To become a film maker all you need is a good professional camcorder and study the manual. If you study more manuals you will become even better film maker. I purchased dv for dummies manual and it has lots of good information about becoming a better film maker. I stand beside myself and want to share this with all of you nice peeople. Have a great day!

Fred, I am a strong believer in practical experience. Manuals don't necessarily relate to real production situations where experience from other shoots gets the job done and sometimes saves the day. I don't doubt that manuals show functionality of cameras, lighting, and sometimes technique but that alone is not going to do it.

Please refer to this thread for the backstory

www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?threadid=17308

Thank you James. I will read that link after I read some more in my professional Panasonic silver PV-DV953 camcorder manual and Digital Video for Dummies camcorder manual. I buy three more today. They are wonderful looking professional camcorder manuals these ones:

50 Fast Digital Video Techniques by Bonnie Blake and Doug Sahlin

Digital Video Pocket Guide by Derrick Story

Real World Digital Video by Pete Sharner and Gerald Everett Johns

<<<-- Originally posted by Fred Garhart : To become a film maker all you need is a good professional camcorder and study the manual. If you study more manuals you will become even better film maker. I purchased dv for dummies manual and it has lots of good information about becoming a better film maker. I stand beside myself and want to share this with all of you nice peeople. Have a great day! -->>>

Good luck my brother, you will need it, In the meantime please do post a feature film for your bretheren viewing

i have to agree with with james on this one, no matter how much you may know about a camera inside and out, ther eis no way in knowing exactly how a shoot will go until you get there and point the camera at your subject...

i recently did a mini movie for a wedding which started out as a tacky i dream of jeannie clone, but th elocations were just perfect to make it something a little more.

That and the initial music selection was quite tragic,
(this was deliberate tackiness mind you, they wanted it trashy for a laugh)

but after we got to the locations (which i had NOT seen prior to filming) we threw out the storyboard, and went live.

I ended up hanging out of the window of a GT at 80km on a highway with a dvx in one hand holding the cam about 10cm off the ground and a mounted MX500 inside.. now i never considered doing this until i saw the locaiton...

thats just one aspect of one scene...

the point here is that you dont know.

Regardless of how fast i can reconfigure my camera for ANY shoot, my style will need to adapt to accomodate the scene. If i can draw a scene in my mind, the easier it would be however i am primarily an event videographer, which means i DONT have the means to pick and choose how a scene plays out, more likely, i must determine HOW these spur of the moment scenes are presented in the final presentation...

theres alot more to film making and videogrpahy in general than operating a camera.

thats just my 2cents

Fred, I'm just giving you a hard time. I really do admire your effort and understand your excitment of having a new piece of gear. That effort will get you somewhere, keep it up!

When I first began shooting miniDV, I just stood there stupid, pressing and re-pressing the start/stop button, and zooming and panning from time to time. As time went on, and conditions changed, I had to figure out the manual settings, and on several different cams! :-(

Though cheap, I always used a plastic tripod. Ugh.

When I got my 1st miniDV cam, I studied the manual and started with auto. Yes, I was an auto man for the first month until I experimented and read the manual some more. :-)

Forgot to add, the 1st miniDV cam I ever used was a "professional," non-Leica Panasonic 3 chip hand-held, which came with a docking station---which I had to use for audio dubbing---and although it was a hand-held, I always used a tripod, and a chair to sit me down. Thanks for the LCD monitor which I could tilt up and down.