In a long-awaited episode, Dan and Neil are joined by special guest Christopher Chant to discuss the Oscar-winning picture Whiplash, a film which tells the story of the relationship between budding jazz drummer Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller) and his tutor Terence Fletcher (JK Simmons), and how their worlds collide in a quest for perfection.

In a deep and serious episode, we share information on coaching and mentoring techniques that we have observed and used, exchange thoughts on how to motivate others and ourselves, talk about balancing personal and professional commitments, and ways that we can demonstrate/uncover skill.

Your hosts share their own experiences from the world of music, discuss other famous big-screen student-pupil relationships, and Neil takes every possible opportunity to reference Damien Chazelle's follow-up film La La Land.

We also play some lengthy clips from the film, which are HEAVILY expletive-laden. You have been warned.

References:

• Bluedot Festival
• James Bach: Test Jumpers - One Vision of Agile Testing
• Neil Studd: The Whiplash approach to motivating testers
• Neil Studd: "Good Job": A story of motivation, encouragement and dramatic failures
• YouTube: Rififi (1955) trailer
• YouTube: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg trailer
• YouTube: Full Metal Jacket - Clips from Boot Camp
• YouTube: Weird Al Yankovic's Whiplash parody
• Maaret Pyhäjärvi: Articles about Mob Testing
• Neil Studd: What's wrong with 9-to-5 testers?
• Amazon: Cal Newport - Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
• Amazon: Josh Kaufman - The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything... Fast
• Amazon: Malcolm Gladwell - Outliers (the book whiich popularised the theory that you can become an expert in anything given 10,000 hours)
• Ministry of Testing
• Ministry of Testing: The Club (formerly Software Testing Club)
• YouTube: Two Night Stand trailer
• Amazon: Shawn Achor - The Happiness Advantage
• YouTube: Shawn Achor TED Talk - The Happy Secret to Better Work
• Whiplash soundtrack on Spotify
• YouTube: We Have A Pope trailer
• YouTube: Better Call Saul S0E09 car crash (big spoilers!)
• Geek Mental Help Week
• TestBash Philadelphia
• IMDB: I Believe In Miracles
• BBC Video Archive: Sir Alex Ferguson & Sir David Beckham boot row
• YouTube: The Karate Kid trailer
• Toby Hadoke on Twitter (@TobyHadoke)
• Toby Hadoke's "Who's Round" podcast
• YouTube: Steve Cross: What Day Did The World End in The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy?
• Chaotic Adequate D&D podcast
• The Adventure Zone podcast

We're back to our usual fortnightly schedule now, so we'll see you all on August 4th when we'll be discussing the new Netflix movie THE CIRCLE.

Twitters: @ScreenTesting @choibot @TheTestDoctor @neilstudd

Emails: [email protected]

Intro music: Snare Liftoff (I Want To Be One Of The Greats) Outro music: Whiplash