Should I buy an A1 for my indie movie?
 

I want to shoot low-budget movies that look like film, so do I need 24p with progressive scan and native 16:9? What about a 35mm adaptor?

I was recommended the Canon XHA1 over the Panasonic DVX100b in another thread here and even by some on the DVXUser forum, because it is HD for only an extra $600 and thus "future-proofed" for roughly 4 years. I've got a tight $6k budget for the camera and all accessories.

The A1 looks great in the hi-res test films I saw on zudeo.com. My primary concerns with the A1 are the reportedly weak LCD and the ergonomics (heavy and badly weighted in center).

Any help would be appreciated!

By all means look into getting an HDV cam over an SD DV one. The DVX100b is indeed the pinnacle of SD cams for a filmmaker... but has about 1/4 of the resolution of a 1080i HDV camera. Now... that's not to say you can't buy one of those and shoot great films with it. But the future is certainly headed toward high(er) def.

Whether the A1 is right for you depends on a lot of variables. At its price point, there definitely trade offs... like the LCD resolution you mention and a lack of some higher end XLR controls/ options, among others. Sony makes a few contenders in the same ballpark pricewise that are worthy of your consideration (and have different trade offs). The JVC cams are likely out of your budget, as is the "P2" Panny.

Delve into the forums here and you'll find hours... OK, days of reading to immerse yourself in your purchase options.

BUt unless you've already got a decent mic, lights, tripod, and misc. gear, $6k is not enough to budget the A1 plus all of that stuff (and more) that you'll need to shoot "filmic" experiences.

Brian Brown
A Happy (and somewhat informed) new A1 owner

Sounds like it's time to get some hands on at a local store to see if the ergonomics are okay with you. I bet you'll know right away once you get one in your hands.

I don't have any reservations in recommending the XH-A1 for an indie film project. The image is stunning and while it has buckets of resolution it also lacks the ugly over sharpening that other cameras in its class employ.

The flexibility the presets give you in creating a look in camera may also be useful to you and coupled with the excellent latitude the camera produces a super picture without the video-ey look of other cameras in its class.

The LCD is the weakest link but set it up properly by using the colour bars and you'll find the accurate peaking makes up for the lack of size. If in doubt use the one push Instant AF for super fast tack sharp focus.

Balance of the camera is fine with the largest battery installed. It is weighty but no more so than the Z1.

TT

Okay, thanks for the advice. I'm going with the A1! After the external HD (I'm getting a mini-stack 2), what else do I need for my edit set-up? Magic Bullet--is that cool or unnecessary?

How would I hook up a standard television monitor to my iMac so I can view my project?

I'm only trying to buy the bare minimum amount of stuff I need. I'll get all the important stuff from B&H, except for a few cheap misc. minor thingies off of eBay.

Please look over my list and tell me if it's good or not, anything I may be missing... I live in a state with very little sunshine/hot weather so do I really need a circular polarizer except during the height of summer?


Canon A1 = $3500

Bogen 351MVB2 Tripod (503 fluid head) = $500

Audio-Technica AT897 Shotgun Mic (+ Rode SM-3 shockmount, K-Tek KE89CC boompole, Rycote 14cm Medium Hole Softie, XLR cables) = $600

Tiffen UV filter = $31

Hoodman H-300 Camcorder Hood with H-3C Magnifier = $30

Kata CC-193 Shoulder Case = $120
Smith-Victor K33B Attache Tungsten Light Kit - consists of: 3 700-SG Quartz Lights 600W, 3 Lamps, 3 4-Leaf Barndoors, 3 Stands and 650 Attache Case - 1800 Total Watts = $440

SpiderBrace 2 Shoulder Mount = $70

Misc. Vivid and Diffusion Filters ($44), 3x Filter Holders ($120), Lens Cleaner Pen ($10), Head Cleaner ($12) = approx. $200

((end B&H cart))

Sony HD ($8.60 per) and SD Excellence ($4.90 per) blank tapes

Elite Video A1 Training DVD = $35

Rush Hamden's Digital Filmmaking Training Course DVDs = $357

Misc. Books: Rebel's Guide to Making Killer Action Movies, 5 C's of Cinematography, etc. = approx. $100 @ Amazon

I've gone about a grand over my original $6k estimate, but within reason. My B&H shopping cart is $5,500 after S&H.

You might want to rethink the tripod and head choice. If the reference to the rebel's guide to making killer action movies is any hint about the kind of movies you want to make you might be frustrated by the Bogen head. I'd suggest getting the camera and then trying to borrow a few tripods to test out.

In my view the obvious omission is an audio production mixer. It is is very difficult to get good audio without one and good audio is very important. You might consider taking a look at http://www.locationaudiosimplified.com and buying the book which is full of great advice even if some of the info on prosmumer cameras is a little dated (even though it was published in 2006).

Field mixers are expensive, but they hold their value better than cameras. Take a look at http://www.sounddevices.com or http://www.wendtinc.net/ they both make products widely used and praised.

Re: the comment about the LCD being "weak." It is smaller than the one on the Sony, but it is incredibly sharp and is even useable in bright daylight outside. The camera is a little nose heavy and for long periods of hand holding can get heavy. If you plan on shooting, say, a lot of hand held interviews for a documentary, then some sort of a brace would be good. A friend of mine who just ordered the camera also ordered one of those braces that hooks into a belt. I think it's the Tiffren Steadystick, or one like it. He shoots a lot of hand held stuff for music video, so it's appropriate for him.

With your budget limitations, I think I'd forgo the $357 for the DVD training course. You can get books for free at the library. Nothing against that training course, but that's a big chunk of change out of a $6K budget. You could save about another 100 bucks if you went for the Libec 22 tripod and head. I got one from Zotz Digital, and it's amazingly good for the price.

You have $120 for filter holders. What are those? With proper tweaking of the camera, you really don't need those filters. What I would do is get a simple UV protective filter for the lens and not buy anything else until you have the camera and figure out what you might need.

A field mixer is probably out of your price range at this point, so you'll need a long extension cable so your soundman can monitor audio.

As far as tapes, I'd stay away from those cheaper ones. I've been using Panasonic AMQ tapes, which are between $8 and $9. No problems so far, and I've heard good things about them from others.

If the mic comes with a foam windscreen, you could live without the Rycote and save a little there.

The books are good. I might also recommend "Film and the Director," by Livingston. It's a paperback and probably you can find used ones from amazon.com. It's very basic but tells you what you need to know if you don't know anything about filmmaking.

I think you're going to need more RAM for your computer to make things work as well as they should. Also, at least one external firewire drive. It's not a good idea to load up that single drive with too much video footage.
I personally would have trouble editing with a single monitor, but some people do it. As far as an NTSC monitor, when editing HDV in FCP, you can set your video output from 1080p24 HDV to NTSC 720X480, and you can see a still image on a regular NTSC monitor, but you can't play it. However, it's good enough for basic color correction in most cases, and you can export small chunks periodically and render them in an NTSC timeline to check your color adjustments.

Overall you're looking at a pretty decent package. I probably would try to put more money into lights, but you go with what you can afford. At any rate, you really can't get everything you'll need in advance. There's always something. I used to own a large sailboat, and sailors have a saying: A boat is a hole in the water surrounded by fiberglass into which you throw money for the rest of your life. It would be accurate to say the same thing about film production urges.

Not to mention airplanes, horses and classic sports cars too.

Just to follow up on Bill's excellent reply, I'll also strongly suggest staying away from cheap tape. Tape is the single least expensive component of the production chain, so why not buy the best you can get. The money you're spending on tape is basically the value that you're placing on your work. To me it doesn't make sense to compromise that for the sake of a few dollars.

I had a 34' sailboat; my wife had a horse--double whammy in our family. For the cost of the boat and the horse, I could have bought an F900 HDCAM, and had enough left over for a bunch of HMIs. Instead I make monthly payments on an HDV camera....ah, the follies of youth.

To clarify, B&H lists them as "filters" but they are gels. The "filter holders" are gel holders to clamp on my lights. I need at least the vivid colors pack ($22) to do comic book style dramatic lighting. Maybe I can forgo the diffusion gel pack ($22).

Oh, lighting gels. I thought they were camera filters.
I use sheets of gels and C-47s (wooden clothespins). Your lights have barn doors, right? Why do you need holders? That's what C-47s are for.
You'll also need some diffusion gel for those open face lights. You can get all the gels you want at any theatrical supply house if you have one of those where you live. The big sheets are usually about 6 bucks.

Thanks, I'll look into that. I also saw on YouTube some guy created a $0 steadicam simply by finding the counterweight point on a tripod, gripping it there, and moving the camera around like a steadicam... Obviously, I couldn't do that with a 12.5 pound tripod with a 5 pound A1 attached! I'd need something much lighter but that would still support the camera... Any ideas?

They're gels and gel holders. I'm only getting a clear UV filter for the lens.

Yes, that is out of my budget. I've been on tons of indy productions over the years (and some TV network ones) and never seen one of these on set in my life. Audio has never been a problem.

I read that you're not supposed to mix tape stock (wet Sony and dry Panny combine to clog heads). These are discounted bulk prices I'm referencing from eBay. I can't find Panny making HD tape anywhere (?) so I was going to use Sony for both HD and SD; that way, I'm not mixing and matching brands.

Good, the AT897 comes with one, so I'll ditch the $110 dead cat.

Cool, I have them on order.

Yup. Forgot to mention that I'm doing all that. Getting a Ministack 16MB cache/7200rpm/500GB/1911 Oxford chipset ext. HD and a total of 2 Gigs of Ram.

Most of the productions I've been on only use 3 lights: a couple Arris and a Chimera soft box, but these would more than double my lighting budget. Will the Smith-Victor kit do the job as is? Lighting is what I understand the least but I know how important it is.

Yeah, they have barn doors. So I just clip 'em on to the barn doors, then? That saves me $120 in lighting gel filter holders right there! I can pick up a pack of C-47s for $3 or less. The diffusion gel pack (12"x12") is $22 @ B&H. I don't know which exact gels I need...

That's all good advice from Mr. Pryor...

The Panasonic AMQ tapes are their top quality DV tapes. You shouldn't mix tape stock, but if you do, use a head cleaning tape when you switch. That's something else to get, a head cleaning tape.

You can do a lot with 3 lights, and you can do a lot with pieces of cardboard and gaffertape for gobos and flags. Also, as long as there are blinds or curtains in front of the windows, you can buy those big black trash bags, slit them open, and tape them over the windows. They act about the same as heavy ND gel, letting a little bit of light but not much. If you want a little more, get a roll of brown wrapping paper and tape over the window. The light that gets through will look surprisingly close to tungsten in color temperature. Rolls of ND and CTO gels are abotu 150 bucks apiece, and only really necessary if you have to have the window in the shot. There are lots of ways to get the shot cheaper if you think about it.

If you need a low angle dolly shot, mount a beanbag to a skateboard with bungee cords, and mount the camera to the beanbag with bungee cords. Lay down a sheet of plywood, or 1 X 12, and you've got a dog's eye view dolly.

Everybody always wants $50,000 worth of gaffer gear and dollies and cranes and stuff on a shoot, but with a little ingenuity, you can get shots you need for a small amount of money. Another good book which has more humor than tips is Bruce Campbells "If Chins Could Kill." It's in paperback, and he talks about the early improvisations Sam Rami did before he got rich and famous. My favorite was the Vasocam. They wrapped a 2 X 4 with gaffer tape, then greased it with Vasoline. They mounted the camera to another board, built into an upside down U, and slid it along the greased board for a perfectly smooth dolly shot.

I just saw your post about the gels that must have came in while I was writing the above one. I think 12" X 12" gels are too damn small, unless you're using something like Lowel Pro lights. If those SV lights are like the photofloods they make, they're going to be bigger, and you'll get spillover on the top and bottom. I'd wait till you figure out what you need and buy gels from a theatrical supply house or some film/video equipment rental place. B&H is great but not necessarily for that item.

I use Lee gels mostly. The 205 diffusion is a good all round one, but you might want a lesser diffusion. It's better to get a few sheets of thinner diffusion (I can't think of the number off hand, but if you go to a lighting place or theatrical supply house they'll usually give you the little booklet of all the gels they have), because you can always use more than one.

You may want some CTB (ie., blue gels which will convert your lights to daylight color). You can get 1/4, 1/2 and full CTB. The full is 5500K, but eats more light. Lots of times if you're trying to balance to daylight you can use 1/2 CTB, which is, I think, around 4500K, and that's close enough for lots of things. In fact it may be desireable because it'll warm up the skin tones a little. It won't eat nearly as much light as full.

I don't know what else you'd need, unless you want some theatrical colors, like red, green, etc.

Yeah, you just clip the gels onto your barn doors with C-47s (I dunno where that came from, but people in the biz have been calling wooden clothespins C-47s for many years). Clip the gel out on the edge of the barn doors, not right up by the lamp, where it can get scorched or melt. Don't buy plastic clothes pins (a film production company where I worked years ago hired a new gaffer and he was sent out to buy C-47s and came back with plastic clothes pins...true story, no kidding. I think he became a producer).

Bill, thanks for the great advice! You are a HUGE help. :)

Mostly I need red, orange, green and blue for gel filters. I can hold off on some of this stuff if necessary...

The dimensions of each light head in the kit are: 3.75 x 3.75 x 6.5" (9.9 x 9.9 x 16.8cm). So 12x12 gels won't work?

I was going to use bags of rice for cheap sandbags.

In order to view my projects on a regular TV, it looks like I need a Grass Valley Canopus ADVC-110 Bidirectional Media Converter $220.

I forgot to answer your Smith-Victor light question. Most people bash them, but they are cheap and you can get by with them. Three of anything else is going to trash your budget all to hell. You need more lights, rent or borrow them.

Chinese lanterns can also be used for soft closeups. If you don't know what a Chinese lantern is,it's one of those big white paper things they sell at places like Pier 1 and Target, etc. They cost five or ten bucks. You hang them from a pole. You can only use up to about a 60 watt bulb safely (they can burn) in most of them, although the ones you buy from a cine supply house will have ceramic sockets and you can use a bigger bulb but you still have to be careful. I plan to try one out with a 200w compact fouorescent bulb one of these days and see what happens. Fluorescents run pretty cool.

If you're shooting a scene at night, closeups, the Chinese lantern can create a really nice look. If you have, say, 4 people sitting around a table, hang one in the middle, just out of frame, and the light is really nice. The light is nice, but there isn't much of it, so it's for nightime use, or in dark rooms.

I have a lot of nice lights in my life now, but over the years I have used whatever I could find or afford. I've lighted a person inside a car at night by bouncing one of those big rechargeable boxy flashlights off a piece of foamcore. Once I shot a nightime exterior with fill light from the assistant's car lights, bounced off a big piece of that white foam you get at Home Depot that looks like what they make cheapie beer coolers out of.

Making low budget indy films is like buying wine--anybody can go out and buy an expensive bottle of wine and it'll be good...but it takes talent and experience to find a bottle of cheap stuff that's good. It can be done.

So you don't think these 3 lights are enough? I know the Smith-Victors are only "ideal" because it's the only 3 light tungsten kit I can afford, LOL.

If you're looking for books I highly recommend the "Guerilla Filmmakers handbook" or "the Gueriila Filmmakers Blueprint" (but don't buy both as they contain a lot of the same information - The handbook is more inspirational whereas the Blueprint is more nuts and bolts)

Thanks. What about this one?
http://www.amazon.com/Nuts-Bolts-Fil...e=UTF8&s=books

The 3 lights might be fine for many things. Just depends on what you get into.

I'm not familiar with this book, although Focus press do lots of good technical books (Despite the similar title I don't think it's related to the books I mentioned)

http://www.amazon.com/Guerilla-Film-...e=UTF8&s=books

Jim, be sure to browse through our "Read About It" forum, which is entirely devoted to books and other training materials. It's located at http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=36

You may want to look at Nattress film effects filters (nattress.com). I find they are faster than Magic Bullet and more affordable. They are great for tweaking your "look".

I also saw Video Copilot had some nice-looking, similar software... Their site is so much cooler-looking than Nattress's. http://www.videocopilot.net/
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In other news, I went ahead and took the $4,040 plunge: my A1 and Libec-22 tripod are on the way. I held off on the lights, audio, and almost everything else (except a Tiffen UV filter, LCD hoodman (with 2x magnifier), lens pen, headcleaner and some blank tapes) for now. Gonna familiarize myself with the camera first and do some more research, so if anyone has any more ideas on either audio or lighting (or anything else you think I'm missing), I'd love to hear it. My budget is around $1k for both audio AND lighting. Yeah, yeah, not enough, I know... Can be fudged upward by maybe $250.

What is the best audio/boom kit for around $500-600? I am seriously considering the AT897. Somebody mentioned a wireless boom set up a page or so ago but didn't give the details, like brand names, model numbers and links.

If you want to limit yourself to three lights, here's how I'd do it: A good workhorse of light is the Lowel Tota. You can use 200 to 750 watt bulbs and works best thru softbox or bounced off white foam core. Go for about $135. Next I'd buy an ellipsoidal (my fave is ETC Source 4) which can be found used in the $150 range for effect lighting, new they run $300. Spend a few bucks for several patterns and you can create a look with much more texture. Next I'd get an Arri 150 fresnel ($300), a butterfly clamp with light stud so you can mount it easily to drop ceilings to use as a back light, for stands I like Bogen which will cost around $100 a stand new. I use a C Stand for the ellipsoidal as it's pretty hefty, but you can get one in the $125 range. I know this blows your budget, but if you use these three lights, you will be amazed how good it can look if used properly. And properly cared for (read: buy cases for them, I prefer Tenba Attache as they're lightweight but strong) they can last a lifetime and longer. If you have the time to shop used, you can save a fair bit.

What do you guys think of the Oktaba MK012A "Bello Nero" with Hypercardioid Capsule? It was recommended to me as being way better for my indoor/outdoor purposes than the AT897.

I'm looking for lights on eBay...

Oktava's MK012 with hyper cap are great for indoors, but it is extremely sensitive and you'll absolutely need to get the Rycote BBG to protect it indoors, and a jammer to protect outdoors. You really shouldn't be using the MK012 outdoors since a shotgun mic will work much better.

If you do get the Oktava, buy from Sound Room as they screen and hand pick the Oktava's they sell. Use 'DV' as a coupon for a discount.

Depending on what you're shooting, you'll be really frustrated using all broad (flood) lighting, even with barn doors.

I'd spend your $400 on directional light; maybe two Lowel Pro lights, which focus almost like fresnels, then buy some construction lights from Home Depot for your broad lighting, bounced into foamcore or umbrellas.

Get dimmers, too.

Sound and lighting have a bigger effect on your end result than the camera.

This has turned in to my dream thread, all the tips on cheap equipment!

I just have one question, i checked out the ETC source 4, and it has en "Edison" connector, is this a standard wall outlet like i am used to, or is some sort of adapter needed?

That's the standard household plug.

I don't think the foam windshield will, by itself, come close to protecting your mic from a decent breeze. Rather than buy a "Dead Cat," go to an auto supply store and get a "washing mitt" made of artificial fur for under $10 (I once bought a couple at Big Lots for $1.50 apiece). You can cut the mitt up and re-sew it, or even just staple it to conform with your mic's size. It should work as well as the "cat," dead or alive.

As for the mic itself, I really like the AKG Blue Line hypercardioid. It sounds quite good indoors and out, has a narrow pickup and gets a good grade on handling noise. If you're not in a rush, they turn up on eBay for around $225 (as a unit with the SE 300B preamp) every couple of weeks.

Good luck with your film.

Best wishes,
Peter
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http://www.parkfilms.com