Why We Are Thoroughly Embarrassed to Be Shooting Video with DSLRs

For those of you that haven't heard RED's Jim Jannard has lashed out at DSLR shooters, saying they should be 'embarrassed' to be shooting 1080p on line-skipping sensors. This is our letter to him :)

Dear Mr. Jannard,
We are independent filmmakers from Philadelphia. We are writing you this from the side of a pool as we bask in the glorious sun in beautiful California. We are so embarrassed that we got hired to come out and shoot a job because we use the Canon line of DSLRs. This all expense paid vacation to a gorgeous city on the completely opposite side of the country is shameful. We regret embracing the DSLR technology. Since we didn't just keep waiting for the Scarlet to come out, we have had the unfortunate luck to also be asked to go to Florence, Italy, Canada, Hawaii, Key West, and Haiti. We also filmed a documentary in New York for a company out of the UK. We got that job because we purchased the Canon 7D which shamefully gave great Depth of Field and shot at 25p. We will hang our head low as we have the embarrassing task of heading off to various parts of the world and get work we never would have gotten with traditional video cameras.

It's a real shame that Canon offered an affordable tool that is helping independent filmmakers like us across the globe. However, we are sure you are familiar with Canon, right? You remember Canon. The company that made the cameras that you shot all of Oakley's ads and commercials for the first 20 years of Oakley's history.* Yeah those guys. How dare they?

Anyway, we were humiliated when the opening sequence of SNL, a promo for Jerry Seinfeld's The Marriage Ref, a Nissan Commercial, a Puff Daddy/Rick Ross/Busta Rhymes music video and then, to make matters worse, the season finale of House were all shot on the same cameras we were using. How unprofessional it made us look to our clients.

Sir, while we can certainly understand the limitations of the cameras and your mounting frustration with the Scarlet still not being released it doesn't bode well for you as a businessman or a human to lash out so negatively. What sort of a response had you hoped for? Did you think it would make you a hero to RED users worldwide? Did you think all of us Canon users would have an epiphany and realize, "WOW, all of this work we have been getting is making us really self-conscious!" Did you envision us lining up to throw our 5D's, 7D's, and (gasp) T2i's into a big pile while we danced around them ceremoniously chanting Scarlet? Whatever you hoped to achieve we must unfortunately tell you, that you sir, have failed. We always see ourselves as forward thinkers quick to embrace technology. You have left a bad taste in our mouths and we regret to tell you that we will now probably never ever buy or use a Red camera. I couldn't possible live with myself knowing that I was supporting someone as arrogant and negative as yourself. I'm sure you don't care because you are a billionaire. Bottom line: The camera is just a tool. When you decided to post that comment, unfortunately, you proved that you are too.

Embarrassingly yours,
Jon + Cristina

P.S. If you'd like to attend a Festival of Shame I would suggest going to www.canonfilmmakerslive.com and signing up. I'll tell you what Jim, we will even let you have the student discount because, clearly you have a lot to learn.

* Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jannard  "Jannard shot all of Oakley's ads and commercials for the first 20 years of Oakley history. He used high-end Canon equipment, including a 1DS camera and one of few EF 1200 mm lenses in existence. "

Update:
In all fairness to Jim Jannard he made a clarification to what he said I can respect this a lot more then what was initially posted by him but I won't change what I wrote because it was a truthful response to something that happened and I will never bite my tongue. Would have been a lot better if it was said this way from the get go.:
Heh heh... I'm surprised that so many people are reading posts from Reduser! :-) Wow.

Clarification #1. I think that Canon should be embarrassed about pretending that line-skipping is good enough when they have the capability to do much more. I'm sure they will in the near future. Until then, they are delivering much less than they are capable of... which is one of the reasons I started this company. No one in this industry seems to move unless they are forced to.

Clarification #2. No shooting professional has to justify what equipment they use... only their results.

If people want to correctly point out our flaws as a company, they will only be joining my previous admissions. We have no idea what we are doing. We are always late.

On the other hand, I would bet that no company in any industry cares more about their customers than RED does. We have taught the industry about free upgrades, trade ins and customer service at 3am. We have set a new standard for direct communication with our customers, a standard that other companies are trying to figure out how to emulate.

I don't have any problem with someone pointing out that I have no idea what I am doing... I have said that all along. But it is curious that the industry is falling in line to "be like RED". All I can say is ... "don't do it. You are following the wrong guy." :-)

If these other websites are going to post my comments, I certainly hope they will post this one without edit.

BTW... we have taken a lesson from Apple. We will no longer discuss what we are doing until we are done.

Jim