Re: Camera Choices

I totally agree with what Richard said (well done too!) and will add to his fine words of encouragement.

You're in the exact same position I was eight months ago, so I can totally relate. So many choices, so many price ranges, so many options, so damn confusing!

I learned the hard way, so I will give you some hints to buying gear. If you want to buy a camera, look on this site or dvxuser.com, a lot of good deals on gently used gear that won't break the bank. I bought a Panasonic HVX200 camera (plus some other accessories) for a very good deal. Camera had only 16 hours on it, bought it for $4800. I then sold the P2 card that came with it and bought a Firestore FS-100 HD (160GB) for another $900. I sold my card for $450, so the Firestore was a great deal indeed and works really, really well. I then bought a used Manfrotto 501 tripod, $340 for it. Rode NT-2 microphone was another $380. cables, misc batteries and accessories were like $200 on top of everything else. I got an 3.06 GhZ iMac (only because I couldn't afford a Power Mac G5) with 4GB Ram and 24" screen for $1900 (and a Western Digital external HD for $125) for backing everything up. All of this cost me $8070.00 and, guess what, I still need some more gear haha. I need a nice on-camera light right now, that will be approx. $500 - $700 for that and an external battery for the light and/or firestore too, another $200.

It's expensive to shoot film/video, make no mistake about it. Ultimately, you can go a lot more expensive than what I did or even cheaper. I like to think my gear is average maybe in terms of quality and industry standards but, hey, listen to what Richard said too. It's all about the story, it really is. I'm filming a documentary and I now realize I don't need all the fancy tools or things for it. Want a good story/premise that has no fancy tools or special effects? Watch "Supersize Me" or any of Michael Moore's earlier stuff (his later films are a bit more polished haha), these are slightly basic films in terms of quality and how they were edited (no disrespect whatsoever, I think Supersize Me is great!) but the storylines are intriguing, people love them. Look at flops that went way over budget and were crap movies. Doesn't matter if you have HD or special effects, the story or idea was crap and people turned away from seeing them.

I only bought my equipment because I wanted long use from them. I'm shooting in 720/24 HD and the results so far have been really impressive in terms of quality and sound. Not the best like a Hollywood big budget but still good enough for a film festival.

Bigger isn't better... buy what you can afford and spend lots of time on ideas and writing. In the end, you'll have a project strong on quality and less about the wow factor. Want a good wow factor? Great writing and something that people will be so impressed by, they'll talk about it after they watched it.

-Dale