But in local show business – which has its own culture and language – "professional" means giving your full cooperation to a TV or movie project and not being a headache to your producer.
Most veteran performers today lament the fact that the present generation of stars lacks professionalism.
Although I agree with the opinion of the senior stars regarding this matter, we also have to consider that the scenario in show business has changed a lot since those golden, olden days of the movies.
During the Sampaguita/LVN/Premiere days, movie stars worked on an exclusive basis with the mother company controlling the schedule of their talents. Actors worked only on one movie at a time – unlike now when a star sometimes shuttles between two or even three movie sets. (It was worse in the ‘70s – before Regal, Viva and now, Star Cinema, brought back the practice of tying down movie stars to an exclusive contract.)
And back then, movie stars only had to concentrate on their movie work – with an occasional foray into radio for promo work. (I can also imagine that there were fewer distractions in those days before cable TV and the Internet. Gimmicks? they had nightclubbing then.)
Today, however, a movie star at the peak of his or her success would be doing a movie while at the same time working on two regular programs on television. And when promo time comes, the movie stars have to be all over – radio, TV or anywhere he or she can plug a film scheduled for showing.
The situation has become a lot more complicated for movie stars of today. Those who cannot comply with the demands of showbiz are often branded "unprofessional."
Strangely enough, the yardstick of professionalism has been simplified in some instance in show business and is often measured by the manner in which an actor clocks in for work. Those who are punctual are called "professional" while those who habitually report to work late are said to be, well, "unprofessional."
I guess it was a lot easier to be punctual back then in the old days because shootings were often done in the studio or in nearby outdoor locations. In Sampaguita Pictures, for instance, if the stars had to be shown on horseback, they just walked over to nearby Delgado Hills across the studio lot. (If I’m not mistaken, that is now the site of the Gilmore Townhomes, which was developed by the Ayalas, and among its famous residents is Tina Revilla-Valencia.)
Need to go provincial — where the lead actress can bathe in the river or do her laundry? The studio had a flowing creek that cut through the compound.
Today, most movie-TV stars have to go to far Fairview (or in those subdivisions at the back of Ever Gotesco) and brave the hopeless Commonwealth Avenue traffic to report for work because that’s the usual location for most film sets and TV productions doing soap operas.
If the location is new and unfamiliar, the poor movie-TV star also loses time getting lost and asking for directions.
Of course, if the actor is "professional" enough, he or she should learn to leave the house early to catch one’s call time. That is, if he or she did not have a late night ’til early morning shooting the day before.
Punctuality, however, is not the only mark of professionalism. An actor may show up way ahead even of the crew but still be unprofessional if he comes to work not knowing his lines.
But then, there are times when the script is delivered to the actor’s home only the night before, which leaves him very little time to study his parts. The actor may reason out and cite the late delivery of the script as the reason why he failed to memorize his lines. But behind his back, he should expect members of the production staff to talk about him and his being unprofessional.