Professional
A person is a professional at something if they're regularly paid to do it; the tools and materials they use to do it are also considered professional, with the implication that they're higher quality than similar tools and materials designed for amateurs.
Ironically, a professional person often has a jankier setup, with an attitude of "Look, kid, I'm on a deadline and a budget here, so I just taped together a couple of things that shouldn't fall apart until after I've finished".
A professional compressor might have a built-in de-esser, to make a singer's silibant "S" sounds less prominent; a professional engineer might simply cover those parts of the audiotape with splicing tape, to quickly get the job done in a way that's good enough.[1]
A professional light stand might, for example, be a C-stand that can be positioned especially close to its neighbours; a professional gaffer who's run out of stands might "Hollywood it", by simply holding the light and keeping very still.
Professional tools are glamorous, but professionals get the job done by any means necessary, and it's often messy. Burdened by budgetary and time constraints rather than insecurity or perfectionism, they're happy to use a haphazard means to a great looking and sounding end. Consumers don't look at studios and sets, they listen to albums and watch films. They care about the end result, not the process. The process itself can be inelegant, as long as it's effective.
When I'm working on a paid job such as a soundtrack, I instantly stop romanticising the best hypothetical way of doing something, and instead quickly get the job done. I can't as easily enter that mindset for my own personal projects. It helps to imagine all the projects I want to finish are for other people, which is one of the main reasons I set up a Patreon account. The other, naturally, being that it enables me to spend less time doing a day job, and more time being creative.
It's not the tools nor materials that make someone a professional. It's that they do something often enough that they get good at it, and people start to pay them to do it. Being able to afford higher quality tools and materials to make their art with is the effect of being professional, not the cause.
Make something great with what you have.
References
- The Great British Recording Studios Howard Massey, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4584-2197-5, p. 260
Electronic music making essays: Fidelity | Professional
Filmmaking essays: A brief history of 35 mm movie aspect ratios in the US | Fidelity | Professional
