New guy, need some tips for an event.
 

Hey guys, I'm a senior in high school and my high school has a required senior project that we must do to graduate and I chose to do mine on motorsport photography, and after messing around with photography for a couple of months I fell in love with filming. I started out with a d5000 in August, sold my d5000 and got a t2i for Christmas. I go to drift events once a month to film and take pictures, and for the end product for my project I must produce a video, I was doing a little filming with my d5000 and I am about to go to another drift event and film with the T2i for the first time. I have some footage from other events that were filmed with my d5000. I had not used a tripod at this event because I had not planned on filming so the footage is somewhat shaky because it is on a mono-pod.
YouTube - Streetwise Drift(HD)

I was just wondering if you guys have any tips for me? I was also wondering about settings and whether to film in 720p for the higher frame rate or 1080p. Please feel free to give me as much constructive criticism as you want, I'll gladly take it.

Tip #1 - make sure your footage is as stable as possible. Tripod is almost a 'must' for DSLR video, though you can get by with a monopod at a pinch.

Audio is as important as the video. Try to learn proper audio techniques. Also know when to use a video camera as opposed to a dslr. I have a mix of both kinds as use whichever is more appropriate for the shoot. a dslr is great for artistic video but horrible for event shooting such as a wedding.

Finally practice, practice and practice...

Yea I just picked up a shotgun mic that I am going to use at my next event, I'm hoping the audio turns out decent.

Thanks for the advice, yea this event I went to I was stuck with a monopod because I went there to take pictures, I recently grabbed a manfrotto tripod. I am definitely going to use it at the next event.

I've been shooting a long time using conventional pro cameras. However, since adding a DSLR to the mix, I've been forced back (screaming and kicking) into dual system sound (like we used to do in the days of film!).

I am startled at the difference in quality between a pro tie-clip mic like the Sanken COS-11 plugged direct into the EX1, and a Zoom H4n positioned closely to an interviewee, recording at 24/96. So much so, I've started to use the Zoom on pure XDCAM jobs too.

So, with your filming, I'd second the notion that you get good at double system sound. Get a decent mic (even if it's on top of the recorder - Zoom and Edirol are good) close to your subject and just deal with having to sync in post (get pluraleyes when you can). A mic on top of the camera is, in most circumstances, just gathering 'atmosphere' sound.

Matt, why not the Sanken COS-11D into the Zoom, rather than the Zoom mics? Setup time?

Keith, why do you tell that is horrible for wedding due that all the picture in the Gallery here is wedding shooting with the DSLR???It seems that the camera now it's only for the Museum...

A series of one-up interviews under pressure of time suddenly became two ups, didn't have time to go get another mic, so improvised. Compared the results as I cut the audio between the two interviewees.

The setup wouldn't work in a noisy environment. A friend and I tried recreating the situation tonight using his Edirol R09HR, and although it was a very flawed test, the onboard mics did a good job. Better than an ECM-77 or COS-11 in this instance? No - but with better (different) positioning of the recorder it would have been better.

The 24/96 nature of the sound meant I could do a lot more pulling around of sound levels. It also has me worrying about the EX1's input - in that there's more noise than the Zoom H4n.

Makes me want to use double sound more.