Hello all - As some of you may know, I am absolutely new to film and have been working toward becoming a film maker for the last 6 months. I've frequently posted on this forum in hopes that the professionals who also use this forum could mentor my progression toward creating films.

My current interest focus is in an archaeological site called Angel Mounds in Evansville Indiana. I to am an archaeologist with great interest in Pre-Columbian North America. My goal is to create a documentary film which illiterates the lives of the people and the archaeologists who tell their story. It will include both actor recreations and documentary style footage of actual archaeological field schools working on site.

What I am trying to gather is the equipment that will atleast allow me to shoot short documentary films on a professional level as a training seminar that will ultimately prepare me to create higher quality films with the same equipment. I am searching for the gear that will both fit my training needs and my professional needs in a single kit. My goal with that is to eliminate extra expenses when equipment needs to be replaced simply because it's capabilities are not to the standard of my increased abilities.

I have been informed by some very helpful comments in a previous post on tips to becoming a better film maker. Steve House and Andy Gram have been helping me along the way and have given me some examples of what I should purchase as my first film maker's kit.

Here is what is in my B&H shopping cart as of now:

JVC GY-HD110U 1/3" 3-CCD Professional HDV Camcorder Kit with 16x Fujinon Lens, Extra Tape and Battery, Soft Case, and UV filter ($4,999.95 + $53.40 shipping).

Sound Devices 302 Portable 3 Channel Field Mixer - with Mic or Line Level Input and Output ($1,295.00 Shipping Free)

Sennheiser ME66/K6 - Shotgun Condenser Microphone Basic Kit - Includes: ME66/K6 Shotgun Microphone, Universal Shock Mount, Rycote Softie, K-Tek Boompole, Universal Hand grip, Right Angled XLR Cables ($749.95 Shipping Free)

Total = $7,098.30

I have not yet found a pair of head phones. I am also in need of an editing program that is at a reasonable price (we discussed Avid in the previous post). I am also looking into building a PC that will host this program. Two months ago I built a crane and dolly track. The crane looks similar to the kessler 12" crane and the dolly track and crane work confluently as the jibb can attach onto a tripod mounted to the cart. I'm pretty impressed with my design and will have pics posted asap.

With this post, I hope to discuss my choices and encourage suggestions on this equipment meeting my needs.

Thank you DVI Family!
-Terry Lee

For headphone, Sony MDR-7506's are standard issue.

For software I would recommend the new Final Cut Studio or Sony Vegas, depending on your platform.

I would like to stick with PC. I'm not a fan of MAC.

I would like to stick with PC. I'm not a fan of MAC.

Then Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere are excellent professional choices, with the edge probably going to Vegas at the moment. The Vegas suite with Vegas, SoundForge, Sony Noise Reduction, and DVD Architect is a heck of good buy.

I would suggest a bit more thought to your microphone selection. The rest of the kit is fine but there are nicer sounding mics that the ME66 in the same general price range. And doubling the base price to the ~1000 range would get you something like the MKH-416 that is much nicer.

Terry... will you have a separate person doing sound for you? If not, drop the mixer and the boom pole.

2- In terms of the microphones... you'll be better off with a mix of microphones rather than spending a lot of money on something like a Sennheiser 416.

If someone is speaking in a training seminar, a wireless lav on them will give you good sound.

For run and gun type stuff, your only choice is a mic mounted on the camera. I really am not a big fan of the ME66 as it can sound really weird indoors if there's lots of reverb (worse than the built-in mic on the DVX100 IMO; I think that says a lot). A hypercardioid mic would do better in that situation, though I haven't tried them out much.

You ideally want to get the mic to about 2 feet to the speaker. If the background noise is too high then you won't get good audio if your mic is too far away. (*Though in really quiet locations like the wilderness, a camera-mounted mic can be fine. But I would never count on that.)

- Check out videoguys.com too (they sponsor this site, as does B&H)... it looks like they have some good bundle deals on Vegas.

Can you guys specify which mics at the same price (and how much they are) point you like better than the ME66? Are they super-cardioid as well?

The AT4073a is also a short shotgun like the ME66. The AT mic is about $80 more and a better buy.

The 416 is definitely better than the ME66... but if you're cash strapped, you may be better off spending your money elsewhere.

Haven't heard much of the stuff on the cheaper side, except for the AT815 and some Apex shotgun knockoff mic. The Apex is not very good (it happened to break too), the AT815 is ok/meh (it's a cheap shotgun and has off-axis coloration). I haven't used the AT897 and the Rode NTG-2 (or Rode Videomic), which others mention.

2- I don't have much experience in the way of hypercardioid microphones, though the schoeps cmc6/mk41 does sound good.

To me, it seems like the Oktava would be a strong choice if handling and wind noise wasn't a big issue with them in practice (which those clips don't show unfortunately).

For booming, both indoors and out, a good hypercardioid is often a better choice than a shotgun, Several good candidates are the A/T 4053a hyper ($500), the AKG Blueline SE300B/CK93 modular combination with hyper capsule ($478), or AKG's ULS series modular combo with the C480 & CK63 hyper capsule ($1058). Glenn mentioned the Schoeps CMC641 modular set - it's arguably the film industry's go-to mic but it might strain your budget a bit at $1600.

That sample doesn't seem to link to anything anymore. The ME66 has always served me well. Most people not used to it always comment on how narrow the pickup pattern is when they first listen to it in action, but that's really the only thing about it. Seems like, outdoors or in, if you just keep it pretty close to actors (0-3 feet, maybe) it works just fine. It does get reverby at 6 feet or so.

What do they like about the AT mic more? I'm not really looking to upgrade, but I am curious.

By the way, what do we mean by "shotgun" vs hypercadioid? I thought the ME66 was a shotgun, and was also known as a supercardioid. Hypercardioid just has a wider pickup pattern than a supercardioid (or something like the ME66), but is still mostly directional and meant to pickup sound from a distance, right?

Terry,

That's nice equipment and all, but I personally think for a newbie it's total overkill.

I would strongly ecourage you to re-think about what you're buying. An $800 mic, yet no tripod????

You're looking at spending almost $10,000 after you have to buy an editing setup to handle the HD.

If you would re-think what you NEED as opposed to what others would like to see you get, you could drop that number down to around a total of $4,000 total.

I've listened to both and the AT4073a clearly sounded better. I think it is the lack of off-axis room reflections and what does come in doesn't sound unnatural. The 4073a is the very first shotgun type microphone that actually impressed me with it's abilities. It also sounded better at greater distances, perhaps up to 4 feet. We used it in a large room with a wall-unit type air conditioner and it still sounded good. The background noise stayed in the background and voices sounded natural.

I can't see any reason to get that mixer for your type of shooting, especially since you are only buying one mic. Save your money or get a good wireless instead. A mixer might be nice if you have a complex ENG setup with various feeds or you have a plan to have zones of mics on your set, but for low budget stuff it doesn't seem to make sense. Besides, you probably want to keep your mics on their own channel and your camera has two inputs already.

Well, to be fair, I got a mixer just so I could use a shotgun mic and have a line level input. I got a Behringer MXB1002 ($100), and indoors (or wherever you can get power), that's what I use it for.

By the way, what do we mean by "shotgun" vs hypercadioid? I thought the ME66 was a shotgun, and was also known as a supercardioid. Hypercardioid just has a wider pickup pattern than a supercardioid (or something like the ME66), but is still mostly directional and meant to pickup sound from a distance, right?
In my terminology anyways...

shotgun refers to mics with the line+gradient design, where there are multiple ?vents?/holes in the side of the microphone. This kind of design is more directional than hypercardioids and tends to have a lot of off-axis coloration (sound hitting the mic off-axis has a different frequency response / sound different).

Though some people call hypercardioid mics shotguns.... or they might say that the schoeps cmc6/mk41 is a supercardioid microphone. (Which would be wrong and confusing IMO.)

There is alot of information here to consider. Thank you all for your information.

Most of my filming will be outdoors. However there will be some instances where I will be indoors filming in a documentary style (where a single person is talking sitting in a chair etc...) I don't know the term for that type of shot.

I'm just alittle confused as to what I actually need. Some tell me that I need a portable mixer with a boom pole/shotgun mic and now others are saying that it is not necessary. (help!)

I took a look at the AT4053a hypercardioid mic. ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/68315-REG/Audio_Technica_AT4053A_AT4053a_Condenser_Microphone.html ) It seams to be in the same price range as the ME66 but the the 4053a doesn't come with the boom pole, shock mount etc..

No one has commented on my camera choice...I was also trying to consider the XH A1 but unfortunately I could not get that camera if I wanted an external recorder (no time code out put) so I took a look at the G1 but the G1 is 6k where as the HD110u is 5k so I thought that would be the better buy since i've been advised that if I do not get the mic off the camera then I will have inadaquate sound (the HD110u does have timecode output right??).

I'd love to just stick with the A1 and just shoot docs with single system sound but if the pro's are telling me that it isn't a good choice, I don't want to buy a camera that I can't use with a external recorder in the long run.

Sorry if this is a bunch of rambling, i'm traveling and I have a band practicing on the floor in front of me :)

thanks for your time!
Terryh

shotgun refers to mics with the line+gradient design, where there are multiple ?vents?/holes in the side of the microphone.

Science Sidenote: The vents/holes in the side of the mic are for sound wave cancellation and are very precisely placed in relation to the mic element:

This popular light experiment illustrates the nature of this principle:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/art-53640

The element is placed such that it has a pickup path where the valleys of the sound waves intersect. If you didn't, now you know.

I would get a boom pole. I just got the Rode boom pole, which you can find for $99, and a gitzo shockmount that runs about $65 (You need the shockmount with boom, to hold the mic. You COULD go cheap and just get a mic clip that screws on, but then you're not isolating the mic from any vibrations the pole experiences, which translates to the mic picking up noise very easily). The Rode pole seems decent enough for what you (and I) do. You can even run an XLR cable throug it (the bottom and top are slotted, and the bottom comes off) and make what essentially a wired boom pole (very cool).

Again, with the mixer--I got mine just for a line level signal (the ME66 normally outputs a mic level signal-the mixer boosts it so you can set the camera for line level--which gives you a better signal to noise ratio than mic level. Mic level, however, is used often, even in the pro world, and is perfectly acceptable). You don't need a $1200 mixer, though. You can get an uber cheap one if you don't need to walk around with it (if it can be set down and plugged in while you're using it, I mean). If you need to wear it and be mobile, those are pricier.

There is alot of information here to consider. Thank you all for your information.

Most of my filming will be outdoors. However there will be some instances where I will be indoors filming in a documentary style (where a single person is talking sitting in a chair etc...) I don't know the term for that type of shot.

I'm just alittle confused as to what I actually need. Some tell me that I need a portable mixer with a boom pole/shotgun mic and now others are saying that it is not necessary. (help!)

Terryh


Terry,

Here's a little food for thought...

A member here named Ash Greyson shot this documentary on the music group Hanson (maybe you have heard of them?), gonzo style with what I beleive was an XL1s and the stock mic (maybe he can chime in and give feedback).

http://www.strongenoughtobreak.com/

I never heard him mention anything about $800 boom poles, and $1,200 mixers, $500 shotgun mics, and $900 ubertitainium connectors, etc, etc.

If this bare bones setup is good enough for his project, it's good enough for yours. And I still have not heard anything about a tripod. Do you have one?

I believe Ash has years of industry experience. Once you know how to do everything "right", I'm sure it's easier to know what you can do "wrong" (and how to do it) and get away with, in terms of either not taking a huge hit in quality, or making sacrifices average joes'll never notice.

He's right about a tripod. If you get a good fluid head tripod suited for whatever you camera you end up with, you'll never regret it . It'll probably be expensive, but it's one of those things you really shouldn't skimp on.

Thank you all!

So do I even need a mixer!?

(confusion has set in..)

You wouldn't be a bad guy for putting it low on your priority list at this point vs. getting a nice tripod, a boom, a mic, etc.

Alright, so I can actually have a boom mic without using an external recorder (mixer) correct? and this would serve the same purpose as everyone is telling me; that is, get the mic off the camera to have desent sound. Or am I wrong?

If this is possible, I can go with the XH A1 (a cheeper camera without the jackpack/timecode output capeability, which would have then only allow me to have external audio recording) If there are other reasons the G1 has a jack pack please let me know.

The tripod I had in mind was the Manfrotto 501 head but what stand do you suggest?

Alright, so I can actually have a boom mic without using an external recorder (mixer) correct? and this would serve the same purpose as everyone is telling me; that is, get the mic off the camera to have desent sound. Or am I wrong?

Yes, all you need are XLR inputs on the camera. You can run your boom mic to those.


If this is possible, I can go with the XH A1 (a cheeper camera without the jackpack/timecode output capeability, which would have then only allow me to have external audio recording) If there are other reasons the G1 has a jack pack please let me know.

Can you give us a reason why you think you need the G1 with the Jack Pack? Maybe you can get more accurate feedback on if you do or don't.


The tripod I had in mind was the Manfrotto 501 head but what stand do you suggest?

If the camera is just going to sit on the tripod for interviews, the 501 will work. If you plan to do lots of panning or tilting, the 501 is not a good choice. I would get at LEAST the 503.

Thanks Adam.

Steve house had informed me in a pervious thread "aspiring film maker needs pro's help"

Your question begs a certain lack of appreciation for the critical importance of sound to the production or the amount of technique required to record it properly. An on-camera mic is almost always going to be inadequate for capturing production sound regardless of whether you use the manufacturer-supplied mic or replace it with something better - it has its uses but production sound and dialog ain't among them. Shotguns for outdoors, hypercardioid mics for dialog recording both indoors and out, a boom with shockmount and wind protection to hold them both close enough to the actors, perhaps wireless laveliers for micing performers in wide shots where a boom isn't possible, a good sound mixer and/or recorder, a smartslate and associated timecode capabilities if you elect to record double system sound are all going to be required. If you're going to record to a separate recorder, that will influence your choice of camera as well since you need to have some way of getting the timecode OUT of the camera in order to sync the recorder to it - the XH A1 won't do that and so right there it's eliminated from the running and now we're looking at the XH G1 or XL H1 as the minimum camera you should consider since with those you get genlock input and timecode I/O, critical for proper sync to external recorders, while the A1 doesn't have those features.

This is why I believe that I need a camera capeable of getting the timecode out of the camera so that I can "line up" the audio with the frames.

This makes sense to me. However, if it is not necessary to buy a $1200 mixer then I shall wait till I am better equip (mentally) to take on that heigth of film production.

My goal is simply to make short films that will train me with the equipment enough that I can start making better quality films (film for Angel Mounds for instance) with the same equipment. I am trying to eliminate extra expenses by cutting right to what I would need to make a good quality film instead of buying a cheaper camera & equipment for starters.

To my understanding, sound is as important as the actual film itself. Therefore the same amount of attention should be put into the audio as is the film. This is the reason behind the choices of equipment (Sound devices 302/me66-boom mic/hd110u) Right there I have both sound and film taken care of.

But in the thread some are saying that it is not necessary. You can get adaquate sound without having the mixer. This is why I am confused.

If you can have an audio person following you around for the shot, then it can be helpful for him/her to have a field mixer.

In some documentary situations, you might be doing a one-man army kind of thing. With one person, you can't operate the camera and a boom mic at the same time. That just ain't possible. So you would just stick with other approaches... like getting audio from a camera-mounted mic (not ideal). If you are interviewing people on location (not in a controlled interview situation), there are different approaches there.
Obviously if you have a sound guy you could boom from above.
If you can lav them up, you can stick a wireless lav on them.
If you don't have time for a lav / don't know the subject that well / they may not be comfortable with it, you could use a handheld mic.
Or you can get the camera close to them.

2- For your training seminars you might want a wireless lav.

Yes, you can do excellent work going straight into cam from mic, without a mixer.

Something to consider, is, like the guy above me said, if you don't have an audio guy, you need to find another way to handle the boom mic and pole. One thing that works well, unless your actors are moving all over the place, is to get a light stand or C-stand (light stands are usually cheaper, C stands are heavier and therefore sturdier, and with the gobo arm, more versatile), and get a fishpole holder (or some kind of clamp) that plugs into the c-stand, and put the boom in that. It holds it steady, and you can place it wherever you want. If your actors/sound source move(s) around a lot, it's no good, though.

Forget the mixer for right now. It should be at the bottom of your worry list. You can always add later.

1. Pick a camera.

2. Pick one mic.

3. Pick a tripod.

4. Pick your editing software.

Those four right there will give you enough problems and bring up enough questions to last you years.

Ok, after some very good constructive criticism, I have changed my shopping list. In the mix, I will ask questions on my choices in hopes that you will offer your thoughts and perhaps direct me to the better buy.

Since I will not need a camera capeable of time code out put, I am going to go with the XH A1. My previous camera was the JVC HD110u, but since I will not be buying a mixer, I will not need a camera such as the G1 with the Jackpack.

Camera - (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/447098-REG/Canon_1191B001_XH_A1_3CCD_HDV_Camcorder.html)

Tripod - (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/387808-REG/Bogen_Manfrotto_503351MVB2K_351MVB2_Tripod_Legs_with.html)

Mic - (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/423592-REG/Sennheiser__ME66_K6_Super_Cardioid_Short.html)

Head phones - (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=cart&A=details&Q=&sku=49510&is=REG) will these be necessary with my kit??

The 4th thing on the list will be the editing software. I have been drawn to the Sony Vegas with Sound Forge, Sony Nois Reduction & DVD Architect. Does B&H have this kit? and if so can someone give me the link?

My main concern with the editing software is its ability to handle HDV, since I will have an HDV camera. I have noticed that some editing software has had some problems with HDV. What problems (if any) might I run into with Sony Vegas?

Ok, after some very good constructive criticism, I have changed my shopping list. In the mix, I will ask questions on my choices in hopes that you will offer your thoughts and perhaps direct me to the better buy.

Since I will not need a camera capeable of time code out put, I am going to go with the XH A1. My previous camera was the JVC HD110u, but since I will not be buying a mixer, I will not need a camera such as the G1 with the Jackpack.

Camera - (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/447098-REG/Canon_1191B001_XH_A1_3CCD_HDV_Camcorder.html)

Tripod - (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/387808-REG/Bogen_Manfrotto_503351MVB2K_351MVB2_Tripod_Legs_with.html)

Mic - (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/423592-REG/Sennheiser__ME66_K6_Super_Cardioid_Short.html)

Head phones - (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=cart&A=details&Q=&sku=49510&is=REG) will these be necessary with my kit??

The 4th thing on the list will be the editing software. I have been drawn to the Sony Vegas with Sound Forge, Sony Nois Reduction & DVD Architect. Does B&H have this kit? and if so can someone give me the link?

My main concern with the editing software is its ability to handle HDV, since I will have an HDV camera. I have noticed that some editing software has had some problems with HDV. What problems (if any) might I run into with Sony Vegas?


Those are all good choices and will get you on the road to making a documentary. Make sure you have a computer that can handle the HD editing also. HD is taxing to a computer and requires you have a pretty new computer with lots of RAM and a good video card.

Thanks Adam!

Could someone give me an Idea of what I will need for an editing system and more importantly, does B&H have Sony Vegas with sound forge, Sony Nois Reduction & DVD Architect? Does that stuff normally come standard with the Sony 7.0 kit?