Camera for shooting short films

I own a canon xl2 along with a tripod. I'm planning on making short films, as well as a 118 min film this summer. I am a newbie when it comes to film festivals. If I was planning on submitting a short to a film festival would it be accepted from a digital camera? I've heard that film festivals only accept film? Once again, I'm a newb when it comes to this. Is there anything I need to know before I start making films? Thank you.
 
Most film festivals will accept a DVD for submission (I believe Sundance is one that requires film). One of the best sites for festivals is Withoutabox. They will tell you what the various festivals accept and not accept.

http://www.withoutabox.com/

As for your last question, "Is there anything I need to know before I start making films?"

Yes. But do it anyway!

Good luck.
 
I think a lot of low budget films, are transferred to film from digital. So it's made digitally, and after production is done, the final is transferred to film. When I looked into that, it was about 20 to 30 grand to do that, so not really low budget in that respect.

One thing that you need to worry about (your camera is fine) is sound. Without good sound you generally can't have a decent movie. Make sure that you have more than the camera microphone, cause you can't do anything with that. You can get a good mic from 50 to 300 dollars from Anzus, or Audio-Technica, or Stennhouser. Very important, as you can doctor through editing the film, sound is pretty hard to fix though.

Chris
 
Back
Top