What Is The Definition Of Professional/Amateur Filmmaker?...

[Evan Kubota]

"Anyway, my only point was that i liked the definition of 'lover' better as opposed to 'dabbler'."

Good, but the connotation is still there regardless of whether you presented it. I have to agree with mattias.

[flatwood]

Photography has been extremely easy to access and there's been a wide blurred line between the pure pros and the pure amateurs for a lot of years.

To become a working pro takes absolute dedication, talent or not, a willingness to get one's hands dirty, and as much eductation as you can cram in, as many friends as you can find and you have to have access to whatever technology you're working with, the more access the better.

To become a top amateur takes all those things too so maybe its a polarity issue.

[adoyle]

i suppose i am a pro shooter?

in the terms of super 8,the rolls are slightly reversed.
many amateur super 8 lovers actually shoot better quality super 8 than most pros!
some of the worst footage i have ever seen has been shot by famous commercials directors.dp's etc who are paid 100s of thousands of pounds a year..utter garbage,they use the camera like a water pistol...
i call it squirtyvision..
in the early 1980s i was a member of the solihull cine society in the uk..
a club for s8 amateurs.
to this day i have not seen footage as slick and as interesting....

[Alex_W]

my only point was that i liked the definition of 'lover' better as opposed to 'dabbler'. That's how language evolves, mediated through the people who use it.

point taken. this thread was about the definition though. you presented one definition and deliberately left out the more common one. go figure right back to you again.

/matt

you're breaking my balls man! ;) I didn't really read the thread before posting, i was just trying to be all wise and retorical. So i left out a definition. Sorry!

[mattias]

So i left out a definition.

problem is you didn't. you gave the impression that you knew the true meaning of the word because you knew its etymology. and you said "whether you make money or not is irrelevant", which just isn't true and most likely wasn't when it was first used in the manner you describe either.

/matt

[Alex_W]

On page 1 you said:

you presented one definition and deliberately left out the more common one

and now you're saying i didn't. Is this a Jedi mind trick?

You got me all wrong. I'm not speaking about any true meaning. In my opinion, words don't have them. I know the common meaning of the word amateur, as opposed to the word professional. I just like the fact that the word 'amateur' is derived from the word 'lover'. I would like to use it as such, because, besides it being used as the opposite of 'professional', it is mostly used in a derogatory way, which i believe to be because people feel ashamed to watch simple and 'wrong' stuff. You call something 'amateuristic' because you want to distance yourself from it, make it something that does not belong to your world. It's a very common mechanism, certainly you would agree with this.

So, yes, a professional is someone who makes money making films or whatever, but according to my little special definition this pro could also be an amateur, if he loves what he does. Wouldn't that make the world a happier place? I bet Bob Ross would be proud of me.

[steve hyde]

On page 1 you said:

you presented one definition and deliberately left out the more common one

and now you're saying i didn't. Is this a Jedi mind trick?

You got me all wrong. I'm not speaking about any true meaning. In my opinion, words don't have them.

...well said. We have popular meaning, historical meaning, hegemonic meaning. True meaning is about as hard to locate as the Truth itself. The word amatuer seems to have been hijacked by pornographers. Doing people doing what people love doing. 8O

Steve

[mattias]

dp

[mattias]

and now you're saying i didn't.

i have been all along. you completely misunderstood my reference to what this thread might be about. i'm not the stay on topic police or anything like that. read it again and you'll see that i'm saying *because* this thread is about this, this is how people (me) will *interpret* your post. if somebody asks for a definition and he gets something that looks as much as a definition as yours he'll think it's a definition, always, promise. wouldn't you? seriously?

/matt

[tlatosmd]

The word amatuer seems to have been hijacked by pornographers. Doing people doing what people love doing. 8O

Or in other, less complex words: Just doin' people! ;)

[S8 Booster]

The word amatuer seems to have been hijacked by pornographers. Doing people doing what people love doing. 8O

Or in other, less complex words: Just doin' people! ;)

would that be we are all professional amateurs - or - only those make it being professionals.

s6hÔÔt

[Alex_W]

and now you're saying i didn't.

i have been all along. you completely misunderstood my reference to what this thread might be about. i'm not the stay on topic police or anything like that. read it again and you'll see that i'm saying *because* this thread is about this, this is how people (me) will *interpret* your post. if somebody asks for a definition and he gets something that looks as much as a definition as yours he'll think it's a definition, always, promise. wouldn't you? seriously?

/matt

Probably. But i believe i've made my intentions clear now. To be sure:


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