Technical questions...desperate for answers and on a rush...

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diogoueno

Member
I'm gonna go this September for my first project ever!! It's a feature documentary that's gonna be shot in South America...

I still have so many technical questions and quite a few equipments to buy...Money, of course, is running short...I have bought a DVX100A and a MacBook Pro with FCP Studio already...

My begginner question is...Is there THAT MUCH of a difference in using a good shotgun mic for a formal one-on-one interview, instead of using an average (under $800) wireless mic????? I mean, is it clearly heard the difference of quality between one another? If yes, how poorly will the shotgun mic sound??

Another thing...I haven't bought any lenses or filters...I'm expected to be doing a lot of shooting and a lot of that in extremely poor conditions (very hot/dry=lots of dust)...is there any protection filter I need?
I'm definitely expecting theatrical release (I mean, that's what i've been dreaming about lol...) how much will I miss a telephoto or wide-angle lens?
How good will my camera by itself produce reasonably good images if screened on a widescreen theater?

Is there any fairly good and inexpensive tripod I could find?

Any other technical tip, whatsoever? (Lol, I know I sound ridiculous, but I just can't help the anxiety that's making me lose nites of sleep...)

And thank you very much for your comments...
 
Wow, first of all, great to hear about your project!

I would say to answer your question about filters for your lens, you will definatley want to get a UV filter. It's better to scratch a $25 filter than a $3,500 cameral lens.

To answer your question about the mic, I will say that my area of expertiese is definatley NOT audio. I will say that it's good to have a boom mic around in case someone jumps into the interview and you need another mic, or a mic that can pick up both people.

If you are shooting under those conditions make sure you get a really rugged lav/wireless system if you go that direction.

If you are going to release in theaters, it wouldn't hurt to get the wide angle lens. The DVX doesn't have a native 16:9 chip, so you'll be stretching the image to get the 16:9 aspect ratio so you'll be loosing quality.

Tripod: Here's a some good articles on tripods:
http://dv.com/news/news_item.jhtml?LookupId=/xml/feature/2002/feeley_tripods0402
http://www.dingbatmag.com/vidcity.htm

Make sure you get some good bags/cases for your gear! I personally use the portabrace bags. They may not be what you are looking for, but they sure are durable!

Make sure you shoot 24p Advanced if you are going to do a film out of the project.

Get some canned air so you can blow out your equipment if you are shooting in those conditions.

See if you can find some housing for the cameras, or maybe make some housing of your own.

Another non-technical issue is make sure you timecode your footage either while you are shooting or at end of the day! HUGE time saver when shooting so much footage.

My $.02 1/2.
 
for the maximum resolution when shooting 16:9, get one of those fancy anamorphic adapters. you'll need it if you're planning for theatrical release.
good luck!
 
You don't "need" it for theatrical release. When Nancy Schreiber won her Best Cinematography award at Sundance for "November," she used a stock DVX100 (no A) and shot full-frame -- no adaptors. Just the camera.
 
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