Ultra amateur film making

I'm starting to do a series of how to videos for a forum, and I need some advice on equipment a little bit down the road. I know I need a couple of tripods and some gorillapods, but what about maybe suction cup? Are the GoPro ones adequate for a GoPro? I'd like at least one GoPro, and at least one entry level DSLR. I'm thinking used Canon with a couple of pieces of extra glass. I need a wide range of focal lengths, and I like using primes for this stuff.

For software, I snagged the new Sony Vegas or whatever that is. Should that hold me over until I'm well acquainted with editing, or should I step down or up? I'm all Windows XP and 7 now, but could have an Ubuntu box with a decent videocard going with ease if that helps with hardware. It's single core with only a gig of RAM, and it's DDR1 so that might make it a no go. Should I Hackintosh something?

Someday, I'll have to stop by JG's house and pick up one of his dolly rigs, or at least see one being made. That's pretty far down the road, though.

What's an ultra amateur??

Your equipment list sounds semi-pro.

I shoot reasonably decent how-to's with a Sony Handycam. Unless the forum is a photography forum, it doesn't take much.

The GoPro's wide angle lens is better for action shots, avoid using that for "talking in front of the camera" type stuff or showing details.

For a video editing rig, it's all about processing POWER and storage speed, RAM helps too, GPU power isn't even that important in comparison. But if you have an old machine, it just means you wait more. For the kind of video work you're doing WMM might be sufficient, if not, put Ubuntu (Xubuntu or Lubuntu specifically, since regular Ubuntu's desktop manager will guzzle a big chunk of your RAM) on something and use Kdenlive.

I do tons of videos like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSxxxq_g08U with an Olympus EPL-1, a $14 tripod from Target, and a used wireless mic setup. I use Premiere CS5 to edit each video. Before that I was using a FlipCam and iMovie!

It isn't about the equipment, it is about the person using it. Hell, I do some amazing work with an iPhone 4s and iMovie. Shoot, edit, post to YouTube. Done.

For inexpensive but nice tripods, try your local Goodwill or thrift store. I've picked up several old (i.e. sturdy) tripods for less than $5. Modern ones would run you 10x that amount.

-Rob

slefain wrote: It isn't about the equipment, it is about the person using it. Hell, I do some amazing work with an iPhone 4s and iMovie. Shoot, edit, post to YouTube. Done.

Yes, this. But I'll make your life easier with some recommendations.

HDSLRs are great, and can produce awesome, film-like results, but they're not the best tool for how-to type stuff. With manual focus and a shallow depth of field, they really require a dedicated operator, or a VERY specific setup to work correctly. If you were only going to have one camera, I'd make it a traditional camcorder. Add an HDSLR as a B Cam and use it for shots you can control better.

Get some lights. Even cheap halogens work great. The difference between good looking video and bad looking video is almost always light. Throw enough light on something, and even the most average camera will produce excellent results.

Get real sound. ON CAMERA SOUND ALWAYS SUCKS. Always. Get a camera with a mic input, and get a Rode videomic pro or a body pack.

$300 spent on proper lights and sound will pay higher dividends than an additional $300 spent on camera gear.

As for support, you don't need much. I normally take one of my dollies with a $75 Chinese fluid head and that serves as tripod or motion if I need it. The dolly is heavy enough where if you just set it on a table (not on the wheels) you can manipulate the head for pans and tilts without the base scrabbling around. Actual tripods are useful, but certainly not essential.

jg

To piggyback on JG's post.... it's amazing what you can accomplish with a DSLR these days.

This video and others posted by him are NOT shot with a dedicated video camera.

http://youtu.be/tdXhvTwUa8U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxEm9TFcWls&feature=share&list=UUI-w3iSkoY6KeHYpvV_2Nbw

Swank Force One wrote: To piggyback on JG's post.... it's amazing what you can accomplish with a DSLR these days. This video and others posted by him are NOT shot with a dedicated video camera. http://youtu.be/tdXhvTwUa8U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxEm9TFcWls&feature=share&list=UUI-w3iSkoY6KeHYpvV_2Nbw

It's crazy, isn't it? And to think that video was just an afterthought feature thrown on to the original Canon 5D.

It's really democratized the creative process. Now you can walk into a Best Buy and walk out with all the gear necessary to shoot a feature film for under a few thousand dollars. The only limitation is how good of a story you can tell.

jg

JG Pasterjak wrote: Get real sound. ON CAMERA SOUND ALWAYS SUCKS. Always. Get a camera with a mic input, and get a Rode videomic pro or a body pack.

QFT

Best thing I ever did was get the wireless mic setup. An external audio input is a MUST in my opinion, even if you are just using a 10-foot cable and a pencil mic.

I never did figure out why onboard mics are so bad. You spend multitude of thousands on a good camera.. and the mic on a 15 year old cellphone is better

If you're doing interview type how-to's or video blogs, I've read good reviews for the Snowball USB microphones, under $100 but not sure if it'll input into a camera.

But yes, crappy audio will ruin a video, no matter how informative it's hard to sit through what sounds like a distant echo of a speakerphone call.

Also... make sure she's 18 and signs a waiver

slefain wrote:

JG Pasterjak wrote: Get real sound. ON CAMERA SOUND ALWAYS SUCKS. Always. Get a camera with a mic input, and get a Rode videomic pro or a body pack.

QFT Best thing I ever did was get the wireless mic setup. An external audio input is a MUST in my opinion, even if you are just using a 10-foot cable and a pencil mic.

I did video announcements for our church with my canon 60d up until I moved... $20 worth of pan lights + my shop lights for background fill light worked great... for sound a $25 or so audio technica lav mic finished out the package...

we tried several mic setups but they all picked up on echo and background noise to much

slefain wrote:

JG Pasterjak wrote: Get real sound. ON CAMERA SOUND ALWAYS SUCKS. Always. Get a camera with a mic input, and get a Rode videomic pro or a body pack.

QFT Best thing I ever did was get the wireless mic setup. An external audio input is a MUST in my opinion, even if you are just using a 10-foot cable and a pencil mic.

I did video announcements for our church with my canon 60d up until I moved... $20 worth of pan lights + my shop lights for background fill light worked great... for sound a $25 or so audio technica lav mic finished out the package...

we tried several mic setups but they all picked up on echo and background noise too much... never did get a chance to use a shotgun on a boom pole but for the price you couldn't beat the setup we had it looked and sounded great and because we used inbeded sound it saved a small extra step vs using a separate audio recorder