But what does it really mean to those in the creative industry facing more and more challenging budgets, timelines and clients? Does this mean everything can now be shot on a Canon Digital Rebel in your brother-in-law’s basement? Not even close.

What it does mean is in the hands of a professional director of photography, with solid crew and on the right project, amazing results can be achieved from a camera system that costs less than your house. It also means that your workflow can be quicker and more responsive. Saving you time and adding creative freedom for your team.

10 years ago it was popular to shoot reversal film and process it for negative. Five years ago it was popular to shoot tungsten film outside and then desaturate it in transfer. Film stocks gave us an extra tool to express our creativity. Now this new wave of digital cameras is giving us a similar toolbox but this time with cameras that have different strengths and weaknesses.

Here’s my oversimplified cheat sheet:

DSLRs are like 16mm was, nimble less expensive to produce with. But they are not the pinnacle of image quality. Right now, compression is still an issue for some applications.

Panasonic AF100 is like shooting super 16, many people won’t be able to tell the difference between it’s image and 35 mm film but it’s smaller sensor size means less options for lenses, greater depth of field, and its compression, thus image quality, isn’t as good as the big guns.

Arri Alexa is like shooting a 35mm negative, it preserves the most highlights, giving you amazing image quality on par with 35 mm film.

Red Epic 5k is like shooting super 35. This camera provides a larger image that give even greater room for cropping, plus Red Raw preserves more color information and latitude for manipulation in post.

These are just a few of the more popular cameras often discussed with commercial shooters. When your bidding your next job, ask the director why they want to use a particular camera over another. It’s not just a budgeting choice, it’s a creative one too.

Like when Gale Tattersall chose to shoot House with Canon DSLRs because it was the best way to shoot in confined spaces. He then worked within the systems limitations to achieve great television.

Or maybe if you’re shooting on a set, you don’t need the same depth of field so the workflow of the AF100 could save you money to use in post or the art department.

Every creative in the business has a portfolio.

It’s our calling card, our proof of worth, and our stamp of identity all rolled into one.

Resume? Why do people even have those when a book says so much more about your ability to work wonders day in and day out?

It’s not just creative people that help to make a project great. Besides us creative people that carry books throughout our careers, great account people are also crucial to to getting brilliant creative produced. Yet so few actually have a portfolio. Shouldn’t they? Don’t they love what they do.

I actually worked with a few portfolio carrying AEs in California and Oregon. It wasn’t that many and I’ve often thought that as an industry we should try and acknowledge the contributions of the entire team that touches a project before it exits the door. When everyone feels ownership, everyone fights harder to make the work great.

When I work with an AE I want to know that she has the same passion for the business that I do. That she’s equally proud of the results of the results of her hard work as I am. I understand the emotional connection to the works isn’t the same with account folks — but shouldn’t everyone be proud of a job well done and be ready to show it off.

Now that I got all that off my chest, here’s a quick take on what the social sphere had to say about things in the macro sense. The USA Today admeter and just about everything else I’ve seen has picked out Doritos as the winner, then Google, and then Snickers. Snickers definitely saw a huge spike but not in the same league as Doritos. Google already has so much discussion online, running a TV spot on the Super Bowl doesn’t show as dramatic spike and it kinda ruins the graph, so I left it off. In case you’re wondering though, it does occupy a big chunk of the “super bow ads” conversation along with Tim Tebow. The Tim Tebow ad doesn’t win any creative awards but Focus On The Family made an excellent strategic play in creating buzz around their ad.

Ok. So we have some discussion but what does it all mean. For Doritos it has definitely moved sentiment in the right direction.

What would be downright frightening to see if one were a Dodge executive is the sentiment trend for the last two days. That was a big stinking pile of money to spend on an ad that pisses women off. Now only single men, who don’t ever want to date a woman will be able to buy that car. Good thing I drive a 10 year old Honda.

That’s something advertising people are not too willing to do these days. Maybe because the job market is so tight that people aren’t willing to stick there neck out. Sure, we may be a media revolution these days, but we’re certainly not a creative one.

This lack of risk taking is in stark contrast to the hundreds of actors willing to make complete asses of themselves just to work on a television campaign. Standing out in that crowd is difficult to say the least. Actors seriously have to put it on the line every day if they’re going to do more than starve or wait tables. So it’s not only humbling to watch them do it, it’s very educational seeing other creative people taking risks that big.

We advertising people think we’re so creative but just how often do we put ourselves on the line in the same way. And I don’t mean by doing an edgy ad – that’s not risky, that’s expected. I mean doing something truly risky. Something that will get you called into the bosses office or called out by a client. Or worse, something that you could be embarrassed by suggesting.

So what’s truly risky? Using technology in a completely new way. Applying real creativity to a new media instead of letting concepts spin out of the print ads or TV spots — (remember the landscape has changed). What about not even presenting an ad at all. Or how about killing the big idea and presenting lots of little ones.

Are you willing to embarrass yourself by trying something risky?