Dagger Claws said:
Alright guys, thanks alot for the information on equipment. What I really want to know is this: How can a begininer at digital video use it to create a professional looking film? I know nothing about it but would be interested in learning BUT I'd like it kept simple.
Hi Marc,
The first thing is that your first few films may not be completely "professional" looking - that takes some practice - so don't be discouraged if the first few don't turn out exactly the way you planned. The good news is that even the lowest-end consumer video equipment can produce pretty good quality video these days. I'd experiment at the low, cheap end of things before splurging on any fancy high-end equipment.
For
Bear Town that I'm doing right now I'm shooting with a
Cannon ZR60 Mini-DV camera. That's about the cheapest Cannon camcorder I could find (I prefer Cannon cameras because the optics tend to be superior to most other brands). It cost me about $700 Cdn I think, but I have seen it for sale stateside for as little as $350 US. I'm used to shooting on higher-end equipment like the Cannon XL-1 but I couldn't afford one and I've been impressed by the ZR-60. It is a very good little camera with a lot of bang for your buck.
It actually comes with
Firewire (the best way to connect a camera to your computer - invented by Apple but more common on PCs now) but it will work with a standard USB port too. I have a PC so to edit I use
Adobe Premiere, but if I had a Mac I would probably work with
Final Cut Pro. Most editors prefer Final Cut, but Premiere can do everything you need mostly likely. I know some digital TV stations prefer Premiere over Final Cut. It's a matter of preference. You can download a free trial of Premiere from Adobe's site and try it out. There are a number of freeware or shareware editing programs available by searching under "video editing" in the downloads section of
ZDnet. I don't like most of these but you might want to check them out anyway.
As for lighting, what you want to start with is called 3 Point Lighting. There's a handy tutorial at
http://www.andrew-whitehurst.net/3point.html or check your local library, which probably has lots of books on filmmaking and lighting.
One book you should probably read is
Rebel Without A Crew by Robert Rodriguez, the director of "Spy Kids" and "Once Upon A Time In Mexico". It's the story of how he made a $7,000 "home movie" called El Mariachi which ended up winning awards and making a few million at the box office. It includes a great article he's written called "10 Minute Film School" which is also available online
here.
Another book that I find especially useful when planning a film is
Setting Up Your Shots which is a visual encyclopedia of different film shots and transitions.
Lately I've been picking up
Moviemaker Magazine at a local newsstand and I've noticed it has a lot of good information for filmmakers - beginners and advanced a like. Check your library for back issues. If they don't carry it tell them they should!
I also have a couple links for how to do things like steadicam and blue screen cheap on my site at
http://www.bear-town.com/links.htm. I'll be adding more filmmaking links soon so you might want to check back there in a few weeks.
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