Equipment?

C

cw4u

I am 16 years old and am starting to do filming as a small business/hobby. I have worked with studio cameras and equipment since I was 13. I don't know if this is the right place, but I need some help on equipment. I will mainly shoot live performances. I have been told by my high school that I would be able to shoot graduation, beauty pageants, talent shows, and a couple other events in the 08-09 school year.

I was thinking about just buying three svhs or vhs-c camcorders with LANC capabilities. Now, if these cameras have built in TBCs, do I need a mixer with one built in? Or can I just buy an older mixer without the TBCs and frame syncs? I was thinking about buying a Sony SEG2000 mixer. My church is about to switch all of their monitors to LCDs, so Ill be able to pick up 4 Sony BW Triniton displays for free or very cheap. I would also like to buy a S-VHS deck and use it as a backup for my DVD recorder. I would run all video through RG6 cable with BNC and RCA connectors.

Would this type of setup be ok, or do I need something else?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
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There are probably a lot of other threads that cover similar info, but I'll be nice :)

First off, see if your school has any sort of technology department. They should have equipment you can checkout or rent, but they might not. Are you "broadcasting" live as you record? If not I would recommend picking up some MiniDV cameras since VHS is pretty much obsolete.

When I was in high school (okay, so like a year ago) my school had cameras and equipment and a control room, so I'd help out every now and then. They also had computers to edit footage on. You could also try a local public broadcast station. :D

Basically my advice; stay away from the obsolete (DVD now has competition with the internet) and get whatever you can as cheap as you can, which usually means you have to ask around.
 
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Since you are 16, my suggestion is:

If you don't have access to anything else, then use what you have. Maybe your equipment is obsolete, but you can learn other things by doing the production anyway. So, the equipment isn't the best. Can you get good footage out of what you have? Okay then, what you have is the opportunity to improve your editing skills, your audio skills, your camera skills. You get to improve how you are around the people you are taping/filming.

There is more to filmmaking than just the equipment. This is guerrilla filmmaking, make what you have work. And you already have 3 years experience on some people who just started or didn't do anything because they "had a crappy camera".

What are you gonna do? Give up because you don't have exactly the right equipment! You do that and you're not a filmmaker :) For me, doing nothing is not an option...

-- spinner :cool:
 
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First off, thanks for all of the advice.

My high school is fairly small. (around 1500 students) We have virtually no equipment, except a couple of cameras. I'll try and ask around about it though. I know that they have no video mixing or other pro equipment. Everything that I have learned and used has been through my church. I will not broadcast this on any type of tv station, but will put it on DVDs for sale. I will use whatever I can get my hands on, but I'm trying to figure out what I need. Another thing that I've never done is on location shooting. I've always been in a fixed install setting.

Again, thanks.
 
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