Indie Birds – Camera

Thanks to The Canon Company and the digital camcorders and DSLRs there is an underground digital film revolution happening. This revolution began a few years ago when Canon decided to add the 24 frames per second option into most of its mid range consumer camcorders. Later it would at this as a video option in its DSLR and the revolution has fire fire world wide.

There are so many sites and blogs dedicated to DSLR cameras such that the Canon D7, Mark II and the T2I that I thought that I would go old school and focus on the cameras that started the revolution and with a few add-ons can offer almost the picture quality at a low price point. I will focus largely on the Canon HV series and the feature films that have been made with these little monsters and when the moment demands it I will get into some of the great work being done with the DSLRs.

Indie Birds – Camera

Let’s begin with why should a low budget film maker consider these cameras. I would say in response that a low budget film maker should not and by low budget I mean if you have fifty thousand dollars or more to spend then you should consider using the Canon Mark II or the Red or a number of the Panasonic pro-sumer camcorders if you want to make a feature film. If you have fifty thousand or more why not go 16mm film. The film cameras are cheap and if you know what you are doing with them then go right ahead. The truth is that I am not here for the low budget film maker. I am here for those who are called ultra low budget or no budget film makers. You fall into this category if you have less than ten thousand dollars to spend on your first feature.

Allow me to describe you. You or a close friend have written the screenplay for your movie. You will be doing this project with the help of friends and family who will work behind the scenes for no pay. You will be shooting on nights and weekends and at locations that you can get for free or get in and out of without being done filming there. Your players will be paid little to nothing up front. You will be looking to get the best production value out of the least amount of money spent possible.

Indie Birds – Camera

In other words you are a lot like me.

You are only willing to pay for what is absolutely unavoidable. The three area where you are going to have to spend money are:

Sound, if your audience can not hear the movie then you are doomed. Viewers will give up on your project the third or fourth time they have to mutter what did he just say? Huh, What was that?

Editing, you may be able to use a free program, but you will need a computer strong enough and quick enough to edit and hopefully do some sound mixing on. If you have such a computer cool, you just saved money.