I had a gig filming some stuff at the Great American Beer Festival for a client in the brewing industry. Great gig, interesting environment, tasty beers. Unexpectedly, I was approached numerous times, by fellow cameramen, wanting to talk about my camera. Most of which included comments of the negative variety. One such young man really took the cake though.
I was taking a break, waiting for our next interview to get ready, and noticed these two dudes just staring, with odd expressions, at my camera from a few feet away. I was half-leaning on it and my tripod, so I couldn't help but notice them. The staring became increasingly uncomfortable and my questioning look back at them finally elicited a comment from one of the two drunks. "We're just checking out that camera... what is that, some kind of .mts shooting thing". Yes I replied. Panasonic's AVCHD format. Works pretty well for my kind of projects. "Oh - so you probably have to use Final Cut Pro and get some kind of lossy, compressed Apple Pro Res 422 file...?" All the while - with this growing look of disgust on his face". I finally was like - "look dude - at this price point (about $2400) - this camera does everything I need it to and keeps me on budget". I don't need a $10,000 broadcast quality HD camera to shoot marketing videos that 95% of which wind up on the company website. Now I know this isn't the fanciest camera in the world, it's lacking several features I wish I had, but it's solid, reliable, affordable and is full resolution HD. I skipped all the HDV cameras on the market when this came out and found it to be the right solution for my business.
In retrospect - there is a host of other things I wish I would have said to this tool at the beerfest, but feel good about keeping my cool and stating the facts. His buddy, finally realizing his friend's rudeness and drunkenness finally bid me farewell and said "Cheers". The drunken rude tool? Didn't say anything else, just stumbled off with his buddy.
Like any other industry/hobby, etc. - there are always going to be those that are all about the fashion before the function. Sure - I'd love to have a RED HD camera, several Canon 7d's - and throw in about $100,000 worth of lenses. Does it make sense for my business? Hell no. Who can afford that stuff? Certainly not me. I bought and used the best camera for what works for my business, and I been working hard with it over the last year. It's paid for itself twice over and then some and I'd buy the same camera all over again.
It is here I could say something about squashing that dude's feeble "daddy paid for art school" ass like bug on the highway, but I have learned a few things in my 43 years on this planet. 1. There will always be annoying pricks that come across your path in life - what you do or say isn't going to make them any more or less of an annoying prick - so I exercise restraint by telling them my facts in a calm and collected manner. 2. Life is short - be thankful every moment no matter how difficult, how easy, how pleasant or how dreadful. We're living people - that in itself is pretty amazing.
