Working

Part of the problem is that you need time to formulate what you are doing, and I need the time just to think, but I'm getting there. Right now I want to figure out what kind of study I want to do. it's hard.

Reading now an interesting article researching the culture and training of US Navy quartermasters by Edwin Hutchins. He is primarilly concerned with how quartermasters learn navigation skills. This is something that I'm really interested in for a number of reasons. For one thing I not only sail, but I'm also learning Boat Crew for the US Coast Guard Auxilliary. Part of that requires that I develop the same competencies that Hutchins quartermasters have, albeit for much smaller vessels. In this context I'm fascinated by how people get assimilated to the Coast Guard. There is a culture there that embeds the skills. Part of becoming boat crew certified is just thinking of yourself as crew.

The other thing that is interesting is that this article predates the use of GPS devices. I think that the GPS does to charting and navigation pretty much what the digital video editing system did to film editing. It changes the task just about completely but it maintains the goals. What happens when the end is the same but the process different?

The article also makes me think I want to do a study that is not statistical but observational and more in an ethnographic vein than anything else. I don't want to survey 1000 people, but I do want to closely observe maybe 20 to see how they become film editors.

And I'm getting excited about something else. Do schools or formal training in the arts really do their job? That's a terrible question, but if you look at the films from 1920-1980 you see an art and "masterpieces" that were made without the film school. What do film schools, or for that matter conservatories, do for art? What do they impart? How can they be improved?

Back off the tracks again. Too many questions...