I agree that the term videographer is associated with lower level production.
. . . Cameraman, photographer, photog, shooter, 'hey you', hell, even 'camera monkey'…
You better watch out and not forget about camerawoman. Amanda, Emily and Cyndy, you can thank me later. Hahaha! I like shooter the best and is what I use the most. I called two high school interns that worked for me a while back camera monkeys and they actually liked it, as expected. How about camera operator or camera op?
Grips have some crazy jargon but besides speed I've been told it has the added advantage of letting them know if the new guy is for real. . . .
I know you said
added advantage and that
could be a valid way to evaluate someone's knowledge but it's superficial & not guaranteed. It's kind of like padding a resume before it's verified. Talking the talk and walking the walk can be two different things. Field producers can talk the talk with production terms but we've all seen how they shoot which is why they mostly shoot B / Z-camera (bahaha) or emergency/disposable shots, although some do have advanced skills.
A person could hang out around those using the gear and hear the talk and then recite it but can they actually operate and troubleshoot the gear with hands-on knowledge such as navigating all the internal menus knowing what the values mean, hold a steady handheld frame wide or tight while static or walking, correctly white balance, expose, perform an accurate follow focus, execute a nice tapered in/out zoom, etc and sometimes do some of those and more at a moment's notice or simultaneously?
Look at me. I've talked some talk up to now but as most of my critical
admirers here may think, I must have just read alot of manuals and/or hung around working production crews to
know what I know. Why, because I'm not in this site's club, I say what I think and don't act as traditional, reserved and submissive to the resident gods as it's believed I should. That mentality is one of the reasons I don't talk much about / post pictures of my gear or mention much detail of my non-news production experience on this board. There's probably not many here that would believe it was mine without on-set proof anyway. But there's other nice people here that make it worth returning to post every now and then.
. . . or not wanting older, more experienced/expensive, crew working for them.
That's kind of presumptuous and overzealous. You don't necessarily have to be old to be highly skilled and I highly respect older people in the industry and in general. Other than being cheap, who would not want to use an experienced crew? All that just because someone called themself a videographer?