Need help on the East Coast
 

Hello! My name is Dan. I have recently become interested in digital video, and would like to get into making movies, etc. My interests are definitely cars and everyday life. What I need help with is where to get started for making movie that include rolling shots, walkarounds, etcs. A good example of something I find interesting is YouTube - Subysnak's Almost tune.

First off I would like to know what kind of camera to begin with. I'm not looking to go all out in case I find myself uninterested, but I'm willing to buy a quality camcorder to begin with and take it from there.

Also I was wondering the kinds of beginner video editing I should look into once I have taken video. I'd like to run on Windows only and can utilize a dual screen setup for playback.

Any feedback would be appreciated. I'm very new to this all so I'm unsure of what kind of video to take (SD, HD) and where to begin.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hey Dan, Welcome!!

The link to that video was interesting. If that's the type of shooting you want to do, you may want to look at investing in a steadicam to get those type of smooth panning shots.

Suggestions for a camera, editing software, computer hardware, accessories....could be all over the map. Help us help you better by giving us a ballpark budget for each of the above .... or just a total dollar amount.

Hint about your budget for this....it adds up REAL fast!!

But this can be quite fun and rewarding...and conversely quite frustrating too!!

Again welcome, and hope you enjoy your new venture!!

Indeed I could see a Steadicam being very useful for the shots, expensive!! Think I could roll with the $14 Stabilizer until I can get a real one? $14 Camera Stabilizer haha

Budget... considering ill be getting taxes back soon and wanting to start off small I could see upwards of a grand, and maybe work my way up. Fortunately I'm planning on upgrading my computer hardware soon, so I hope upgrading wouldn't be too pricey.

Thanks!

Do you want to shoot in HD?

Since HD is certainly what is hip right now I don't see why not. I would imagine the link I posted was shot in HD?

Since your budget is ~$1000, only you can figure out how to prioritize where you want to spend that money.

CAMCORDER (HD) - can range anywhere from ($150 up past $1000 easily!!); just depends on the features you desire.

COMPUTER HARDWARE....
...CPU; as many cores as possible
...GPU; as fast as possible (nVidia CUDA enabled card for using CS5)
...System Memory; the more, the better

COMPUTER SOFTWARE....
- O/S; Win7 64 bit
- NLE; ranging from Windows Movie Maker (free) on up to the level of Avid Media Composer ($2k+)

Maybe a little confidence booster for ya in regards to an industry saying....
....it's not the tools, it's the content!! In relation to this, check out this story:

'Oldboy' Director Shoots Movie on Apple iPhone 4 | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Re: Need help on the East Coast
 

Hi Daniel:

The video you referred to could have been shot with a camcorder if it had manual focus control. It also looks like they used a slider. Search on Zaza slider to see what that looks like.

What sort of budget do you have for gear including a computer?