DV Info Net - What is a professional videographer?

How is your sense of humour this late summer sunny Sunday?

This is a self-test called ‘What is a professional videographer’! After reading a few posts here one could be forgiven for having doubts about this subject. Here is a list, undoubtedly incomplete, that might just help if you are having an identity crisis.

A professional videographer is one who:

Wins an Oscar
Hasn’t won an Oscar but will soon
Confuses his penis with his camera, and vice versa
Has a business card upon which is printed using an exotic font ‘Professional Videographer’
Shoots weddings using a HDW-F900 camera
Shoots weddings using a Hi8 camera but edits in FCP
Shoots weddings but has a PhD
Shoots weddings
Shoots funerals
A retired Doctor, Dentist, Lawyer, Accountant…etc who shoots the grandkids
Is writing a screenplay
Makes training videos using obscure technical language that only he/she understands
Makes training videos which are essentially copies of other training videos
Writes sales literature presenting it as the ultimate camera guidebook
Has been in the business 30 frikin years or more but never finished high school
Uses a tripod
Uses a monopod when on vacation
Uses a boom pole
Uses the wife, girlfriend, lover, and/or all three, to hold the boom pole
Shoots 24p and thereafter watches the footage on an aging 17” LCD
Can always see the difference between 24p and 25p
Knows that the ‘film look’ is the end all and the be all.
Knows that interlaced video is the work of the Devil
Has a following of stupid sycophants
Makes a living using a video camera
Doesn’t make a living using a video camera but will one day
Would change his/her spouse before changing tape brands
Would rather jump off a cliff than shoot in auto
Responds to most every post no matter what
Would not be seen dead using an on-camera microphone
Know that it’s cool to bastardize the English language by using spelling such as ‘goanna, wanna, kinda’
Never considers content as important as the equipment
Loves his camera
Can repeatedly say they plan to print to film while keeping a straight face
Religiously believe in a specific equipment manufacturer
Takes this post seriously
Posts this kind of garbage

Oh, would some Power the gift give us,
To see ourselves as others see us;
It would from many a blunder
And foolish notion free us

Robert Burns - “To a Louse on Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet in Church.”