Dreamer,

Since you're in NYC, check out Downtown Community TV (dctv.org) for a reality check. The courses are inexpensive and it's a great organization to support.

Good luck!

Avid's own Michael Phillips shot his film "Jack In the Box" on a Canon XL-1 (if I remember correctly), but he had the foresight to know that miniDV was not going to be his final deliverable.  http://jackintheboxmovie.com/

Focus on the story.  Shoot on the best camera you can get/afford (even if it's VHS).  Light it well.  Focus on capturing good audio.  I'd rather watch a good story with good audio but a crappy picture than a crystal clear picture with a stale story and bad audio.  Your story and your audio will make or break or film, not your camera.

 

I teach production courses at the local community college.  The best work I've ever seen by a student was shot with a Hi-8 camera and edited in Final Cut Express.  It looked like hell but the composition, the story, the editing, the choice of music, the pacing...it was all top notch and that made it easy to forgive the glitchy, grainy, nasty image.

 

Best of luck with it.  If I was in New York I'd come help out on set for free.  It's exciting to work with students who are passionate about storytelling.

Everyone who has posted in this thread totally rocks!  Thanks so much - I don't come here very often anymore but I'm so glad I did this time.  My mind was spinning, I was feeling frustrated and way far behind in terms of being ready, but you all picked me up and got me back down to earth.  I will not be deterred!

 

Dreamer D

 

Hi DDreamer,

as long as your film is for the web or even DVD Distribution, DV is fine. Your audience does not care what kind of equipment was used. And I hope you make your film for them and not for some "techno experts".

Camera equipment is only a small (but important) part. You do not need a high end camera if lighting sucks. Or the script,actors, editing, music etc. are bad.

Do you have contacts to camera rentals / production firms? Often you get stuff really cheap or even for free, when you are a student and willing to maybe help them out sometime. Or try to find somebody in your area with the right equipment via the internet. I found a guy with a camera I could try via vimeo.com

Do you really have to make your film all by yourself? Making films is teamwork...

 

 

robocut:

as long as your film is for the web or even DVD Distribution, DV is fine. Your audience does not care what kind of equipment was used. And I hope you make your film for them and not for some "techno experts".

I want to enter festivals, too.

Camera equipment is only a small (but important) part. You do not need a high end camera if lighting sucks. Or the script,actors, editing, music etc. are bad.

Do you have contacts to camera rentals / production firms? Often you get stuff really cheap or even for free, when you are a student and willing to maybe help them out sometime. Or try to find somebody in your area with the right equipment via the internet. I found a guy with a camera I could try via vimeo.com

Do you really have to make your film all by yourself? Making films is teamwork...

I never said I was doing it all myself.  The reason I got discouraged was because I am looking for a shooter and everyone I met was trying to convince me that I need a RED (at a rate I can't afford).  I need to meet more people who can help me because most of my fellow students are either unreliable or unimpressive (and younger than me, so have different priorities/sensibilities), so I was networking and all the posers got to me.  I do belong to DCTV and if I can't find someone reasonable with their own DV equipt I will rent from there.

 

The man behind the camera is more important than the camera itself; on a low budget production I guess that the DP and the camera operator will be the same person, make sure this guy/girl is "bulletproof"; I totally agree with whoever wrote to bring home good sound, sound makes the difference between amateur and professional nowadays, and, as I wrote before, if You happen to have some extra money invest them in a cherry to put on top of Your cake, don't waste them on a RED camera subtracting resources to what actually goes into the frame.

Butcher:

Focus on capturing good audio.  I'd rather watch a good story with good audio but a crappy picture than a crystal clear picture with a stale story and bad audio.

So true.

I think of a show like "Deadliest Catch", the stories are compelling, the camera is being jostled around, the lens gets foggy or has water drops on it but the audio is always pristine.  They must spend a ton of time in audio post cleaning it all up.  

Audiences seem to forgive less than stellar picture quality more so than less than stellar audio quality.