One of my favorite things about sci-fi has always been the cool tech. It’s a fun spotlight for creativity and is a subtle but effective way to contribute to the world building. Pacific Rim has some of the coolest tech in it along with some of the greatest world building this side of Star Wars. Chief among them are the distinctive jaegers to take on the massive Kaiju. I mean, come on, they’re giant freakin’ robots. It is so incredibly easy to be hung up on wanting to get the latest and greatest gear. As a tech enthusiast, the feeling of wanting the latest phone or tablet is not foreign to me. It’s okay to want to add the latest gear to your utility belt but you don’t need the latest gear to kick kaiju butt, you just need to know how to use the gear you have. Pacific Rim gives the perfect perks of knowing your old gear.

Warning: describing these scenes is going to sound absurd and awesome if you haven’t seen the movie. You should see the movie if you haven’t. If you have seen the movie, you should watch it because you haven’t watched it recently enough

Know What Your Gear Does

One of my favorite scenes in the movie is the epic Hong Kong battle with Gipsy Danger. A Kaiju has sprouted wings and is carrying Gipsy Danger up and out of the atmosphere (I told you some of this sounds absurd. I assure you it’s awesome). All of the weapons are depleted, there’s no leverage for melee, the oxygen is running out and hope is generally lost. That is until co-pilot Mako Mori taps an icon and Gipsy deploys A GOT DANG SWORD. From there, they cut the kaiju in half and plummet back to Earth and live to fight another day. Needless to say, it’s an epic scene that wraps up an awesome fight sequence. This scene really sums up the importance of knowing what your gear does. It’s easy to get lost in the new flashing lights and the latest EQ algorithms. Reading the manual and learning what a tool can really do can make all the difference. Even if you’re not able to read the manual, since not every tool comes with a manual, spending time and tinkering around with it can be a great benefit. Plasma cannons, missile launchers and third arms are great but sometimes you just need a good sword by your side.

Count on Your Experience

Early on in the movie, Marshall Pentecost (played by Idris Elba) has to recruit semi-retired pilot Raleigh Beckett for one final assault. Pentecost could’ve trained up a fresh set of pilots that maybe were a little more nimble or at the very least have been in a jaeger sometime recently. But he went to a pilot he knew he could count on. He even says that he needs experienced pilots. There are some things you just can’t learn from a manual and oftentimes there’s no time to read a manual. Knowing the capabilities of your current stuff can help when you’re in a tense situation. I remember the first film score that I wrote for a student film when I was in college. It was a mess and I had an incredibly tight deadline. I had access to a well-equipped recording room, some of the latest industry standard software installed on very capable computers. I used exactly none of that to write my score. Instead, I used a notation program called Finale to write and produce the score which is far from the norm. Finale is used for writing music for people to play, not to use the audio for anything to sound good. As a freshman, I didn’t have time to learn the software or to recruit people to help me record it. Using Finale may not have been the best sounding stuff, but it turned out a whole lot better than it would have if I spent the time I had learning new software. Counting on your experience with older gear is a much better strategy in a pinch.

Improvisation

What happens when you combine an experienced pilot with a giant robot that they know? The ability to improvise effectively and efficiently to overcome any situation. At the very end of the movie, the last two jaegers, Striker Eureka and Gispy Danger, are trying to deliver a nuclear payload to close the breach and stop more Kaiju from coming through. Naturally, an epic battle ensues and Striker Eureka (who’s carrying the nukes) is damaged and unable to deploy them. Gipsy Danger is able to be used as a nuke since she runs off of a nuclear reactor. They’re able to pilot her into the breach and create a reactor meltdown and collapse it, stopping the kaiju forever (until the next, not as good movie). 

The decision to sacrifice Gipsy and close the breach was made spur of the moment. The command crew and pilots were able to work together to pull off something that was not the original plan. As professional artists, this is kind of the norm when you’re working with clients. Deadlines are approaching fast and the client wants a last minute change. Fumbling around with new gear or looking up tutorials is simply something there isn’t time for in a lot of cases like this. Combining experience and knowledge creates expertise. Expertise can lead to a smoother, working experience for you. You’ll spend less time trying to get the specific sound you’re working for when you know how your EQ works than trying to learn a whole new DAW. You’ll be able to create a beautiful edit of a portrait in less time using a free photo editor that you’ve been using for the past few years than if you are still learning how photoshop works. A better individual experience will also add to a better collaborative experience since you’ll know exactly what you’re capable of and can build a great group around you (but we’ll dive into that more next month).

When Should You Upgrade?

This isn’t to say that you should never upgrade or freshen up your tools. Just do so under the right circumstance. Here’s a few situations where you should really consider upgrading:

When you have a need

Things break or just get too old to function properly. At some point, the hoops you’ll have to jump through to get things to work properly won’t be worth the product that you put out. Tools have a specific purpose, when they don’t serve that purpose anymore, there;s not much of a need to keep them around or to keep using them when you know they don’t work. Just make sure you get to know your gear or read the manual to make sure they’re not working the way they should. Alternatively, if there’s a tool that you know you need and know that you don’t have, there’s no need to jump through all kinds of hoops or waste time trying to make something work in the way that another tool should. If you spend a lot of time putting nails in walls, it’s worth it to get the hammer instead of using the back end of the screwdriver.

When you have the time to experiment

There’s a time for tinkering and there’s a time for doing. The 59th minute of the 11th hour is not the time to see if a new lens you’re unfamiliar with will help you get the shot you need. However, when you’re in between projects or working on one that’s just for you, that’s the perfect time to tinker with that new lens. Experimenting and tinkering are how you get good enough with a tool to develop expertise and then you add that tool into your regular rotation. 

When it comes down to it, it really doesn’t matter what gear you use. Yeah, influencers on your instagram might feature a particular synth in all of their posts or a photographer might constantly gush about their latest camera and it’s not a large leap to think that those things are part of their success. Honestly, it probably is! That doesn’t mean that it’s what will contribute to your success because you probably work in a different way. Your approach might be different than theirs. If you were up against the clock, their gear with your knowledge may not give you the best results. But when a kaiju of a project comes along, knowledge of how your jaeger works and the experience of using it will make all of the difference.

What’s a tool that you know you can count on no matter how long you’ve had it? 

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