yep. This is why in movie reviews we hear a lot about the
> "director's vision" and very little about the visions of the
> individual actors, lighting technicians, and set designers.
> Collaboration is cool; guided collaboration, under an able hand,
> is way cooler.
> (Anyone want to talk about the role of a "Producer" in recent
> VRML efforts? It was a term I'd never heard before Misty introduced
> it to me, but in the past six months I've heard it a lot. Is this
> a necessary role? How closely does it correspond to traditional
> notions of what a producer does in, say, film or theatre? (I gather
> producers in VRML are coordinators and customer liaisons, while
> producers in theatre tend to mostly raise money. But I could be
> far off the mark on both counts.))
>
[Bullard, Claude L (Len)]
In IrishSpace, I stuck the title "coordinator" on the front
of names just to say "bossMoreOrLess". We knew going
into it that coordination was required, and I used the term
"benignDictatorship" where one of the panel members at
VRML98 said "Decide who is god first". In any case,
we were wrapping the traditional roles of producer and
director into one role.
It is is obvious to me that team building is the theme
for the next two or three years of VRML effort. For some
of us, the traditional roles are understood as they are
in meatTheatre. When in school, theatre was divided
into ten distinct roles with equal weight and it was
emphasized that while actors get glory and applause,
they are one tenth of the effort.
In IS descriptions, I emphasize the role of the team,
the approaches we took to collaboration, and how
that can gel if at least one or two people are professionally
trained or have a lot of mature experience. Every time
we do one of these, a few more folks catch on, become
trained, and then are able to lead another team. It
is important that this aspect be emphasized in the
projects we undertake. As I said to Stephen in Monterey
on the bus, "we are the first. We set the examples,
we make the rules." One thing the CDWG can do
is register talent and publish the list such that as
more monied parties enter the game, they know who
the players are that have track records and skills.
Yes, there are polymaths out there who can do it all.
But, like solo guitar, it is lonely, frustrating, and ultimately,
getting up every day to the same whining worker. I've
done solo and bands. I learn more in bands and I
have a much better time.
If there is ever money in VRML, we can talk about
producers. They live next to the lawyers up on
the hill where they "da do the boogie".
Finally saw Titanic. Wow.
len
