Brand habits
Over the years I’ve noticed that our industry has a deeply rooted habit: on commercial video sets, top-tier gear gets requested by default, no matter what the project is. It comes down to familiarity with certain brands and a wish to repeat a way of working that has already been proven. To be clear, I almost exclusively use professional gear myself — but there are different levels of professional, and the right choice depends on the job. Always reaching for the top level isn’t necessarily the best call. It’s just the most comfortable one, for people who would rather not question their habits.
More gear, more problems
There’s a basic misunderstanding here: the idea that better gear means a better result. It doesn’t, necessarily. Better gear often just means heavier gear. Take Arri and Red, the two big names in digital cinema cameras (I use both). An Arri Alexa 35 weighs almost twice as much as a Red, and that alone is a problem. But it’s not only the camera: to support an Arri you need everything to be bigger. A sturdier tripod, like a Cartoni that can weigh 30 kilos, and larger sliders, cranes and dollies. More weight means more people to move it all, more people means more time, and more time means more cost. None of which guarantees a better result.
When I started renting big cinema cameras, the first thing I did was strip off every accessory that came with the rental and get back to what I actually needed, which was very often just the screen and the sensor. I was taking off kilos of metal that were only getting in the way.
My setup
A few years ago I settled on the setup I like best. I’ve been a Red user for a long time, and after renting several bodies I ended up buying a Red Komodo X, which I think is the best camera I’ve ever used. It’s small and relatively cheap, but it has a bad reputation. I don’t care. I know it well and the results are excellent, and that’s what matters — even if some colleagues turn up their noses when they see it, and not only people who don’t shoot Red.
Today almost all semi-professional and professional cameras are close in quality. Image quality has reached such a high level that it’s often wasted. What separates the models are highly specific features that, on most projects, we’ll never use: synced timecode, genlock, simultaneous Raw and Proxy recording, and so on.
So it’s better to choose a setup you know well and learn to use it properly, whatever its size, rather than chasing trends.
What makes a video effective
But there’s a deeper question here, and it’s about what makes a video effective.
After many years in production, I’ve realised that technical quality matters far less than people think. Sure, a more creative DP can make a video look better, but what really counts is the content: if a video has a strong idea, it works; if it doesn’t, it just sits there. The opposite is true too: a great idea in the hands of someone who isn’t up to it ends up as a video that doesn’t work.
How do you recognise good content? It has to say something, and it has to take a position. What we show needs information and opinions that someone will care about. The more you put yourself out there, the more effective it will be. And the content has to follow a clear logic from beginning to end, without wandering off on tangents.
The portfolio doesn’t lie
So what should a brand look at before choosing a production company, instead of asking for the equipment list? The portfolio. I’ve seen projects shot on the best cameras on the market that looked like they were filmed on a phone, and extraordinary work made with entry-level cameras. The portfolio doesn’t lie.
Gear is a tool for realising ideas. It isn’t a sales tool — at least not for us. In a gold rush, the people who get rich sell pickaxes. Today the rush is for video content, and the pickaxes are cameras, lenses and lighting kits. We are the audience for the companies that make gear for videomakers, not our clients. And we often fall for the marketing, convinced that one piece of gear is better than another.
My clients haven’t asked me what camera I shoot on in years. They know my track record, they’ve seen the portfolio, and they know they can trust me.
