Amateurs

A great deal has been made about Disney’s struggles at the box office of late, but those battles have become a possible war for The Walt Disney Company as the entertainment giant is fighting a proxy war on two fronts. Two different investment firms are making plays for seats on the Disney board, the most significant, Nelson Peltz’s Trian Group, has the support of former Marvel Entertainment head Ike Perlmutter, but Bog Iger and Disney just solidified a major ally in George Lucas.This morning the man who sold Lucasfilm to…

Yesterday, the first round of Overwatch League play in 2023 concluded with the league’s first-ever pro-am tournament. Seven amateur teams from the North American and EMEA regions qualified for the right to play against the professional Overwatch teams of the west. Most Contenders teams are sorely under-resourced. They’re usually made up of teens and young adults who practice and play alongside their school and work obligations. It is an almost impossible grind for Contenders players to maintain the level of skill needed…

It’s not an insult: the Bradford Movie Makers proudly call themselves a bunch of amateurs. Since 1932, members have been making virtually zero-budget films with rickety production values and acting of a quality that often results in fond mickey-taking among themselves. With this warm and rather wonderful documentary Kim Hopkins finds comedy in their idiosyncratic passion without ever being mean or mocking. A Bunch of Amateurs is a thoughtful film about film-making and has some unexpectedly deep things to say too about…

Named after world-renowned photographer and astronomer David Malin, the Southern Hemisphere’s most prestigious amateur astrophotography competition conducted by the Central West Astronomical Society (CWAS) has delivered a stellar collection of images celebrating everything from stunning deep space snaps to more earthbound nightscapes.Across the 1970s and 1980s, David Malin pioneered a number of processing techniques that enhanced the field of astrophotography. Before computers, or digital sensors, Malin’s three-color wide…

Amateur film-making in Bradford was once a glamorous pastime. At the height of the Bradford Movie Makers’ powers there was a seven-year waiting list for membership, hundreds attended the organisation’s annual film festival and every year bus loads of immaculately dressed members would descend on the seaside town of Bridlington for their summer trip.Fast forward to 2019 and former club president Colin Egglestone, now 89, was outside in the middle of winter in pitch darkness determinedly painting over the graffiti on the…

The journey to becoming a “real” data analystPhoto by Alexander Sinn on UnsplashAnalytics is like the writing profession: the basics are easy to get started with and it’s an art, so there are few barriers to entry and anyone can call themselves a “writer.” There’s no guarantee of quality in the title.However, being literate enough to write some tweets hardly makes you Toni Morrison or Gabriel García Márquez— the best writers are light-years ahead of beginners. Their observations have power. Their insights change the…