Post Title.

---

A Camera isn't a magic wand

Today fortunately and unforntunately technology has made it easy for just about anyone to buy a DSLR (5D, 7D, etc) and get great low light shots and a "filmic" looking shallow depth of feild. So now everybody is a film maker and now more than ever, everyone is a "music video director". Most of these delusional prima donnas tend to venture into music videos because it is easier to do a four minute long music video than any length movie. And if you do a poor job at producing this video you can just throw some graphics and split screens in there, attempt to cover up the mediocrity and just label it as "style". This is unfortunately acceptable in Jamaica, our standards are much lower than other developed countries. I shudder and cringe when I use the word "our", as I do not stoop to these mediocre standards, but the fact is I am Jamaican. Anyway, these new "reasonably" priced cameras are both good and bad, because even though the talentless hustlers will grab them up and try to make the camera make the production, they're still truly talented motion picture producers out there who are now able to let their lights shine without breaking the bank. The thing people need to take into consideration when treating a camera like a magic wand is this, true producers, cinematographers and directors were making great motion pictures long before the advent of these "HD" cameras, long before. And it is very easy, effortless even, for a true pro to use the oldest, weakest camera and produce a better picture than a novice with the latest Red or DSLR, or whatever the current craze is. Again, It's not the camera, it's the skilled person behind it. Also, and these are just my observations over the years regarding Jamaican productions, especially music videos, a Jib or Dolly (while being the amazing tools they are) do not equal a great production. You could have all the equipment in the land, if you have no true talent, experience and professionalism, all that equipment equals nothing. I've seen displays of this fact time and time again, every week in this country it seems new videos are released and very few of them are of any decent quality, mostly just hustlers trying to make a buck, using equipment and popular musicians as their selling point and very little in the way of true talent. It would be very easy for a trained military person to use a snub nosed revolver to take out a novice with an M-16 assault rifle. It would also be easy for a trained race car driver in an old 1973 volkswagon to outrun a novice in the latest sports car once placed on a track that requires skill to navigate. This is an indisputable fact! You see, if you were to give a pro an old beat up PD 150 camera on a properly lit set and do the same for a novice with a 5D Mark III and just tell them to press the record button, as every other setting was already done, then the novice would win because that's all left to the camera's abilities, but just like on a track that requires skill to maneuver through, the same principle would apply to a shot that had to be skillfully composed from scratch, a novice could not deliver in such a situation and technology has not yet reached that point where the camera will wipe your ass for you, so there's my point, skilled hands. This isn't Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry, no magic wands here. Look out for my next blog - The world belongs to the "Doers", not the "Talkers"