Young filmmaker given 'Dream Studio Makeover' by Apple

amar99 said:

Not to be a downer but, I'm kind of asking myself "why this particular person?" I punch in "Cam Blumberg" on YouTube and it comes up with no channel or video by that name. Seems to have an Instagram which is behind a Facebook "you must have an account to view" wall...

The guy was out of HD space, that's the reason given for this particular pick. So buy him a hard drive. If there is more to the story, please by all means fill us in. I'm looking for a reason to cheer this guy on, but there wasn't enough detail in the article or video to set the individual apart from many other apiring filmmakers out there. It feels like an over-the-top PR stunt by Apple without any substance. More details welcome! I'm all for supporting talent, just wondered if there was more to the story, and wish the article had provided more value besides summarizing what's inferred from watching the video.

I was thinking the same thing. Would have been better if they gave it to him and said nothing at all.

Also, he's more than welcome to struggle on my mid-2012 MacBook Pro Retina. 2018. I should be so lucky.

I made a documentary on the Beatles that premiered at the Toronto film festival on a 2017 MacBook Pro. The film is in the process of being sold to a major streaming service so his 2018 MacBook Pro is more than capable of making films. Grab an external hard drive for 100 bucks and you have a film studio, maybe buy Final Cut Pro or use iMovie for free. Viola’. I’m not discounting Apple‘s Noble gesture but to suggest he was struggling with a 2018 MacBook Pro is dishonest. -Tony Guma

gumashow said:

I made a documentary on the Beatles that premiered at the Toronto film festival on a 2017 MacBook Pro. The film is in the process of being sold to a major streaming service so his 2018 MacBook Pro is more than capable of making films. Grab an external hard drive for 100 bucks and you have a film studio, maybe buy Final Cut Pro or use iMovie for free. Viola’. I’m not discounting Apple‘s Noble gesture but to suggest he was struggling with a 2018 MacBook Pro is dishonest. -Tony Guma

What year did you make your Documentary? 

amar99 said:

Not to be a downer but, I'm kind of asking myself "why this particular person?" I punch in "Cam Blumberg" on YouTube and it comes up with no channel or video by that name. Seems to have an Instagram which is behind a Facebook "you must have an account to view" wall...

The guy was out of HD space, that's the reason given for this particular pick. So buy him a hard drive. If there is more to the story, please by all means fill us in. I'm looking for a reason to cheer this guy on, but there wasn't enough detail in the article or video to set the individual apart from many other apiring filmmakers out there. It feels like an over-the-top PR stunt by Apple without any substance. More details welcome! I'm all for supporting talent, just wondered if there was more to the story, and wish the article had provided more value besides summarizing what's inferred from watching the video.

"We wanna do a dream studio makeover for someone who might be younger, who may not have access to really good gear, but shows some promise, and we want to change their life by getting them a dream studio."

Cam Blumberg fIts the bill perfectly. He's young, doesn't have great gear, and does show a lot of promise. He may not have published tons of stuff, but his work is pretty good for his age, and he's exactly what Apple needed: someone with promise. 

Also, you do realize that at no point was it a requirement to find the neediest filmmaker with the worst or most faulty equipment, right? While somehow also being super prolific? It was all but a coincidence that Cam was running out of disk space on an otherwise still-usable MacBook Pro. And while that Mac may still have some life left in it, the productivity gains he should expect from a 14" Apple Silicon MacBook Pro will be just ridiculous, not to mention the Mac Studio.

I wouldn't be surprised if the gifts had some strings attached, so I hope and kinda expect to hear from Cam again, and see some work that the new gear will have helped him produce. I honestly don't see much reason for negativity here. Do people exist who may "need" or "deserve" all this free equipment more, by some metric? Almost certainly. Did Apple have any obligation whatsoever to use that metric, and identify a candidate that you or me or anyone else would have preferred? Absolutely not. They did what they set out to do, and made the life of a promising young artist better by giving him a dream studio makeover. And that's it.