Checklist

[azmyth]

HV40 - check
wide angle lens - check
Velbon DV7000 tripod - check
Jag35 - check
Canon 1.4 50mm lens - check
Beachtek DXA4 - check
Shotgun mic - check
Lighting 2 x 500w soft boxes - check

ok... so what should be next on the list of aquisitions?

Since I am using the 35mm adapter.. I am shooting upside down..
so I need rails/shrigg.
I also need a monitor.

I could also use more lights, but I don't have to buy those personally.. they can come out of the film budget.

Whats the next logical purchase that would be the most useful?

[Seo]

More lenses probably. And some more mics.

I'm assuming your sound guy already has his own boom and mixer, along with all the other necessary equipment. But I'm wondering... why do you have to own the mic?

[azmyth]

yes your right..

and I don't own the mic, I just put it on the check section because its already aquired.

I also forgot we have a few lens choices provided by the DP. Canon 1.8, Canon 1.2, Pentax Takumar 1.2, 2x 2.8 Canon zoom lenses.

The mic is a Neumann, and has its own boom/dead cat. We have the gear to record the audio with.

We def. need more lighting, the DP also has a few flourescent bulbs. I believe they are like 800w.. but he doesn't have stands.. so thats an option.

[Seo]

All right, makes sense. You do have a hypercardiod and lavs right? Or do you not need to use them in your feature?

What are the focal lengths? I can't guess much from the apertures, haha. They seem like nice lenses, so you're probably covered.

Hopefully you can find some nice deals.

[antman]

Lights, Lights , lights. I can't stress enough how important it is to own your own light set up. It's the one element to filmmaking I feel is hugely important to own your own gear. Lighting takes a good amount of time, especially if you want professional results and no gain when shooting with the hv40. Oh yeah , your using a dof adapter, so your gonna need even more lights. 800 watts is absolutly nothing when shooting with a dof adapter indoors.

Are you using the dof adapter to shoot your movie?

If yes, then you will need upwards of ten thousand watts to be safe. And if you plan on shooting at night you will need more.

Stands are very important too. With talent on set and people running around. you need good stands, I have written before about this and how impoetant safety is to me on location. At the very least, you need C-STANDS to mount your lights on. And then you better sand bag them. Otherwise you better damn well have a good insurance policy,, because if you try to skimp on this, you could be responsible for killing or burning someone very badly.

We were shooting outside on a windy day once, using Manfrotto cstands 10' to hold some flags. We had like two sandbags on each leg, and the wind still blew it over. Thank god it didn't hit any one but if it had, it could have crushed a skull. We should have had some monster 13' stands to do the job, but didn't own any.

I wanted to try the ebay C- STANDS for 100.00 + shipping= 126.00. Their decent, not great compared to the Avengers, or the Mathews, or even the Impact. But their better than any other stand that I have found in that range, and it came with a boom, and two grip heads. which were just ok(no spring load) But the stands are spring loaded, which suprised me. This are good enough to shoot a feature with and will last for years if taken care of properly. But yeah, you cant show up on location with crap to light with. You can get a decent set up for cheap if you look hard enough. You will also want to order ROLL OF TOUGH SPUN, FOR DIFFUSION. I will think of more stuff as the day goes on, hope this helps you some.

[Dana Love]

Depending on what we're shooting, we'll double box and belt and suspenders the audio. That way, we have an audio guy with discrete inputs making sure the signal is the best it can be, and we're using a shotgun and wireless receivers to pick up the various mics in case something bad happens to the audio system.

Over the course of 4 hours of shooting a political or industrial bit, I find a half dozen times where a camera mic picks up something our audio guy didn't get. It could be a conversation where only one person is hot, or some ambient noise we want to amplify, or even a radio hit on the audio guy's receiver.

[zizko]

A good script

[KingDucky]

Wide angle lens!

[tcindie]

Gaff tape
Black wrap
Sound blankets (to cut down echoes in rooms with lots of hard flat surfaces)

A dolly and track would be worthwhile. And it's cheap & easy to build if you base your design on the instructions provided by Digital Juice TV

[debuys]

what's DP?

[KingDucky]

Director of Photography.

[azmyth]

Ok, here's an updated list...

Canon HV40 - CHECK
Velbon DV7000 Tripod - CHECK
Extra Bogen Tripod - CHECK
Beachtek DXA-4 - CHECK
Jag 35 adapter - CHECK
Assortment of 35mm SLR lens - CHECK
External Monitor for focusing/framing - STILL NEED
Follow Focus system - ABSOLUTELY NEEDED DUE TO 35MM?
Shrigg Rigg Indirails system - ORDERED
800w 5500K flourescent lights w/ umbrellas/stands x 2 - CHECK
800w to 1000w 3200-5500k flourescent bulbs without stands x 5 - CHECK
10' light stands x 2 without recepticles = CHECK


I'm trying to cover the "big stuff" first.. We'll pick up gaffers tape, gels, diffusion paper, C47's and all that jazz closer to the date of shooting. I'm trying to get the BIG stuff out of the way.

A good bit of the film takes place at night, inside and out. Alot of the locations are lit with some practical lighting, but obviously we will need more. How much more is something me and the DP have both been trying to decipher as he's used to shooting with a DVX100 which I believe does better with less light than the HV40 would. He's also shot some short films with an HVX200 and stated that he used very little lighting, but again.. the HVX200 handles low light a whole lot better. Its a horror movie, so it "should" be dark.. but for mood purposes only. We plan to do some screen tests before we begin principal photography, but I would like to have the basics of gear aquired and then if we need to add anything to it, we can do that before we start shooting.

Antman, very helpful.. any other thoughts come to mind?

[Matt Greenfield]

Whats the next logical purchase that would be the most useful?

Extra batteries + battery chargers (at least four batteries and 2 ac/dc quick chargers for redundancy.)

IrvB focus ring

Zoom H2/H4 or some other audio backup

Bags/cases to transport and store everything in.

A hefty reserve stock of expendables, especially DV cassettes. For some reason, when you run out of DV tapes in the field, the only place you can find them wants $8-10 bucks a pop and doesn't have the brand you use.

A Camera survival kit that includes plastic rain bags , protective filters, DV cleaning tape, Lens cleaning kit. and small tools.

First aid kit (band-aids, aspirin, non-aspirin, etc.)

And if you can afford it, a back up camera.

[The Crowing]

A good bit of the film takes place at night, inside and out. Alot of the locations are lit with some practical lighting, but obviously we will need more. How much more is something me and the DP have both been trying to decipher as he's used to shooting with a DVX100 which I believe does better with less light than the HV40 would. He's also shot some short films with an HVX200 and stated that he used very little lighting, but again.. the HVX200 handles low light a whole lot better. Its a horror movie, so it "should" be dark.. but for mood purposes only. We plan to do some screen tests before we begin principal photography, but I would like to have the basics of gear aquired and then if we need to add anything to it, we can do that before we start shooting.

You can try to match the two cameras by messing with the appeture and such. If its supposed to be dark then just color correct it in post and darken it out a bit. With apple color you can do alot. Just light it really well. Even if it looks too bright, You have a empty canvas to work with in post.

[azmyth]

Noted! got most of that already covered in my "other" section.. but there was one or two things I wouldn't have thought of.. so thanks!

[azmyth]

You can try to match the two cameras by messing with the appeture and such. If its supposed to be dark then just color correct it in post and darken it out a bit. With apple color you can do alot. Just light it really well. Even if it looks too bright, You have a empty canvas to work with in post.

I think I may be confused.

We are shooting with an HV40. My DP owns a DVX100, but because of how many hours he has on it, and it being SD.. we are shooting on my canon instead. We were talking about using his camera for behind the scenes stuff possibly. He didn't trust it enough to use it as the main/2nd camera due to how old it is and how many hours are on it. I was just stating that he's used to shooting on Panasonic cameras that are capable of handling low light alot better than the HV series does.. so its been difficult trying to decide on just how much more lighting we are going to need to buy/rent.

[The Crowing]

Hah sorry. I guess I was a bit confused. I thought you had said you wanted to use both cameras. My mistake

[azmyth]

Oh and I forgot to mention..
we have a DIY crane, a smaller jib, and a DIY ladder dolly to use.

Here's some test shots from it.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou1E50jPRNA"]YouTube- five point productions[/ame]

and a picture of the crane that is used in the first shot of the video.



PS, the guy in the video is not me.. but one of my actors/crew/

[MalfunctioningHuman]

Lights, Lights , lights. I can't stress enough how important it is to own your own light set up. It's the one element to filmmaking I feel is hugely important to own your own gear. Lighting takes a good amount of time, especially if you want professional results and no gain when shooting with the hv40. Oh yeah , your using a dof adapter, so your gonna need even more lights. 800 watts is absolutly nothing when shooting with a dof adapter indoors.
[...]

Excellent post, antman. You have been greenied. Greenied I tell ya!

10,000 is a lot of watts though. So far I only have 7.6 watts. I think I'm going to have to buy a fricking lot of LED lights for that.