I disagree. You need to know what tools you need for what you are making. Sometimes a 16mm Arri-cam is what you need, other times a Go-Pro, and sometimes a DSLR. Certain types of films call for certain types of gear and to not have at least a general idea of what kind of tools you need for a job seems like poor preparation and could lead to all sorts of unwanted consequences.
I don't think we're far away from being in agreement, I just think we're coming at it from different directions. My response to Nikola was in context with my other posts in this thread, namely, making a feature of the professional/near professional standards expected by the top tier festivals. In this context, knowing all the various tools/combination of tools and knowing which is the right or best one/s for a particular job is an impossible and futile task....
To address your post in this context, the filmmaker does not need to know whether a 16mm Arri or a Go-Pro is what is needed. The DP sure does though! I realise that in amateur filmmaking, the filmmaker is also often the DP, and the Gaffer and maybe the PSM and the set designer, and in post, is often the picture editor and the sound editor, sound designer, ADR recordist and re-recording mixer and the colourist and may also fulfil some of the myriad VFX roles. And, not only does the amateur filmmaker take on many/all of these roles (plus maybe some others) they also often have to provide the equipment (and equipment expertise) for all the roles they take on. While amateur filmmakers sometimes achieve surprisingly good results considering what they're trying to do and how they are trying to do it, we're talking about surprisingly good results relative to other amateur filmmakers or near comparable results relative to one or two of the individual crafts in a professional standard film.
I for example know the difference between a DSLR, a 16mm Arri and a Go-Pro but not enough to be sure which would be the best for any particular job. Likewise, you might know that a particular situation might be better recorded in stereo than in mono but you wouldn't know whether to use a near co-incident XY pair, an ORTF pair, a spaced AB pair, an MS pair or maybe a larger mic array and you wouldn't know which actual types/makes of mic would be best suited for each pair/array. Maybe I'm doing you a disservice and you do know all this but you would need to be literally a superhuman genius to know all the other crafts in the same amount of detail. And, even if you were this superhuman genius, that still wouldn't help much because how are you going to set-up all the equipment for the different crafts and then operate it all at the same time, without compromising any of those crafts? Not to mention that the filmmaker will also be fulfilling the role of Director, directing the actors/action at the same time as well!
I've worked with a number of successful professional directors who knew essentially nothing about sound equipment and at least one who knew nothing about cameras. I only found this out because I uncharacteristically enquired how a particularly unusual shot had been achieved and the Director said words to the effect of "don't ask me, I hate cameras!". However, while many knew next to nothing about sound equipment they generally had a very good to excellent knowledge of how to use sound for storytelling purposes! I remember well over 20 years ago chatting with a veteran re-recording mixer who told me about a notoriously demanding filmmaker who asked him to do something which was virtually impossible with the equipment of the time. Upon being informed of this fact, the Director replied "My job is to tell you how I want the film to sound, your job is to do it, I'm not interested in how difficult it is". BTW, I'm paraphrasing and if you're interested, the director was Stanley Kubrik.
At the professional level of filmmaking it's really not important how much the filmmaker knows about the equipment but it's obviously essential that the operators of that equipment and their department heads are experts and it's also essential that the filmmaker knows how to employ all the crafts.
G
