Two Companies Compete with their Perspectives

So, my weekend involved two days of shooting for two different organizations, and both gave different perspectives of how they view themselves and their property.

So, let's start with Saturday or Day 1. I woke up super early, like at 8:15 am early and got ready. I then headed toward the Bloomington Minnesota area and entered the Remada Hotel. I asked directions to where the meeting was taking place and I entered the room. I was surrounded by people who as many people would say have drank the cool aid.

So, as I was about to pull out my camera to start recording some of the presentation to help out the local committee, A woman from up front gave a very big word to everyone. NO RECORDING IN THE HALL. So, I calmly took my Canon 7D and Cowboy Studio and put it back into my bag. I then got a look from the main man I do my filming for Lucky and the two of us went out of the hall and began recording some of the people we ran into from North Dakota.

Afterwards, I went back in and with Lucky's advice/what he wanted I decided to ninja some video shots of Lucky and his business partner giving some advice to how to be a better seller of selling travel to people. Now I'm not great salesman so I'll just give you a link here if you care about traveling for cheap, and you can check out all of the cheesy videos that Lucky and I hope to change to show how people's lives can really be changed.

Now let's compare that with today. Today I was invited to shoot at the Hyatt hotel in Minneapolis for a spiritual health and wellness expo, which had many people speaking who are in the spiritual field, including those that are mediums and intuitive.

I set up my camera alongside my other camera operator and we shot everything throughout the day. They were much more open and because of that, we were given the opportunity to shoot many of the booths, and talk to many of the individuals.

Now I'm not going to upload any of the footage that I shot at the expo from today, because I'm not sure how the expo users want to use it, but I hope to do it soon.

I'll keep you updated.

My Equipment

Here is what I am working with in the film world. A couple things that aren't in the pictures below are:

Vivitar 28mm Lens
Vivitar 50mm Lens
Vivitar 80-205mm Lens

But these lenses are available only second hand.

$1,000 Budget

For those who have about a thousand dollars below I have some suggestions for what I would include in a basic filming package. Also if you look over the other packages I've built, I hope you will notice that many of these items reappear and thus show how strongly I feel about them and use them everyday.



*If you can not see the images above, you probably have an ad-blocker installed in your browser, which I completely understand, which is why I have simply listed these items below with links that will lead you to amazon.com

Canon T3i 771.13
Azden SMX 10 84.99
Cowboy Studio Shoulder Mount 26.69
Dolica Tripod 65.99
Transend 32 GB SD Card 43.52

$2,500 Budget

For those who have $2,500 here are some suggestions for what I would include in a filming package. Also if you look over the other packages I've built, I hope you will notice that many of these items reappear and thus show how strongly I feel about them and use them everyday.



*If you can not see the images above, you probably have an ad-blocker installed in your browser, which I completely understand, which is why I have simply listed these items below with links that will lead you to amazon.com

What can I get for a grand

As I've been on a lot of social media sites, looking at people who are looking to get into the film game a lot of people have been listing questions about trying to get into the film game for under a thousand dollars (that's us dollars my global readers), and after giving my advice time and time again for particular items and suggesting them individually to each post I decided to come up with this list. It's my recommendation on how to get you started in the film game for under a grand.

So first and foremost you need a Camera, I recommend the Canon t3i, it has the same sensor chip as the Canon 7d and the Canon 60d. It also has a 3x crop that you can use in film mode extending the lens length by three but still maintaining true1080p resolution and that is going to be the bulk of the budget right there.

Next you need a microphone, particularly a directional shotgun mic, the Azden SMX 10 is great for an onboard camera mic, and for the sub grand market it comes in really handy too.

Thirdly you need a tripod/camera stabilizer. I use both the Cowboy Studio Shoulder Mount and the 60 inch Dolica Tripod.

All of these prices are off of Amazon.com's website

Canon T3i 771.13
Azden SMX 10 84.99
Cowboy Studio Shoulder Mount 26.69
Dolica Tripod 65.99
Transend 32 GB SD Card 43.52


Your total cost is just under a grand, and with that you are ready to go out and shoot the world in film.

To check out all of these items together on Amazon.com click here.

How I get my Film On

I have received a couple of messages in the last week about what my film equipment is and how I shoot some of my short film. So I thought I would list out my equipment below for you to see. Now some of my equipment isn't necessarily professional video equipment, but it does it's job well. I'm always looking to add equipment to this list so if you have ideas, then leave me a comment or send me a message.

VIDEO
Canon 7D 28mm-135mm
Compact Flash Card 32 GB x2
LP - E6 Batteries x3
Fotodiox Canon Adapter
7" Field Monitor
Vivitar 28mm Lens (sold second hand only)
Vivitar 50mm Lens (sold second hand only)
Vivitar 80-205mm Lens (sold second hand only)

AUDIO
Zoom H4N Audio Recorder
Sennheiser M66 Shotgun mic
K-Tek KE-89 Boom Pole
Audio Technica Headphones

LIGHTING
Clamp Lights x8
Car Sunshade
Cowboy Studio Green Screen Set Up
PVC custom made light stands x2

TRIPODS
Cowboy Studio Shoulder Mount
Dolica Tripod

DSLR Stabilization is a must and the Answer is from Texas

Creating beautiful filmic images is one of the dreams for every video professional, but one of the largest drawbacks that almost every DSLR is that it is to lightweight and is to hard to stabilize on its own.

What that means then, is that you either have to shoot every shot on a tripod or you have to learn how to hold a five pound camera steady enough with your hands while pulling focus and possibly telling your cast how they are to act, (Personally, the whole directing cast and being a DP at the same time is total BS, it's to hard to do. So if you can, go out and get a DP, even if you can't pay him. Being a DP is a big deal and many up and coming individuals would probably take the job just for the experience if they can get behind the script, but this is another post for another time.) this makes shooting almost impossible to get the shots you really want to be pursuing, especially if you want to be able to move around on the fly or if you are in a sports situation.

Now, I know that there are some that might read this and say, well there are stabillizers out there that are designed for DSLRs like the Redrock and Zacuto, to which I will respond yes, there are and having used both of these, they are very nice, and are both also very expensive. Going for 2,000 and 3,500 US dollars resprectively. Even if you go with some of the cheapest options like the Jag system you are still looking at at least 500 dollars to get a good shoulder mount stabilizer.

There is another option which is to build your own equipment and to be honest, I've built most of my own equipment that I could, it often saves money, but you replace that with cost.

As I've been working on films I came across this little piece of equipment that I think every DSLR videographer needs and it's made by a company out of Texas called Cowboy Studio. It works really well on shoots where being able to move quickly almost a necessity, especially since you can get the item for under 30 dollars.

I've included some raw footage that I shot yesterday at the monster 5k dash of me using the stabilizer to see how smooth the footage can be. I've also included a link below for you to check out this stabilizer on Amazon or you can click here