Professional...

[chuck colburn]

Having enough time and skills under the belt so that you don't have to BS

 

[Leaf Baimbridge]

Here's a few Dictionary definitions:

"a person who earns a living in an occupation frequently engaged in by amateurs.

"following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain."

"done by a professional; expert."

By these definitions, calling RED products professional equipment would infer that it is being used solely by professionals as a means to support their profession. I'm not going to speculate as to the exact number of RED products being used in a professional capacity, but I will venture to say that an unknown percentage of RED products are being used in an amateur capacity.

Now let's look at what an amateur is defined as:

"a person who engages in a study, sport, or other activity for pleasure rather than for financial benefit or professional reasons."

"a person inexperienced or unskilled in a particular activity."

This does of course leave out the human element in as much as most (not all) amateurs engage in a particular activity in the hopes of becoming a professional. And I would like to add that while one definition uses the words "inexperienced" and "unskilled", there are many cases where an amateurs skills will supersede that of a professionals.

Would I call RED equipment "professional"? I like to think that it's more than that. When you use the term "professional" in the film industry, in my mind it conjures up a type of exclusivity (sorry, the doors are closed and you my friend, yes you, the one who's parents couldn't send you to UCLA, or you, the one who had to work construction because you had a kid at 22, or even you, who had to put everything aside to care for a sick relative, and especially you, yes you in the back, the one who just never managed to be in the right place at the right time, that's right, we're talking to you, this is our club, and you're not getting in because we don't know you.) that is the complete opposite of how I see RED. RED is the equipment that says "Hey you down there, check this out! You've got a good (or bad) idea and you want to make a movie? It's been on your mind all these years but you're broke and couldn't afford to do it and you don't have any rich family members to finance it. Well, forget about all that, come on over here and lets get started."

RED isn't the pale, pasty guy at the door not letting anybody pass, RED is the big guy with dusty denim jacket with no sleeves, kicking down the doors, letting everybody in.

I wouldn't call it professional, I would just call it awesome.

RED: AWESOME EQUIPMENT (and yes, professionals like it to)

 

[Alain DEUDJUI]

This is the best answer where Professional adhere to standards made by veterans .Red here
is revolutionary and rebel in a sense they change the name of the game with inclusive innovative set of values for the cinema industry .Pros and Amateurs alike are well serve .

ALAIN

 

[Art Chong]

From a conceptual standpoint, professional to me means one thing and one thing only. It is a tool preferred by people who make a living doing what they do.

Professional does not mean just gets the job done. A $13 home-made steadicam "gets the job done" if your job isn't shooting Brad Pitt. Some "professional" tools don't even get the job done well, reliably, easily, or hassel free. Let's be real here, a Flip HD camcorder is much simpler, more reliable, and easier to use and get predictable results with than many cameras calling themselves professional. That doesn't say anything about the results it produces, but whatever it does do, it does reliably and predictably with absolutely no fuss.

Some professional tools have LESS features than consumer tools. A Zeiss Master Prime doesn't even autofocus, yet a $100 Canon lens will. But the Zeiss have the RIGHT features that makes it... once again... the preferred tool of people making a living doing what they do. Face-tracking, smile detecting auto-focus is another feature that's missing from pro equipment. So are in-camera effects like sepia. Whatever features you have to have or DON'T have for it to be preferred, that's what makes it professional.

From a practical standpoint, I expect superb build quality, results unachievable by consumer grade equipment, rock-solid reliability and negligible failure rate, fine-tune level control over any and all functions that could possibly be controlled, excellent ergonomics designed for speed, an eco-system of parts and accessories (aftermarket or otherwise) to support the gear, etc.

Oh, and it must be black anodized

 

[Matt Steinauer]

Great post Leaf.

 

[JC Bendock]

Professional to me means that my $0.02 is worth $180.00/hr.

A professional camera, leaves the decision making up to me.
If it has the words "auto" or "little green square" mode, in my opinion it is not professional.

 

[Jeff Coatney]

RED isn't the pale, pasty guy at the door not letting anybody pass, RED is the big guy with dusty denim jacket with no sleeves, kicking down the doors, letting everybody in.

I wouldn't call it professional, I would just call it awesome.

RED: AWESOME EQUIPMENT (and yes, professionals like it to)

That's a definition of Pro that I can live with.

 

[Elan Gunos]

And that's the rub, exactly what kind of professional jobs are you on. Gets the job done is actually relative. In this case, red cameras are marketed towards professional filmmakers. Professional filmmakers (the ones we go see their movies in theaters) have a certain standard. If this camera can get the job done (with the quality they want), then that's pretty professional.

From a conceptual standpoint, professional to me means one thing and one thing only. It is a tool preferred by people who make a living doing what they do.

Professional does not mean just gets the job done. A $13 home-made steadicam "gets the job done" if your job isn't shooting Brad Pitt. Some "professional" tools don't even get the job done well, reliably, easily, or hassel free. Let's be real here, a Flip HD camcorder is much simpler, more reliable, and easier to use and get predictable results with than many cameras calling themselves professional. That doesn't say anything about the results it produces, but whatever it does do, it does reliably and predictably with absolutely no fuss.

Some professional tools have LESS features than consumer tools. A Zeiss Master Prime doesn't even autofocus, yet a $100 Canon lens will. But the Zeiss have the RIGHT features that makes it... once again... the preferred tool of people making a living doing what they do. Face-tracking, smile detecting auto-focus is another feature that's missing from pro equipment. So are in-camera effects like sepia. Whatever features you have to have or DON'T have for it to be preferred, that's what makes it professional.

From a practical standpoint, I expect superb build quality, results unachievable by consumer grade equipment, rock-solid reliability and negligible failure rate, fine-tune level control over any and all functions that could possibly be controlled, excellent ergonomics designed for speed, an eco-system of parts and accessories (aftermarket or otherwise) to support the gear, etc.

Oh, and it must be black anodized

 

[David J Bernstein]

A professional tool maker knows its user's reputation and livelihood rides on their ability to deliver what they promise when they promise it. They know not to jeopardize that incredibly valuable reputation by cutting corners for small costs.

"Professional" is not so much a state of being as a state of mind. The state of mind one applies to a process (be it making films or making film-making tools) determines the level of professionalism involved in the process and the quality of the end product.

If one has to advertise that they are "Professional" they probably are not. A professional is so by actions, not by words.

A professional has complete passion and focus for delivering the absolute best that they can - no excuses!

Professionals do not work in a vacuum. They work with others within the confines of budgets and collaborators, but they choose their collaborators and build their budgets with the same passion and focus that they apply to their avocation.

Professional means respect. Respect for self, respect for others, respect for the process.

Successful professionals don't take themselves too seriously and have a sense of humor. A professional can do without, but a sense of humor is required for success.

Let the flaming begin!

 

[David J Bernstein]

A professional tool could also be defined as someone who acts like a tool for a living. Which would be me if I was getting paid for this post!

(OK, sorry. That's 30 seconds of your life you're never going to get back because you read this post).

 

[Dave Smith]

The difference between an amateur and a professional is: The professional corrects his mistakes. The amateur doesn't know he made one.

 

[peter roehsler]

Thank you all for an interesting and sometimes inspiring read.
I believe that on a personal level the term professional reflects more an attitude than the amount of knowledge or training a person has. As long this person does not make any fraudulent claims about her/his abilities or knowledge, all will be fine.
With equipment I obviously wish for reliability and robustness. If it´s easy to use, all the better - makes my life easier.
Where does RED stand? My camera has never let me down and has worked in a couple of difficult environments, so for me it is a professional tool. I have had some questions and always got good answers, so I know that the people behind it have a professional attitude. I call the RED experience a professional one.
I know that RED has been frowned on by quite a few professionals when it came to the market. I experienced some of it even here in Austria. Flattering for RED, this was the first time people in our field faced a serious digital acquisition tool, as no one has been using F35s and Genesis cameras in this country (and `film people´ would not touch HD cams). After some initial nitpicking about RED´s design and ergonomics the situation has calmed down, people learned how to use it and RED has found it´s place in the rental market.
EPIC will probably become one of the biggest product updates in this industry. From what I read, this camera will widen the technical horizon considerably and will only be released as a finished product. This should establish RED firmly among the makers of `professional´ cameras.

 

[Michael Brennan]

In terms of equipment professionals will use anything that suits the needs of the work in mind, from Pixelvison to Imax.

The use something is put to doesn't define what it is in my view. For instance, a small camera gaffer taped to a broom handle isn't a professional piece of equipment, whereas a robust fit for purpose "pole cam" is.


[/QUOTE]Professional to me means attitude to the work. A professional film maker's first loyalty is to the audience, an amateur's first loyalty is to themselves.[/QUOTE]

I agree that attitude is an important part of being a professional, but a professionals loyalty is to the production team above him (director, producer) then the audience.

When you come to think of it a lot of self funded directed and produced movies are made by people loyal to themselves or their idea, so by your definition they should be called amateur?


Mike Brennan

 

[Robert Sanders]

Professional = build quality/endurance.

or

Professional = expensive.

 

[fREDeric ChAMbERlAnd]

•Your shooting in Pond inlet (googlemap it, it's far and away) , it's -43 celcius and you set up the camera to do timelapse thru the rest of the day into the night at one frame every minute.
You can't stay there so you leave a P.A. and tell him that if the camera freezes and stop , just take it off the sticks and bring it back to us at the main location . We get there 6 hours later and it is still ticking. It did not miss a single frame:
professional camera

•You set up the camera so you can physically "sling shot" it at the other end of an ice ring , this is suppose to be the POV of the hockey puck going in the net...
Camera is attached to a metal cord a few feet in the air so it "flies" . Camera does fly over the first 20 feet then breaks free from rig crashing on the ice. Something went really wrong. Everyone is stunned and the only sound you can hear is the motor still offering 24FPS with no mag and no door as they were ripped from camera in the crash. Film was still intact in the mag and the shot was used in the commercial:
professional camera

•You set up the steadicam and the assistant plugs in the power cable reversed blowing the camera fuse. Camera shuts down. 30 second later, fuses resets itself and camera powers up with good cable. Nobody but camera crew noticed this and we got thru the day with smiles on our faces=
professional camera

*I'm a happy RED owner but these 3 stories below all happened to me with Arriflex cameras (435,235 and 535) . I will try to extend as long as I can similar stories with my RED or EPIC to come but if faith strikes down as bad as this , hopefully , I'll be using a professional camera that day.

my 2 cents

 

[Jaci.Chen]

I am doing trade business, my customers are foreigners, all over the world, sometimes they always said to me: learning to be prefessional. I know prefessioanl is very important to foreign business, and I am learning all the time, so prefessional to me is keep learning the knowledge I didn't know, and make my customers feel satisfied with my work!

Jaci.Chen
Videotech Consultants

 

[Eric Lange]

Thank you all for an interesting and sometimes inspiring read.
I believe that on a personal level the term professional reflects more an attitude than the amount of knowledge or training a person has. As long this person does not make any fraudulent claims about her/his abilities or knowledge, all will be fine.

.....
....
.....

EPIC will probably become one of the biggest product updates in this industry. From what I read, this camera will widen the technical horizon considerably and will only be released as a finished product. This should establish RED firmly among the makers of `professional´ cameras.

Peter I think you hit the nail on the head.
PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDE,

Expertise and knowledge can always be sourced, real talent on the other hand can be harder to get;

…But for me a professional attitude is one where planning and preparation and their various contingencies are properly thought out. So for example just like a lighting rig, if you over run the bulbs then you know that there is an increased failure rate, you replace the bulbs. If you know that with a particular camera system, if you are unlucky, it might present problems, then you plan for that, and have back up cameras, components etc. (others like Gunelike have made this very clear).

However I have noticed a bit of a shift in attitude in film making over the past fifteen years or so. I am 40 years old and was lucky enough to grow up on some of the biggest films sets etc. that there have been (just about), at EMI, Pinewood and Sheperton. (I am a huge fan of British film technicians). In the “old days” people did conduct themselves in a very professional manner and there was always this “vibe” that everyone was the best in their craft and did everything in their power to NOT LET THINGS FAIL and really deliver. A good sense of humor helps, but with a good crew everybody is dependent on everyone else, very tightly scheduled, and nobody wants to let anybody else down. It makes basic sense. Its people and good planning that prevent failure when the stakes are high and you can’t blame equipment especially if it is known that a particular systems has a well defined failure rate.

Today this attitude seems to be (in some circles) “unfashionable” somehow, and everything has to have an EXTREME edge to it, i.e. motifs of chain saws and saw blades, and rock’n roll/grunge and heavy base, pounding cameras into the tarmac kind of approach. The image that is communicated is that it seems to be “uncool” to seem to have an “old fashioned” “professional attitude” and everything has to be taken to an unplanned limit of some kind or extreme. Initially when RED started, this was used to push this rebel, buck the system type attitude, and was reflected in their early designs and marketing; however their current new designs are far more slick (really beautiful) and seem to have moved away from testosterone linked imagery to perhaps engage and appeal to a more professional market. The former was understandable given the Beta nature of the product.

Red/Jim know what they are doing just as well as anyone else, and they know with EPIC that unquestionably many more “professionals” are going to take up their systems. In essence they have designed and planned for that. It goes hand in hand, and eventually EPIC (I belive) will define what it means to execute modern cinematography. This is clear.

In essence, I sense that the attitude that underpins the product is shifting increasingly to (what I would consider) a much more professional direction, and in the near future I would fully expect RED’s products and services to reflect that.


Cheers,

Eric

 

[chris layhe]

Professional is about never thinking good enough is good enough and perfect is attainable...

Chris

 

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

The difference between an amateur and a professional is: The professional corrects his mistakes. The amateur doesn't know he made one.

Brilliant!

 

[J. Eric Camp]

Professional for a person and a tool have vastly different definitions on my wall.

Since RED makes tools not people I shall phrase my response as such.

Tools:

Dependable, precise achievement of a higher standard.