What a problem!

[Paul Mailath]

Hi guys, I only joined this group recently and it's been great wading through the posts trying to learn as much as I can - but I think I've ended up with information overload.

Here's my problem - if you can call it that.

I started a short film group a couple of months ago (we haven't even made a proper short film yet) and we just won 5 Apple powerbooks.

Yes.. 5

it was a film making comp to provide clips for an Australian site. they all had to be under 45 seconds and fit one of 9 categories. we ended up winning 5 of the 9 categories (boy did I have a hangover in the morning)

so.. we've got 5 apple laptops. now if we sell them all I'm guessing we can get about $8,000 US (I'll talk in US dollars since it's easier) and we can spend that on equip.

One of the members of the group has an XL1 and our camera guy has an XL2 but they arn't really happy about the group using and learning on them long term (fair enough) so we really need to start from scratch (both camera's will still be available from time to time).

this is my thinking so far.

I think the most important areas are 1 - camera, 2 - lighting, 3 - sound

Camera
We buy a Canon XH A1 - $4,000 aprox


Lighting
we buy a lowel light kit - $1,000

sound
we buy a mic & boom & acc - $300
field mixer - $ 300


now if I'm around the money we can still afford to keep 1 laptop as a group computer for editing, recording audio (I don't know if that's possible?) etc

I've just got to the point that my head is hurting from all this thinking (or maybe it's still the hangover) so if anyone has any suggestions I'd really appreciate them.

feel free to call me a very lucky bastard


cheers

Paul M.
www.justshorts.info