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Old December 16th, 2005, 01:18 PM   #16
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Salt Lake City, UT
Posts: 97
wow thanks everyone for all those replies! I saw how many responses i got and i figured it was time to take a minute and make another post.

Bob, thanks for all the suggestions, i'll definitely be keeping those in mind when purchasing a camera. And yes, the fear of ending up selling my camera on e-bay with low hours was one of my biggest concerns, so i've decided to wait until next year and see what i accomplish with my Elura before moving up. Plus by then, HDV will be more accessible etc. I'm not exactly sure how i could determine whether or not i'll get the value out of it within a year since i don't know how to find clients in the first place. Yesterday, while searching the DVinfo articles, i found a book called The Independent Video Producer. Looks pretty good, so i might buy that after the christmas rush so i can understand the business side of things a little better. And yeah, i'm either buying or not, i won't be renting. What you said about renting made a lot of sense to me.

Steve, i knew it! I figured i was in a very good place to start (Utah being the home of Sundance and all) but i simply didn't know where to look. It's good to know of someone who's been here and knows where to look :)

Sean, yeah i have the same tendency you do with looking at expensive toys. I do have a lot to learn and i've been spending a good deal of time on Amazon, looking for books about all the different aspects of filmmaking. I'm fascinated by all of them and have had many opportunities to implement some of the theory behind lighting, staging, composition, aspect ratios, etc in CG and photography. Putting those same principles to use in a completely different medium is going to be interesting, but it's nice to have something to start from. But then there's directing, producing and managing etc... 2 lifetimes-worth of learning! Oh and i've heard a ton of good things on Amazon about Robert Rodriguez's book. Many suggested the same thing you did with renting "El" etc, so i'll have to do that.

Don, wow you shoot with the original Elura?? How do you get anything good out of it?? Well at least with the video? I mean after a good 30 minutes in Audition, i was able to clean up most of the audio, but the video? I can't bear to shoot after sunset or indoors because of the quality i end up with... The only thing i could do to get around the video problem was to add filter after filter in Premiere so as to make it super-stylised, a la Sin City, where everything is completely blown out of proportion, strong contrasts, over-saturated colors, etc... Could you show me some of your footage so i can see what you're coming up with? Maybe i'm just not using the camera to its full potential. To answer your question, if i was an actor and i was told the director is using an Elura, i wouldn't do it unless i was getting payed (and i can't afford to pay my actors). I'm not an actor though (although i've done some and did pretty good and loved it too) so maybe actors don't think that way... I can just picture a struggling actor, desperately looking for anything, thinking "at the very least, if i don't get paid, i'll get some exposure", but how is an actor gonna feel like he/she can get any exposure if the camera doesn't look like it could help win a film festival? That's why i figured nobody would help me out.

Michael, that's an awesome link too, thanks a ton. Now to see if they'll do it for free :D

Dan, i agree, a good script is the essence of any good movie. I don't have a completed live-action script yet so i'm not sure if my writing is any good. I do have a 3-page animation script (that could just as well be used as a live-action script) if anyone else is interested. I thought it turned out ok, but since i was writing this as something that i was going to create from scratch and all by myself, i forced myself to limit the script to no more than 2-3 pages (so the animation could end up being between 2-3 minutes long), which means that the characters didn't get to be as deep and interesting as i wanted them to be. Good practice though and i might one day pick it up again for the purpose of a live-action shoot.

The link to the script is http://tinycomet.com/crap/hitman.pdf

Finally, i'd like to add that i've started shooting video for a short commercial (it's a fake commercial and i'm doing it for myself, no clients were involved), to see what i can learn from it. I liked the script i wrote for it, but shooting has proved to be much more complex and difficult than i originally thought. To make matters worse, i have to direct AND act... which means i'm not behind the lens like i'd want... I'll post it here and in the proper section on the forum when it's done (next week hopefully).

Thanks again for all the replies everyone and keep 'em comin' if you have more to add!
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