Tight Guidelines. What are my chances?

C

CactusMcDougal

New member
Hello, people. I hope this is the right forum for my question. For starters, I'm 17 and finishing up high school at my local community college. I've really had a film-making jones for quite a while now, but no access to a camera. Finally, I got my hands on a Sony Handycam (TRV-140). It's all I have, and all I can hope to afford. Herein lies the problem: I want to break into internet media doing a game review podcast show, but all I can afford is what I have. (My parents are cheapskates and I'm in no position to get a job.) What are my chances of pulling off a (reasonably) quality show with a Sony Handycam and a non-existant budget? How can I better those chances and still retain creative control? Am I just a know-nothing with impossibly high standards and goals?
 
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If you don't have the tools to give your show a "quality" form, just do the best you can with what you have and focus on the content of the show. The content is limited only by your imagination and desire. Just be aware that impossibly high standards and goals can get in the way of accomplishing anything at all. They have a strange way of becoming an excuse for doing nothing.
 
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For podcast you need audio software. There is a free app Audacity that might get you started. What else would your show feature?
 
If you're doing video, I've seen people pull off amazing stuff with very simple editing tools like iMovie that's included free with Macs or Movie Maker that's included free with Windows. Look at a film like Tarnation or a video podcast like Chasing Windmills and you realize you don't need fancy tools to communicate expressively in aesthetically interesting ways. Sometimes simple tools force you to focus more on the message and less on the medium.
 
Just go for it man. Don't worry about the quality (other than how you can improve each time you do a show). Setup a colored sheet for a backdrop (or design a simple set in your garage, or a friends garage!) and shoot the thing!

Get friends involved. Do you have a friend that is really good at art? Ask if they can help design a set, or a logo in photoshop. Do you have a friend who loves lighting, or creating content?

Don't worry about what you don't have, focus on what you do have and go for it. The only thing you should worry about is how the next episode can be improved.
 
Think of South Park or Robot Chicken. Not complicated or expensive forms of entertainment, but both great and popular because of the content.

If you've got a great show and great ideas, it'll show.
 
With compression being what it is having an HD wouldn't help you anyway.
Your best bet is to rely on good content, writing and quality segments will help you far more than flashy effects.

Take your show on the road, interview kids playing DDR, some of the more fun clerks at a game store
(I work at an EB there are stories aplenty...), a guide on trashtalking or something, plenty of material.

Your biggest worry would be sound, Audacity is definetly one of the easier to use and free, also a small download.

As for editing we did the 48hour film challange last year and avid clunked out on me, windows movie maker 2 also free worked well enough sound would probably be best to do in audacity and import. Free and it works..


As for recording sound, that is not really my area, but maybe one of your friends is a musician, they might have a mic and recorder setup.. Maybe even write some midi music..

You can always go with cheesy as intent if you want as the above mentioned shows sometimes do.

Guidelines are sometimes better than unlimited freedom, congrats on being motivated enough to try it,
 
your first few are going to suck no matter how lofty your ambitions are anyways, its not you, everyones first few suck. With that accepted and put away theres no reason to worry if the camera is good enough. Shoot some tests, if it looks good ENOUGH shoot it. I learned on VHS...even my phone shoots better images. Once you have the process down pat and have failed fracefully a few times and finally gotten the hang of it. then buy an HD camera and a Light kit and go crazy.
 
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