Betsy,

Are you shooting a short, feature, video, etc? Just curious...

heath

A 100 page feature on the HD-1, set mainly in a cabin, two people.

Interesting. I did a short film with three actors, two of which talk for 9 minutes about a girl (film runs 16 minutes). It's actually better than it sounds. I did it in the spring of 1997, it's called "Conversations..." I'm going to encode it one day and put it on our website.

heath

I think we'd all like to see "Conversations" when you're ready to share. How many hours did you have to spend on editing?

And also back to the question, what sort of cheap but good mic/dat recorder audio combo do you reccommend?

I like Shure mics. No real recommendations on DAT, as I just use this really pricey Sony that my friend owns. www.bhphoto.com has some prices.

"Conversations..." was shot in one night, then most of the following day. I had the visuals planned out (without storyboards), the editing, that it would be black & white with an effect to take off the video edge, the titles, everything, all about 3 weeks ahead of time. Since it was early 1997, we had to shoot on BetaSP and edit deck to deck (with an effects board). No DV or NLE equipment at my school, PBCC (in Palm Beach County) back then. It took, with music and stuff, about four Tuesday evening/night edit sessions. Maybe 20 - 30 hours to cut. You don't notice it when you love it.

My experience with TV has been for every edited minute of final footage, it takes around 1 hour to cut it. I usually double my estimates for cutting my movies, short or feature.

I think it took me a total of 250 to 350 hours (spread over two years, don't ask) to cut my first feature film, SKYE FALLING. (Coming to DVD, plug plug.) That started to wear me down!

Good luck and tell us where we can find info!

heath

Steve, you mentioned hearing good sound from Fashion Week and added "But then again it was a brand new unit". Are you implying that there may have been some changes to the cams
since they first came out?