I Want To Make Movies - Now What? PT. 3

So my personal love in the film making world is the art of cinematography and camera operation. I love composition and the tech behind digital cinematography. One thing that originally drove me was the technological aspects of digital cinema. So when I started making movies it was obviously long before the advent of digital cinema, but my serious mature venture into digital cinema came when I realized that with a camcorder I could film, edit and distribute my film all with a camcorder, a mic, some lights and an Apple Computer. Now I know that you can edit on a Windows machine, but it didn't appeal to me quite like having a iMac DV with a Firewire port and iMovie.

I'd played with Premier on Windows prior to that point, but the Mac just seemed easier to get the footage into the computer, edited and outputted.

So where am I now with film making, cinematography and equipment? Well there are a number of things that can assist a new film maker in being able to achieve the most film like look from their low budget gear, but one thing is for sure, in order to get started it takes money.

So what would I suggest for the starting filmmaker? Here's a run down of gear and a price estimate as of the date of this post:

Ultra low budget:
Camera - Canon HV30 ($900)
Lights - Garage Can Sockets with daylight balanced 100W Halogen bulbs. ($50)

Moderate Low Budget:

Camera - Canon HV30 ($900)
Lights - Lowe Pro DV Kits ($600 - $1300)
Sound - Beachtek Adapter with a Azden Shotgun Mic ($200)
Support - Bogen / Manfrotto 501 Head and Legs ($500)

High Low Budget:

Camera - Canon HV30 ($900)
Lights - Lowe Pro DV Kits ($600 - $1300)
Sound - Beachtek Adapter with a Azden Shotgun Mic ($200)
35MM Adapter - Red Rock Micro M2 Adapter ($1745)
35MM Lenses - Nikon Set of 28mm, 50mm and 85mm ($1300)
Support - Bogen / Manfrotto 519 Head and Legs ($1300)

Of course as you get more and more sophisticated you spend more money. The current kings of indie cinema camcorders are the Panasonic HVX 200A and the Sony PWD-EX1, which both run for about $6000 and produce amazing images. The again there is a light on the horizon from Red Digital Cinema with their eagerly anticipated camera Scarlet which has 3K resolution (more twice the resolution as 1080P), 2/3" sensor which provides Depth of Field characteristics close to 16mm film, and tapeless RAW workflow which is leagues better than HDV and IMHO DVCPro due to the level of control it gives a person. All of this and more for HALF the price ($3000) of the current kings the HVX and the EX1.

In the next few blogs I'll try and explain the difference between DV, HDV, DVCPro, and RedCode RAW. When buying a camera its important to know the strengths and weaknesses of its native codec and what the codec buys or costs a filmmaker in post.