I think you are right...in point of fact, none of the current crop of "combo-cams" are worth a crap from the standpoint of cinematography...want a zoom motor? Get a real motion picture camera...want focus stops? Get a real motion picture camera Want some really good (and really friggin' expensive) optics? Get a real motion picture camera.
Your points are well taken, though some of it is a little dated.
I don't for a moment believe that every still photographer is going to be asked, (or be good at) shooting a 90 minute feature, a 20 minute short, even a high budget 30 second spot.
Then again, the world of advertising has taken a serious change. Interactive is the only thing anybody is talking about and I can understand why.
Myself, this year I've planned and had design work done for three direct mailing campaigns. Each time when we are ready to go to press, I've hit the brakes.
Mainly because at this stage 1/3 of the recipients aren't in their same rolls or have their jobs and the other 2/3's really aren't buying that much large produciton high end photography, at least in traditional print.
Also in traditional print, to reach even a moderate number of qualified viewers is 2000x more expensive than
a well designed electronic promotion.
If this holds true in my industry, then the same can be said for consumer advertising. Nobody wants to spend $200,000 in still production on a campaign, $1,000,000 on a media buy, that may go into a magazine, that may go on a shelf, that may be bought all with a lead time of 90 days and all the while the magazine has dropped circulation and pages or worse is read mostly on the web, because we all know the web is free. (insert insane smile here).
The advertisers that want to get their message out, want it out today and if motion can be added to a still shoot that is just gravy on top and everyone likes a little gravy.
We've spoken to a lot of AD's we work with, about every talent agent in the U.S. (mostly to renegotiate use on older projects), production companies, crew, etc. etc. and all exactly echo the same story.
The one thing that everyone talks about is motion. I'm not even sure if at this stage agencies and their respective advertisers really know what to do with it when they get it, or what vehicle to place it in to get proper viewership, but they ALL want motion along with stills of the same quality and would love nothing more than to have a still frame from a motion clip that is good enough to run double page.
Every paying client I know is much more than interested.
It's funny our business is very myopic. You talk to an AD about Vincent L. and few know of the Canon video or of his work, other than stills. You talk to them about the new Levi's and Wrangler Europe interactive campaigns and they all know about those and those are motion pieces.
As far as making it in Hollywood, hell, LA, NY any major market is tough in any form of the industry, so going to get chewed up and spit out is nothing new. I wish Vincent the best of luck.
Now in regards to post production. Professional post production, stills or motion is difficult and time consuming if you shoot in volume, under deadline and have high expectations. I find it no harder to pull a days shooting of selected motion clips and display them than I do 2,000 still frames. I find it no more difficult to do some quick color correction on footage than I do batch processing out 2,000 jpegs so in the end it is close to being a wash.
Editing, effecting, color correcting for final output, yes that it another layer, (well except the color correcting) but that is usually handed off to a third party, so from the photographer/dp./director (whatever we are nowadays) it's pretty much the same.
In regards to the Canon, it has it's issues, though for 3 grand it's magic and I've seen some pretty amazing imagery produced from that camera.
Will a 5d2 replace a Scarlet? No, probably not, but will a 5d2 work within a lot of dual purpose media, even high budget media . . . yes it will. It does take a lot of accessories to work that camera at a professional level including click stops for focus, but their is a cottage industry that has developed for the 5d2 that is not only quite large, also backordered by months, so obviously this camera is very much on everyone's mind.
I have my own take and belief's on where advertising is going and about 1/2 is just pure speculation, though I do know that print and traditional network television viewing is down, and "personal" computer time is up, so that kind of tells us what image carrier is going to get the most attention in the future.
Then again as Michael says, I could be wrong, though I don't think so . . . not this time.
JR