We're back from a brief hiatus with - unbelievably - a film which actually deeply relates to testing! We're joined by Mark Tomlinson, who brings his own experiences of dealing with the National Transportation Safety Board, to discuss a film about a remarkable moment of true-life heroism, and the decisions that we make in the heat of the moment.
The events of the movie give us a chance to get into in-depth discussions about the challenges of testing within regulated industries, developing risk mitigation strategies in life-critical environments, debugging/monitoring, and whether quality is a team effort.
There are remarkably few distractions, although we get into some meta-discussion about whether it was correct to portray the NTSB as pantomime villains, a general critique of Clint Eastwood's agenda, a surprising number of references to metallurgy, and we give Mark an introduction to 1980s UK gameshows.
YouTube trailers for films mentioned:
Miscellaneous links:
Twitters:
@MarkOnTask
@TheTestDoctor
@neilstudd
Emails:
screentestingpod@gmail.com
Intro music: Christian Jacob - Sully Suite
Outro music: Christian Jacob - Flying Home (Sully's Theme)
Pop quiz, hotshot! You want to record a new podcast episode, but you also want a break from some of the darker plots that you've talked about recently. Plus, you're snowed-in at home. What do you do? Dan and Neil decide not to shoot the hostage, but to instead kick back with a discussion about Speed.
In an episode recorded at the beginning of March (hence some timeline discrepancies and weird Oscar predictions), they find many parallels with Die Hard, and manage to work-in a surprising number of testing elements, including setting/reviewing acceptance criteria, pairing in the workplace, communicating information, and using psychology to analyse a situation.
Miscellaneous Links:
Films and TV shows mentioned:
As hinted near the end, our next episode will be based on the true-life story of SULLY with special guest Mark Tomlinson!
Twitters:
@ScreenTesting
@TheTestDoctor
@neilstudd
Emails:
screentestingpod@gmail.com
Intro music: Mark Mancina - Speed (Main Title)
Outro music: Billy Idol - Speed
We return a little later than planned, as we discuss one of the greatest thrillers of our time, getting into discussions about psychology, interviewing, misogyny and gender politics, and appropriate occasions for purchasing FBI-themed cakes.
We also salvage the best bits of our failed Oscars announcement episode, highlighting a few nominations that we hope will win big, and staking our reputations on a few predictions of our own.
Miscellaneous Links:
YouTube trailers for films and TV shows mentioned:
Twitters:
@ScreenTesting
@TheTestDoctor
@neilstudd
Emails:
screentestingpod@gmail.com
Intro music: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - American Girl
Outro music: Q Lazzarus - Goodbye Horses
We begin 2018 with a discussion of Neil's favourite film of 2017, and a worrying early revelation about Dan's general problems with musicals. But we persevere, and discover not only a few musical gems in Dan's closet, but also a shared appreciation for some of the plot elements in La La Land.
Things get a bit philosophical and introspective as we dig into how we motivate ourselves (and others) when we (or they) suffer setbacks, how we tell our own stories about the world around us, taking the opportunities that come your way, avoiding being paralysed by "what if", and a few of the many screw-ups we've made in our past relationships.
As usual, we get sidelined by literal vs metaphor, fantasy physics, childhood dreams, Neil adopting some of Mia's vocabulary, and using BCC in emails.
At the end we have a very brief discussion about The Last Jedi, which is basically spoiler-free, but if you want to be really careful then you might want to fast-forward a couple of minutes!
YouTube links to songs referenced from La La Land:
Miscellaneous references:
YouTube trailers for films and TV shows mentioned:
As we discuss in the episode, January is a bit manic, but if all goes to plan then we'll be back with THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS in two weeks' time!
Twitters:
@ScreenTesting
@TheTestDoctor
@neilstudd
Emails:
screentestingpod@gmail.com
Intro music: Another Day Of Sun (Instrumental Version)
Outro music: City of Stars (Humming)