[another god]

Instead of go on a trip for spring break I decided to learn something new. What with a newfangled computer and a huge, huge external hard drive I had no other desires to learn anything but something that would waste a ridiculous amount of hard drive space. Enter: the digital camcorder. Learning to document stuff IN REAL TIME is kind of like a videogame (not really) and it's kind of something I know absolutely nothing about. It was perfect.

I bought a Sanyo Xacti C5 off eBay for ~$240. It's an SD based Digital Media Camera. What that means, according to Sanyo, is that it records pictures, movies, audio, and I think maybe it also plays MP3s. Mostly I care about it for the lack of film and the card capabilities.

Anyways! I don't know what to do from here. I know there's a lot of stuff I can learn about how to film a movie - from different kinds of shots to lighting and sound - and I also know there's a lot of different ways to deal with digital film on my computer. I was thinking that since I am a total amateur I would use Windows Movie Maker, but I was also thinking that WMM is probably a lot like MSPaint... which could be either really good or really bad.

Anyways, IC, please lay on me your film making knowledge.
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interdimensional

[Zebadayus]

Windows Movie Maker isn't bad at all, man. It's perfectly fine for somebody just getting started with this stuff. You can do plenty with it.

I need to get myself a digital video camera sometime soon. I just don't know what to get.

[CubaLibre]

star wars fanfilm

go
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Let's Play, starring me.

[evnvnv]

watch citizen kane, then make a movie like that

[luvcraft]

[Kappuru]

get a tripod, seriously, one with a fluid head.
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[Zebadayus]

Also, see if you could get a cheap steady-cam somewhere. Those things do wonders.

[PianoMap]

Okay, Wondows Movie Maker can be OKAY for very minor stuff, but it's not nearly as good as other basic authoring programs. iMovie, for instance.

In addition to the other suggestions, a good microphone [something that at least partially screens wind] and audio monitoring headphones are musts.

As for lighting, do lots of experimentation with how you like colours and brightness to work out in your shot beforehand, and never, ever shoot with the sun behind your subject [unless you're doing this very intentionally].
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o-/< --- o-\< --- o-|-| --- o^-<

[Mr Mustache]

White balance.
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The people are like wool to me

[luvcraft]

[Hot Stott Bot]

Aye, aye, for a little hand-held camera just start shooting. Get a steady cam and you can get a little fancier.

Then capture it in whatever way you need to capture it without downgrading the signal, then I suggest using VirtualDub to pull out the audio and do all your linear filtering and cutting (color correction, etc.) to the video, then something like Audacity to edit your audio, then grab whatever non-linear editor can find (Windows Movie Maker is available, but kind of crappy) to put everything back togethe with your fades or what-have-you.

My main advice is to never overwrite anything.

Save at every step.

Archive each save and don't overwrite things.

Don't compress your masters.

Et cetera, et cetera.

When you're really really really done at a point then just burn it all to DVD and move along... just don't delete anything!

And always do some kind of filtering.

Nothing looks perfect straight from the camera, always play with your post-processing... a lot of people think, "I don't want fancy effects I want to be hardcore indie!", well, trust me, you should still be doing some postprocessing on every shot.

[Hot Stott Bot]

Oh, and take good notes!

Record exactly what you did to the video at each step. Sometimes you do lots of stuff and you're not sure how you did it later and maybe you need to do the same processing on a different part of the scene you didn't think you would need before!

Oops!

Good thing you wrote down precisely what you did there, right?

Also, watch out for shadows when filming! Even the best film makers get tripped up and accidently get a shadow of themself in the shot...

[Corinth]

Snorricam!

[Mr Mustache]

Label your tapes.

Honestly, a steady cam is not really necessary if you have either strong arms or a small camera. It is important to practice camera movements.

I assume the camera is not a three chip. This is fine, but be sure to carefully set your iris, focus, and white balance. Use the manual controls whenever possible. If you are careful, you should be able to get a pretty good image, despite limited means.

If you are unsatisfied with the result, Hot Stott is right to a certain extent about image tinkering in post. I wouldn't get too carried away with effects, but tasteful color-correction can really tie a piece together, while improving the look of the individual elements.

A tripod can also be a good idea.
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The people are like wool to me

[Laurel Soup]

[luvcraft]

[Laurel Soup]

That's what I was about to do until I looked into it and learned that his rig was a lot simpler for those shots.
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[Mr. Apol]

the best advice i could give you would be to watch a lot of films, and try to do what they're doing.

kubrick films are great for this. the man is a god of a director.

get a tripod.

keep in mind you've have assloads and assloads of footage, and you'll edit that into something snappy.

just have fun man. play around. you'll figure it out if you really want to.
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[108]

my eyes are out of focus -- headache -- and this thread title looked for a second like "need flaming lips" and i was going to say that the early stuff isn't as bad as some people say it is

so yeah, focus is very important
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[Zebadayus]

[Ebrey]

Write a script, then throw it away as you and your actors come up with more fun stuff to film!

[evnvnv]

[SplashBeats]

[Churippu]

[luvcraft]

What you REALLY need to do, is get yourself a canvas folding chair, a beret, some knee-high leather boots, a riding crop, and a megaphone. Step two: ??? Step three: profit!!
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[another god]

Tonight's videos were pretty much a failure. I couldn't get the camera to operate so hot in low light like in the bars, and - more importantly - i can't get my VLC media player to play the mp4 files correctly. I'm only getting the top left corner of the vids, and it's really unfortunate. My camera displays the full vid on its LCD or the TV, but it won't display on my computer... very uncool.
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interdimensional

[Toups]

[Toups]

[negativedge]

[Gironika]

someone mentioned Stanley Kubrick beforehand and I HAVE to mention this right now.


I really would love to see an re-enacted scene of 2001, namely the black monolith-scene with all that humans/apes not knowing what that black thing is etc.

Now, exchange the monolith with a PS3 and you're set. Even the micro that you can see at one point in that scene should be in there, could be exchanged for a Wiimote but not necessarily.

I wonder why Sony didn't think of this pretty obvious ad that would be a TRUE classic. Hell, the humans/apes could use PSPs to fight each other.



In other news, you might want to try some "different" angles than you would normally, like sitting on a skateboard and trying to film how things look in the eyes of children. It gives you an idea about what can be done just by adjusting the position of the cam when filming.
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[!=]

[another god]

Are there any open source video authoring programs worth looking into?
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interdimensional

[Corinth]

http://lives.sourceforge.net/ (LiVES)
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 (Cinelerra)

Those are two Linux/Unix NLEs. I'm not sure if there's any good free stuff for Windows, but I think Blender may have some basic capabilities, though it's primarily a 3D modelling program. You may have to use a Linux live CD or something if you don't feel up to pirating Premier and feel stifled by Windows Movie Maker.

[!=]

On windows one uses virtualdub for simple cutting/processing and avisynth for doing effects or more complicated processing; http://www.virtualdub.org/ and http://avisynth.org/

[!=]

[skonrad]

When you take it into post, save iteratively.

LIKE: append v001 at the end of the first save then v002, etc.