dfc9d | Sep 16 2007 | 292 views
edited by dfc9d on Sep 16 2007, 1:36pm
question for youz ppls that know how to make movies and documentaries.
im thinking of making a fairly shortish documentary 10-30 minutes.
im wondering what cameras can i use to make a fairly affordable but okay looking documentary. i dont need film quality.
could i use a minidv camera? a good one.
any other suggestions?
i might 20-30 really good minidv tapes. well maybe less or moar?
do i need any special lighting? since im going to europe i cannot take any electrical apparatus other than the camera which ill try to find a convertor for cheap.
dunno. right now its really heavy in planning mode. so dunno. but if all works okay im sure i'd do okay. it's my first documentary so i will spend a lots of time fooling around with the camera... bla
First never go into shooting a doc with an estimated running time. Just shoot as much as possible, and explore your theme, and every potential variation on it.
20 to 30 tapes for a feature length documentary is not a lot.
I just finished editing a feature length educational doc with just over 40 tapes, and there still wasn't enough footage.
If you're trying to shoot a feature length doc, you're shooting a 10:1 ratio, meaning you should have over 200 tapes for 2 Hours.
For Sharkwater, we had over 30 TBs of raw footage on nearly 40 drives. Most we're 500 to 750 GBs drives. It got to the point where we were order drives like pizzas. Rob had pretty close to 200 tapes in varied formats, XD Cam, HD Cam, Dbeta, HDV DV, SD, Varicam in either PAL or NTSC.
Anyway, enough of that.
A 3CCD Panasonic (consumer model) camera is fine for what you need. It's like the same camera's they have in AV Loans.
for about $1300 you can get an HDV handicam that does full 1080i HD. Recods to DV Tapes just the same, bigger image, natively anamorphic (widescreen).
dvshop.ca
Or if you can afford it, a Canon GL-2 is prosumer DV camera with a lot of latitude.
Feature length is a hard deal yo, explorig that much time at your level of expertise can go two ways... you're either taking your audience for a nothing ride and forcing a pasturized home movie down they throats... or your project has some moments but disconnects them all leaving the viewer disinterested.
Study the shit out of the format, and especially about producing and diffusing story into an audience well. Be a script robot of the highest callibur.
Sep 16 2007 12:40pm
Hey Ben. I realised that a feature length documentary is not easy so i'll make it shorter. i will film as much as i can..then compact everything to the bare minimum. Perhaps 10-30 minutes. I think it's a better approach. since i have never done this before.
Also i will probably need to read some books about filmmaking. Any suggestions?
for now is just pre-planning. it's not even sure i'm going to do this.
edited by
dfc9d on
Sep 16 2007 1:34pm
Walter Murch (for theory and post), Syd Field (For basics and learing the rules), not too sure about production books... Sound is important, try to pick up a good small directional mic, one that can even sit a top the camera. Bad sound spoils any film. The rule is 80% of your film is sound... it's totally true... nothing worse than watching a picture with bad sound.
myocad.com is an independent student community for OCAD. That boys and girls happens to stand for Ontario College of Art and Design. The "of" and "and" didn't make it into the acronym, otherwise our website would be called myocoaad.
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