Re-birth of the Renaissance Man? What Patrick Boivin Has Taught Us About Technology

I remember the first camcorder that I ever received back in 1998. It was a Sharp Viewcam, and at the time was considered top of the line. The camcorder cost $600, shot on hi8, and required a separate deck you could hook up to a 400 MHZ iMac G3 just to edit and transcode your files.

When all was said and done with the project I had exactly one person to show it to: myself. There was no YouTube, no Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, or anything other than your home VCR or your family that had the patience to see what you’d produced.

But in the “digital age” technology has brought the possibilities of the movie studio to a computer monitor, and increased the size of an audience by the millions.

One man in particular is evidence of how powerful technology has become and how it has allowed artists, literal one-man teams, to use their craft to take over the internet.

Patrick Boivin originally wanted to be a comic book artist, but quickly realized he could “better tell his story” using a video camera, instead. He made the right call; today his videos have accrued over 135 million views on YouTube, which is more than ABC and NBC’s YouTube channels…combined.

He is the 21st century version of a Renaissance man, a person who writes, lights, directs, shoots, and does the animation on all of his videos largely by himself. He also dabbles in the sound and the music.

But Boivin doesn’t do everything by himself for style points or because he is a control freak; he taught himself every single aspect there is to filmmaking simply because he had to, and even more precisely, because TECHNOLOGY allowed him to.

What I learned to do is to do it my way, nobody told me to do this and this and this, I had to find out for myself, I think it’s a good way to invent something. Since I managed to do everything by myself, the camera, the lighting, the editing, I can understand each and every part of how you make a movie. I think its an advantage. A big one.

It takes all of ten seconds to watch one of Boivin’s videos and to realize he is a very talented filmmaker. But is his talent a “natural eye” for understanding film, or is it his ability to use technology to develop a comprehensive understanding of filmmaking?

Could Boivin have been just as successful and well-recognized 20 years ago, before technology allowed users to seamlessly work between applications, using equipment that cost 1/30th the cost of some film schools’ yearly tuition rates?

Is technology fueling the re-birth of the Renaissance man? One that doesn’t necessarily entail a mastery of physics, astronomy, language, or philosophy but of technology and its respective spheres of influence (programming, social media, digital filmmaking)?

Boivin didn’t pay thousands of dollars in tuition fees for someone to try and dispense their knowledge on him, he spent thousands of hours on his own to LEARN and understand filmmaking for himself.

Because of his success, Boivin continues to rebuke the adage that film school is a requisite to properly making and understanding the nuances of film:

Since I didn’t go to film school so nobody told me I wasn’t supposed to do everything. In a way, that became an advantage, because I can now perfectly understand every step in the process and, sometimes, create films completely on my own for fun.

Boivin isn’t alone in this thinking, Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has famously said:

When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, ‘no, I went to films.’

Steven Spielberg was twice denied from the USC Film School, but took up a seven day internship in the Editing Department at Universal Studios where he obtained the hands on skill to learn and develop his craft.

Certainly the point isn’t to deny film school as a valuable tool for the filmmaker, but moreso,, to deny the supposition that it is somehow a requirement.

Boivin uses a Canon 5d Mark II, Adobe After Effects, Dragon Stop Animation, and an editing program he won’t reveal because he “hates it.” All and all, that package cost roughly as much as two classes at most film schools, and as Boivin puts it:

Don’t wait to have the money to do it, you can do things without any money. Today the technology is not expensive.

The technology is not expensive, the ability to learn is easier than ever, and the accessibility to audiences is unprecedented.

So why isn’t everyone doing what Boivin is doing and taking advantage of technology’s ability to let us create something amazing and connect us to the masses? Is it because we lack the discipline to study different topics of interest? Certainly Boivin has provided enough motivation for why we should be doing so…

Or perhaps it’s because we’ve been trained to only think of ourselves as ONE thing; such as in college, where we’re told to major in ONE concentration or when we’re kids, to think of that ONE thing we’d like to be when we grow up? It’s easier to focus on “one thing that we’d like to be”, but perhaps that only LIMITS us from greater things?

If Boivin would have simply focused on comic books or animation, he probably would have a nice job somewhere, but almost assuredly would NOT have 150 million video views on YouTube or been given 500 grand to make his own film in the Openfilm.com “Get it Made” competition.

His passion to develop a comprehensive understanding of everything film is inherent in every video that we see of his and is undoubtedly what makes them unique. Without technology, Boivin would be one man most likely relegated to focusing on one, maybe, two aspects of filmmaking, and wouldn’t have the ability to control ALL aspects of film.

The beauty of it is that while the way we craft art is unique, the canvas that we use to express it is not. The Internet is the medium for which everyone expresses their point of view and as long as you have a connection, it’s as much yours to use as it is for artists like Boivin.

Technology has allowed anybody with a computer and an Internet connection to become an artist, simultaneously re-defining what it means to be a Renaissance man. Technology hasn’t become a substitute for hard work, but more importantly is an outlet for it; one that can diversify our talents, and allow us to grow.

If we work as hard as people like Boivin and have as much confidence in our ability to develop our talents, there’s no reason why we can’t have as much success. The Internet is waiting, the technology is already here. Who is ready to be the next Patrick Boivin?

RELATED LINKS:

Galaxy Nexys Ninjas Unbox an 8 Bit Arcade Game Made by Patrick Boivin

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