Winning hearts and minds with "low" end cams

[Kenn Jolemore]

My Son and his buddied work up on the Penobscott river durring the summer as guides for Moxie and they take my old Sharp 650U and shoot footage of the rapids running and night time goings on at the camps. For a 400 dollar camcorder they come back with some great footage every fall. Next year tyhey will take a trv-17 and the sharp and go for more footage.
It is amazing how good the footage from these inexpensive camcorders looks.They run the footage through premiere and make dvd's to send to family and friends.
I shoot bands and surfing with my 950 and the footage is great on that also. I have also done a few weddings for family and friends
KennJ

[Glenn Chan]

but are you familiar with the work of The Brothers Quay, or the guy that influenced them whose name escapes me for the moment, Jan Svenkmaer or something like that? The Brothers do/did some rather incredible if a little bleak work. Great stuff. Also, have you seen a film called TETSUO: THE IRON MAN?

I'll check out those films out!

Would love to know what their budget was, it seems as though hyper b movie acting, a pile of rubbish, and painstakingly intensive camera work, was all that made this gem. Perhaps it cost more than it looks like. Hope not.

Yeah the acting was pretty bad. That's what I get for having friends who can't act I suppose. The only things that cost something while shooting this film was living expenses, travelling expenses (gas + subway tickets), and some fishing line which I didn't end up using (too thick and not enough time to rotoscope it out).

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Thanks for the feedback norm.

[Mark Jefferson]

I have 2 cameras, a GL2 and a ZR20. I still use the ZR20 as the second cam in all the weddings I do (a couple/month) and get excellent results. The ZR20 is the long shot camera, and as long as I properly white-balance the cameras and make sure there is enough light, the quality is almost imdistinguishable in the finished video. I've never had any complaints yet (no one has even questioned the camera, other then to say how small it is).

Cheers,
Mark Jefferson

[Terry Wright]

I use a Sony dcr-trv16e which sells for about £450 in the UK and have had excellent results. We have another 2 short films in the works that will be filmed with the Sony.

I like the look of the footage after it has been editted and colour corrected and have had some nice things said about it. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what camera you use just as long as your footage is stable and have a good story to tell.

I plan on buying an XM2 at the end of the year but will still use the Sony as a 2nd camera.

Regards

Terry
www.twisted-films.4t.com

[Matt Elias]

It's amazing how much you can accomplish w/ DV. The average television viewer would never know the difference unless you pointed it. Case in point, MTV uses PD150s for the majority of its shows. It only uses Beta cams for a few shows. For a network that is known for being fruggal, DV is a godsend. Just hand your producers a cam. It also, by default, puts full creative control in the hands of the producers.

The same goes for the big screen, as in the case w/ Eric Eason's Sundance winner "Manito." The 78 min feature cost him only $24,000 as opposed to the $16,000 that sent him back for his first project, a 10 min short shot on 16mm film.

I totally agree w/ Robert's opinion on "Algiers." I saw it in a film class a few years ago and was totally drawn into the story. The content wins you over, and you forget the shakey footage, the B&W, and the French dialouge. I highly recommend to the film. And if you need a term paper on it, I have one of those.

[Shawn Mielke]

I've wanted to see The Battle of Algiers for years, have yet to find a copy. I got a Fifty of the Greatest Movies Ever sort of book out of my grandmother's closet when I was in high school. Through it I discovered some surprisingly strange and highly influential films: Godard's Weekend, Fellini's 8 1/2, Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane, 2001, and Battle of Algiers.
Anyone ever see Chris Marker's Sans Soleil (1982)? This one makes the top five of my top ten list. Without going into many of it's many details, it's basically a filmmaker's 16mm travel footage from Tokyo and Africa which he brings together through editing and narrative. It touches upon memory, filmmaking, perception, time, Hitchcock, sciencefiction, leftist politics, cultural "eccentricities", and more. Fascinating and, well, just plain genius if you ask me. Probably THE most thought provoking film know to me. And it's just travel footage and ideas. No gobs of money, no stellar equipment. Marker certainly works with dv these days. He has a little cam of some sort, says he loves it , doesn't go anywhere without it. This is the guy that made La Jetee (1964?), the short film that inspired a number of filmmakers, Terry Gilliam and his 12 Monkeys among them. These are my people. Writers and thinkers who do film and video too, and create epiphanies out of a small amount of resources. Of course he's French and I believe France handles money for the arts differently than the US. Nevertheless.

[John Britt]

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Knecht Schmidt : Listen--

On a shoot I did last year, one of the producers and I both had pocket sized Canon still cameras capable of taking short video clips. The producer told me he was interested in shooting an entire movie just using his little Canon digital camera, each shot being limited to 15 seconds.

-->>>


That's funny, I had the same aspirations for my Sony digital still camera -- invest in a large memory stick and shoot consecutive 15-second scenes...

What I ended up doing, though, is using the 15-second mpegs for rotoscoping experiments. 15 secs is a great length for a filmstrip file in Photoshop, and exporting the filmstrip from Premiere at NTSC resolution fuzzes out the picture enough that even some simple, thought-out filter use can give you some nice effects.

(and yes, Premiere can be fussy with mpeg files -- but if you drop it in the timeline and immediately export it as a filmstrip, you can typically just work with the flm file with no hassles)

[John F. Jones]

The company I work for made a purchase of a Canon XL1 for the weight factor mostly, a lot of the camera work that I do is chasing people around and shoot them having fun on company sponsered trips.
We purchased a couple of Canon ZR10's to hand out to others to get some shots of various parts of the trip that I could not be at.

These cameras have really turned out to be a great purchase. I have worked with a few outside editors and they were blowen away by the quailty of the footage, from both cameras, One editor /shooter even made a purchase of the Canon ZR series himself.

I have used the ZR10 camera with an underwater bag to shoot people snorkeling. We have also used it on many water rafting trips as well (with the under water bag).

So I would say if your looking for a camera under a $1,000, my recommendation would be any of the Canon ZR series.

Best of luck

[Shawn Mielke]

This might be the first recommendation of the ZR series I've come across. Fantastic! Not that I'm off to get one, but it's great to hear the idea of ANY camera/tool having it's own sweet spot in action. This seems like the obvious philosophy to have, but I was just thinking that one could acquire a selection of the better consumer cams, each with a slightly different sweet spot, and collectively have a highly flexible well rounded small production apparatus that can otherwise be found in various single much more expensive semipro cams, for about the same money. Of course, a really good low light ability might be difficult to fulfill, you'd be perhaps more open to more mechanical and technical problems, as well as more accessories for incompatible brands......But it would be more like a stocked tool chest rather than have a few Leathermans around. Something like that! For instance, by the end of December, I should have saved enough for either one Pana dvc80, or one Optura Xi and one GS100k. I'm toggling between the two ideas, and it's interesting what sorts of reasoning I'm coming up with for both. The more I think and learn, the more I realize I can't really make the wrong decision, I can only think in new ways and adapt. And that's why I started this thread in the first place, to help generate a picture for folks of how the limitations of the equipment become, well, culture, in effect. It can lead to innovation on every level. We are familiar with DOGMA 95, yes? This is what it was and is about. The intention wasn't to provide a way to excuse filmmakers from being their most professional or doing their very best work and to feel ok about amateurish sloppiness, as I've heard a number of people retort, surprisingly. Quite the contrary, it was/is the opportunity, through restriction, to explore truly new ways of doing things.

[Michael Gibbons]

It's funny that you mention Dogma 95; I was on their website the other day, and I read their manifesto. I like the general philosphy, but the rules seemed somewhat arbitrary to me... and in, at least, one case, just silly. One of the rules is "Genre films are not acceptable." What does that mean exactly? The only Dogma 95 film I've had the pleasure of seeing is "Mifune"- which I really liked, but it IS a romantic comedy, and if romantic comedy doesn't qualify as a genre, what does? It seems to me that most films can be classified in one genre or another. I suspect by genre, they mean fantasy,horror and science fiction- why not just say so? Why do they insist that films be made in color?
One thing I realized while reading the manifesto was that I will never be part of any kind of movement. I hate rules, especially when it comes to art.
Oh, and just to stay on topic, Right now I'm using a pana dv53. I am going to shoot a silent short on it later this winter.
MG

[Shawn Mielke]

Well, I think the the rule means you can't go into a project intending to make something that is "romantic" and a "comedy", for example. The rules stress that EVERYTHING going into the film be entirely character derived, all plot and plot points, all "moods" or atmospherics, all locations used, etc. If, because of your characters, you create something that resembles what many people would qualify as a romantic comedy, and most viewers are quick to qualify, hence genres, so be it. In other words, you can't force this "romantic comedy" pretense on your characters, it wouldn't be, shall we say, organically grown.
The color rule is a bit puzzling, I have to admit. Perhaps they were feeling like b/w was too much of an "optical" effect and/or would take away from the reality in the film. They also felt that much of filmmaking relied on simpleton effects and wanted to push themselves out of standard conventional procedures and make films of substance, as well as help standard filmmaking practices out of industrial deadlock. Some filmmakers have made letter perfect Dogma films, I suppose, while others did only mostly so. Think of it as a challenge to yourself, to write poetry in strict meter rather than freestyle, as opposed to a group to join or not join.

[Dave Largent]

Shawn,
Where are you gonna get the GS100 from?

[Shawn Mielke]

Not sure, Dave. Another fellow on this site said he could probably help me out. There also is a site called pricejapan.com, which I'm told is reputable and reliable, and has a good price. I, actually, am thinking wild thoughts along the lines of selling my PDX10 and getting, not the dvc80, but a DVX100. The timing for such a thing would be just right for me. I shall miss my pdx10, at least for now, and something very much like it will be very appropriate as second cam to the likes of the dvx, perhaps the gs100k, next year.
But to finish answering your question, Dave, ask Alan Rejoso over at the mx/dv forum here, he might have some cam acquisition pointers for you.

[Randy Stewart]

All,

Okay, this is my first post on this forum. I normally hang out on the Sonic Foundry (now Sony) Vegas forum. I'm a hobbiest, pro wanna-be living in Hawaii. Like so many others, I have caught the video editing bug and am having loads of fun.

My camcorder is a Sony TRV-120, Digital 8. I edit with Vegas 4 (have used most all of the entry level programs too), shoot all my own stuff (not the best of cameramen for sure), and focus on home videos. I scan in photos with a $40 Onetouch Visioneer scanner, and output to Digital 8 or VHS tape or to my Sony 510A burner. My first and biggest show was a 3 day shoot on the big island (Hawaii) following (and crewing for) a friend as he ran the Ultraman event (includes a 6 mile swim in the ocean and 90 mile bike race up a volcano on the first day, 160 mile bike over two volcano's on the second day, and double marathon on the 3rd day, yeah he's a lunatic). The show turned out to be about 80 minutes long (2 years ago). Most of my recent projects have been sound on slide shows for relatives and my daughters graduation and an action video of our family vacation to Florida this past summer. I have one more slide show to do by next month for our unit Christmas party and then a wedding in May (first one for me). I don't charge for anything as I'm still learning the craft (except cost reimbursement) and, I don't work on a time schedule...I edit when I feel like it :-)

Reading the posts of others here is very inspiring. I guess most of you know what I mean when I say that, for me, it's not about the money. I do this because I can create something that has an emotional impact on others...and on me. What a great hobby!

Looking forward to more.

Aloha,
Randy

[Steve Nunez]

I've been told the new Canon Elura 50 is a great camera for the money. 540 lines res and super sharp lens along with it's low-mass approach make for a fun run-and-gun camera to take anywhere.......matter of fact- I may get one myself.

Anyone have one of these 50's- what do you think of it?