A few weeks ago I talked about a microbudget filmmaker I met while in Dallas at the Texas Frightmare Weekend by the name of Abel Berry from BS Entertainment Films. Abel was a great guy and his movie, “Spoils,” was a neat little flick about a killer clown. As I mentioned earlier, the cool thing about Abel was the fact that he should “Spoils” on the awesome little Canon HV20 (now the Canon HV40) consumer HDV camera. This camera is an amazing tool for independent and no budget filmmakers and it was great to find someone who had actually gone out and shot a feature length horror film with it. That’s right, a feature film shot with the Canon HV20 / HV40. How cool is that?
Well, Abel and his crew are now deep into production of their latest no budget horror flick, “Kodie,” and are once again using the Canon HV40. Even better, Abel is posting a series of video blogs talking about the production and extolling the wonders of the Canon HV20 / HV40 cameras.
Check out Abel’s video and keep an eye out for this young filmmaker…I think we’re all going to be seeing a lot more of Abel and his team in the future!
When the Film Sensei promises something, he delivers! Well…most of the time. Here is my video review of the Alzo Quad Pan-L Fluorescent Light bank. I had a longer text review of this fantastic budget fluorescent light bank for indie filmmakers last week, and this is my follow-up. Check out the earlier review for a more detailed look at these lights. I was impressed enough with the units at a recent music video shoot that I ran home and ordered one to test out for myself. I am definitely in love!
If you’re an indie or guerrilla filmmaker looking to add the power of fluorescent lighting to your low budget lighting kit then you’ll want to check out the Alzo Quad Pan-L lights. Great units at a great, under $400 price.
In a minute or two I’m going to get around to talking about my video post for the day — showing off my Canon HV20 camera rig and all of the cool accessories that go with it. Before I do get around to that, I want to reveal a bit of personal information. As with a lot of husbands (and 99% of husbands who are nerds, geeks or dorks), my wife despises the clothing I pick out for myself. She particularly hates any clothing that I still manage to keep that predates the beginning of our relationship over 5 years ago. She makes fun of what she likes to call my nerd-wear or my old-man clothing. Personally, I don’t think my wardrobe is all that bad, but for the most part I bow down to her superior fashion knowledge.
Today, when she found out I was going to do a new video post for the Film Sensei website (http://www.filmsensei.com), she asked what I was going to wear and then mocked me furiously for the shirt I picked out — the one you’ll see if you watch the video portion of this post. I held my ground and said that I was posting about indie and guerrilla filmmaking and that fashion had nothing to do with it! Then, I shoo’d her away and got down to filming, feeling more than a little self-righteous. Feh, what did she know about low budget filmmakers and how dare she make fun of my cool green shirt!
After I shot my video and was going through the upload process I decided to take a look at the original video post about my Canon HV20 camera rig from just over a year ago (a year and 2 days to be precise). I have to say I just about shit myself when I saw that I was wearing the exact same shirt back then. Wow, not only is my fashion sense bad, but it’s very consistently bad. Guess it’s time to start listening to the wife!
Ok, on to the regularly schedule indie filmmaking post.
A year ago I talked quite a bit about my awesomely cool Canon HV20 and what I was doing to trick it out. I promised to do an updated video to show off the final rig with my TwoNeil 35mm adapter and then promptly forgot about it. Well, after receiving over 150 emails asking for an update on my rig, I have finally put together a quick video to show it off.
In the video you’ll see my Canon HV20 (now replaced by the Canon HV40) mounted on Cavision Rods. It also has a Bescor Flash bracket with an AZDEN SGMX1 Shotgun Mic; on the camera’s hot shoe rides a pretty cool little 72 LED light I picked up on ebay. The SGM-1x is connected to the HV20 through a Beachtek DX-A2S XLR Adapter. Out on the front of the camera is an IrvB focus wheel and a TwoNeil 35mm Adapter with a Nikon Adapter. Finally, the entire rig is mounted on a You Pod shoulder mount, one of the coolest pieces of gear I’ve come across in a very long time (and one I’ll be posting a video review about soon). It also has a Xenarc 7″ monitor (I mistakenly say it’s 5″ on the video — but I’m wrong) mounted via a custom-made attachment.
Overall, the Canon HV20 (and its successor, the Canon HV40) is one of the most amazing little cameras to come out in a very long time. With a little bit of work, and some cool accessories, you can turn it in to an indie and guerrilla filmmaking monster machine. With proper lighting and a little pre-planning it puts out some killer footage. I absolutely adore my HV20 and shoot with it as often as I can.
Check out the video and let me know what you think.
Hey, all. Just a short post for tonight. Here is a quick video I put together from footage I shot for the Hunting Sensei website (http://www.HuntingSensei.com). It was shot with a little Canon ZR960 with the onboard mic. No color correction or processing was done to the footage and the song was pulled from one of the days hunting. Now, duck hunting really isn’t my bag, but I have to say that hanging out with Steve D and Big Steven was a tremendous amount of fun. I’m working on putting together a longer video of the two that I’ll show off in the next couple of months.
Like any red-blooded, American, male indie filmmaker, I have fevered dreams of putting together a bad-ass action flick with a ton of martial arts and…most important…Guns. However, like a lot of you, I have been completely baffled as to how to pull it off safely and on a budget. Anyone who has done any sort of research in regards to obtaining prop guns for a film has come across the standard options. Let’s take a quick look at those options:
Real guns loaded with Blank Rounds. This is the choice for most big budget flicks. What looks better than a real gun? The problem for an indie or guerilla filmmaker is the added expense of hiring an armorer to manage the guns, as well as the high cost of both real guns and the blank ammo. And let’s not forget the biggest problem with real guns firing blank load ammunition: safety! With a semi-experienced crew, short shooting schedule and microscopic budget, safety can be a major issue when it comes to prop guns on an indie film shoot. What does this mean? Well, it means real guns with blank ammo isn’t an option for for most of us.
To tell the truth, I’m not sure I’d use real guns as props even if I had a budget to support it. In this age of digital filmmaking, do we really need the safety hazzards and risk? I’m way too paranoid. Full Story →
First off, I’ve been a bit lax in my posting this week due to a rather intense bout of food poisoning. We were at my wife’s favorite sushi place (Kabuki’s in Pasadena) and I must have been hit with some bad Tonkatsu because we both ate the same sushi and she didn’t end up sick. Food poisoning, if you’ve ever had it, only lasts about 24 hours, but those 24 hours are some of the worst in your life.
Of course, the wife didn’t completely miss out on the pain of my illness: during one of my hyper-vomit sessions I missed the toilet and sprayed some rather colorful stuff on the wall. Note to self: avocado rolls look particularly disgusting when half-digested and smeared on bathroom tile. Running through my head during the entire sessions was “Gee, I wish I could be filming this.”
If I was a wittier or more clever writer, I’d be able to seque vomiting in to talking about my current Canon HV20 camera rig, but I’m not. You, faithful students of the DOJO, will have to put up with one of my usual heavy-handed transitions.
Now that I’ve mentioned it a few times in passing, a few readers have written in and asked about the set up I’m using right now for my Canon HV20 HDV Camera and if it would work for a Canon HV30. The answer to the second question is “Yes.” Physically the Canon HV20 and HV30 cameras are pretty close to identical, with only a couple of interior changes — the main one being the HV30’s ability to shoot 30p footage — so any accessories or add-ons for the HV20 can be used on the HV30 and vice versa.
In regards to the first question I want to say upfront that my HV20 rig isn’t quite complete yet. I’m still waiting for the most important add-on, a 35mm adapter, which is on back order and won’t be to me for another month or so. I’ll be tossing a matte box with rod support on the front of that and then attaching a Xenarc 7″ monitor to my rails (once I figure out how to do it). No, it’s not an HD monitor. I’m still looking around for the best option for an HD monitor to go with the Canon HV20…I’ve been considering trying the DIY Samsung monitor route, but I’m not sure how a 10″ monitor will work on a small camera like the HV20.
On to the rig itself. Obviously, the base of the unit is the Canon HV20 HDV video camera. Right now both the HV20 and its successor, the Canon HV30, can be found for under $800 and, in some places under $700. I’d be a tough choice of which camera to pick if I were buying one today with the HV20’s price being $100 or more lower versus the HV30’s ability to shoot 30p footage in addition to the standard 24p or 60i. The HV30 also looks really cool in black and, as Wesley Snipes said, “Always bet on black.” Full Story →
As a low budget or guerilla filmmaker, one of the things I’ve learned over the past 10 years or so is the thing which separates a good indie film from bad porn is sound quality. If you’ve ever watched a video on Youtube (or used the Internet for its true purpose and downloaded some whacked-out German poopy porn), then you know exactly what I mean. Tinny sounding voice, strange echoing sounds or even voices which are too quiet to hear properly or fade in and out.
While a lot can be done to fix a video’s sound in post, most of the time problems can be fixed upfront with a solid, pro-quality microphone instead of your camcorder’s crappy onboard mic. One of the absolute best choices out on the market for a reasonably priced pro-quality shotgun mic is the Azden SGM-1x shotgun microphone. Full Story →
Indie and Guerilla filmmakers can get away with quite a bit on their low budget features – bad acting, bad scripts, even bad shots — but the one thing you absolutely cannot get away with is bad sound. That’s right, the only thing that keeps your masterpiece of a micro budget feature film from feeling like a bad porno is high quality sound recording. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to get decent sound from a low-cost consumer microphone with a 3.5mm mini jack. You can try it, but, much like me squeezing into a Medium-sized T-shirt, the end results are never pretty.
I can hear your cries now, “But, Mat, my consumer/prosumer camera doesn’t have XLR inputs…what can I do?” Full Story →
I talked about this yesterday, but as a low budget and guerilla filmmaking I am always out on the prowl for the absolute best prices online for film and video equipment. If you’re reading this website then you know exactly what I’m talking about — we make the kind of films where sometimes even FREE is too expensive.
Well, as I also mentioned yesterday, I decided to go ahead and take a chance on some of the famous (or would that be infamous?) low budget filmmaking equipment from India. We’ve all seen them online with a ton of different eBay users names — IDs like DVACCESSORY, DV-SHOP23, 23FILTERS, CINE-CITY and about 10 other various. And we’ve all looked over their listings for matte boxes, follow focus systems, rod supports and the incredibly tempting Steadicam clones. I’m sure you’ve loaded up their items on eBay, or on their website , and wondered just how good some of that equipment could really be, given the low prices. Full Story →
You know, like every other low budget and guerilla filmmaker out there, I am constantly surfing the internet and browsing on eBay looking for great deals on professional filmmaking equipment. And we all understand that the phrase “looking for great deals” really just means we’re cheap.
In our efforts to find those “great deals,” we’ve all come across the film equipment manufacturers from India. You know the guys I’m talking about, you’ve seen them with a bunch of different eBay IDs like DVACCESSORY, DV-SHOP23, 23FILTERS and a bunch of other names. You may also have seen their website on the internet at . Yup, they’re all the same guys.
Now, if you’re anything like me, as tempted as you’ve been by their fantastic pricing, you’ve been more than a little wary of actually placing an order through them. You may have trolled their website and their eBay listings for weeks but never pulled the trigger on a purchase. I’m there with you. How good can their matte boxes, shoulder supports, cranes, car mounts or Steadicam-clones be at those insanely low prices? Heck, do they just keep your money and never send anything?
After months and months of hemming and hawing, I decided to take the plunge and order up some of their equipment thanks to the wonders of the government stimulus check I received (yes, I realize ordering internationally isn’t what the current administration had in mind with the checks, but cut me some slack here). Full Story →
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Posts
. I had a longer text review of this 
. It also has a 
with an 
; on the camera’s hot shoe rides a pretty cool little 72 LED light I picked up on ebay. The SGM-1x is connected to the HV20 through a 
. Out on the front of the camera is an IrvB focus wheel and a TwoNeil 35mm Adapter with a Nikon Adapter. Finally, the entire rig is mounted on a You Pod shoulder mount, one of the coolest pieces of gear I’ve come across in a very long time (and one I’ll be posting a video review about soon). It also has a Xenarc 7″ monitor (I mistakenly say it’s 5″ on the video — but I’m wrong) mounted via a custom-made attachment.
with the onboard mic. No color correction or processing was done to the footage and the song was pulled from one of the days hunting. Now, duck hunting really isn’t my bag, but I have to say that hanging out with Steve D and Big Steven was a tremendous amount of fun. I’m working on putting together a longer video of the two that I’ll show off in the next couple of months.
