Re: workflow options on an extremely limited budget

I'm going to echo Craig on this one. It's the cost of doing business. I don't know of any mechanics trying to do everything with a pliers and a crescent wrench because they are unable or unwilling to stock their toolbox with the right tools for the job. Such a mechanic would not be able to perform a job correctly, within the time allowed, resulting in any sort of quality reputation.

As a teenager I got my foot in the door when the only people producing anything were the ones that had hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in equipment. That's why you'll find people who've been in the business for a while to be especially cranky when someone balks at spending $1200 on something vital to doing your job.

When we prepared to transition from shooting standard definition DV/DVCAM to high definition XDCAM, I was adamant about telling everybody in the building that certain costs were going to go up. Taking the next step in quality, I pointed out, was going to require some investment in hardware and software as well as more care in preparing and setting up each shoot. Suddenly we're dealing with a widescreen format that will expose every little imperfection in lighting, background, and even makeup. The only nice thing about DVCAM by comparison is that it concealed many of those things. Once again, it comes with the territory.

If you're not able to spend the money for an NLE, I'm curious about other aspects of your workflow. If you threw all your resources at just the camera, you're going to be lacking in other very important areas. How's your lighting? Are you archiving?

Cf