John Meeks
May 10th, 2010, 06:12 PM
My company needs to produce some educational videos. We got a quote from a guy who does video, which is about $20,000 for 6 days of shooting, and no editing (in other words, handing over camera tapes at the end). He wants half the money a couple of months in advance, sent to an out-of-state address, which makes me really nervous. In addition, I'd need to find 3 other people, in 3 other locations, where I don't live and don't know anyone (and this would be in addition to the price quoted above).
Anyway, since we often have bad experiences with vendors (not showing up, trying to scam us, doing shoddy work, showing up with a bunch of uninsured illegal Mexican workers, etc.) I've decided to buy the equipment and do the shooting myself. This has been true even when we've gone with the most expensive vendor of several, and with a good reputation. Oh, they always have some excuse, car accident, death in the family, but they get all huffy when we ask them to prove it.
So anyway: The budget for the video part of this project is around $20-25K. If we do similar projects in the future it would be nice to still have the equipment.
The project will be taping a law school professor giving a lecture. This will probably be done in a rented meeting room in a hotel. So in other words, sort of a talking-head type thing. It's not repeatable, since the professors are hard to get and quite expensive.
I'd like to use fluorescent soft-boxes for the light, since the professors don't have experience with making video, and I don't want to put hugely bright lights in their face. A kit of 6 is $1895 (don't know if I'm allowed to mention the website), which looks good, but I'm not sure. I'd also need a background sheet and a stand for it. Also tripods, sandbags, camera cases, etc.
The most expensive lavalier mics I can find look like about $160 each (wired, I see no reason to go for wireless). "Audio-Technica AT803b Omnidirectional Condenser Lavalier Microphone". Sound is the part I'm probably most concerned about, since I consider it almost more important than the video. I think lavalier mics can cut down on background noise, but this may be the place where I can't do as well as a real studio. I'd use microphones sitting on the table if they would produce better sound, but I don't think the professors would use them properly.
For cameras, I'd like to get three, 1 nice one and 2 cheaper ones. I want the expensive one on the professor for a medium/close up shot, and a backup on the same shot in case the main one fails. He'll be wearing 2 mics (preferably on one clip) going to these two cameras. The third camera (the other cheap one) will be on a wide shot. I'd like the cameras to cut together well even though they're different. I might even have them wear a 3rd mic going into an audio recorder, as another backup (ya never know when equipment will fail, and I seem to be jinxed in that respect).
I currently already have a big old sony 3CCD fullsize-DV camera, but it might be better to just go with High Def. Too bad it's obsolete, it has less than 100 hrs. on it and looks brand new.
The other reason for having so many cameras and lights is because we also want to do a 3-person panel discussion. With 3 cameras, I can have one on each person, and the center (good) one can zoom out to be the wide shot.
I want them to be able to record 3 hours without stopping, and I want to use tape because I won't have time to download stuff to a computer in between professors, I want to just pop in a new tape.
I won't be able to monitor the two side cameras during the panel discussion, I hope that's not a problem. I'm also not sure how I'll monitor audio (I'll probly have to make a custom wire to plug into two cameras and put one into each side of a pair of headphones), but for the panel discussion, again I'll probly only be able to monitor the center camera.
I guess I should go with HD since, even though I'll be producing this to DVD for now, it would be nice to have the tapes for whatever format comes out in the future. I'll need an editing rig also, to edit and make master DVD's. The editing will be very minimal (cutting between cameras, and maybe some minor effect or text at the beginning and end, possibly a few powerpoint slides). I've also noticed that SD downsampled from HD looks much better than native SD stuff. For example, an HD cable channel downsampled to SD by the cable box looks far superior to an SD (but still digital) channel. So I think I'd get a much better result by shooting in HD even if the final product is never in HD.
I have some experience with still photography and have operated a 35mm movie camera (the director on that one complimented my work). I'm still not hugely confident that I can do this so it's not poor quality or cheesy, though. I'm excellent with electronics and technical stuff (have a CS degree), but I should probly still take some kind of home-study course on video making, so I can get all the little details right and not have it look like a local cable TV commercial or America's Funniest Home Video weddings or whatever. I'm not artistic at all.
So, I'm looking for suggestions for 3 cameras (possibly HD, 2 cheaper and 1 more expensive, that will cut well together, cost $10K or a bit more total, and hold 3-hour tapes), and some educational materials that are helpful. Also any comments about my project or any of the other equipment I picked out, especially for audio. And do I need to do makeup?
Anyway, since we often have bad experiences with vendors (not showing up, trying to scam us, doing shoddy work, showing up with a bunch of uninsured illegal Mexican workers, etc.) I've decided to buy the equipment and do the shooting myself. This has been true even when we've gone with the most expensive vendor of several, and with a good reputation. Oh, they always have some excuse, car accident, death in the family, but they get all huffy when we ask them to prove it.
So anyway: The budget for the video part of this project is around $20-25K. If we do similar projects in the future it would be nice to still have the equipment.
The project will be taping a law school professor giving a lecture. This will probably be done in a rented meeting room in a hotel. So in other words, sort of a talking-head type thing. It's not repeatable, since the professors are hard to get and quite expensive.
I'd like to use fluorescent soft-boxes for the light, since the professors don't have experience with making video, and I don't want to put hugely bright lights in their face. A kit of 6 is $1895 (don't know if I'm allowed to mention the website), which looks good, but I'm not sure. I'd also need a background sheet and a stand for it. Also tripods, sandbags, camera cases, etc.
The most expensive lavalier mics I can find look like about $160 each (wired, I see no reason to go for wireless). "Audio-Technica AT803b Omnidirectional Condenser Lavalier Microphone". Sound is the part I'm probably most concerned about, since I consider it almost more important than the video. I think lavalier mics can cut down on background noise, but this may be the place where I can't do as well as a real studio. I'd use microphones sitting on the table if they would produce better sound, but I don't think the professors would use them properly.
For cameras, I'd like to get three, 1 nice one and 2 cheaper ones. I want the expensive one on the professor for a medium/close up shot, and a backup on the same shot in case the main one fails. He'll be wearing 2 mics (preferably on one clip) going to these two cameras. The third camera (the other cheap one) will be on a wide shot. I'd like the cameras to cut together well even though they're different. I might even have them wear a 3rd mic going into an audio recorder, as another backup (ya never know when equipment will fail, and I seem to be jinxed in that respect).
I currently already have a big old sony 3CCD fullsize-DV camera, but it might be better to just go with High Def. Too bad it's obsolete, it has less than 100 hrs. on it and looks brand new.
The other reason for having so many cameras and lights is because we also want to do a 3-person panel discussion. With 3 cameras, I can have one on each person, and the center (good) one can zoom out to be the wide shot.
I want them to be able to record 3 hours without stopping, and I want to use tape because I won't have time to download stuff to a computer in between professors, I want to just pop in a new tape.
I won't be able to monitor the two side cameras during the panel discussion, I hope that's not a problem. I'm also not sure how I'll monitor audio (I'll probly have to make a custom wire to plug into two cameras and put one into each side of a pair of headphones), but for the panel discussion, again I'll probly only be able to monitor the center camera.
I guess I should go with HD since, even though I'll be producing this to DVD for now, it would be nice to have the tapes for whatever format comes out in the future. I'll need an editing rig also, to edit and make master DVD's. The editing will be very minimal (cutting between cameras, and maybe some minor effect or text at the beginning and end, possibly a few powerpoint slides). I've also noticed that SD downsampled from HD looks much better than native SD stuff. For example, an HD cable channel downsampled to SD by the cable box looks far superior to an SD (but still digital) channel. So I think I'd get a much better result by shooting in HD even if the final product is never in HD.
I have some experience with still photography and have operated a 35mm movie camera (the director on that one complimented my work). I'm still not hugely confident that I can do this so it's not poor quality or cheesy, though. I'm excellent with electronics and technical stuff (have a CS degree), but I should probly still take some kind of home-study course on video making, so I can get all the little details right and not have it look like a local cable TV commercial or America's Funniest Home Video weddings or whatever. I'm not artistic at all.
So, I'm looking for suggestions for 3 cameras (possibly HD, 2 cheaper and 1 more expensive, that will cut well together, cost $10K or a bit more total, and hold 3-hour tapes), and some educational materials that are helpful. Also any comments about my project or any of the other equipment I picked out, especially for audio. And do I need to do makeup?