Camera/lighting equipment needed for short films/ sketch show

A_Danger

Hi, not sure if this I'm posting this in the right section so apologies if I'm wrong, I'm looking to buy a camera & lighting equipment to make some sketch shows and short films with/ If anyone could recommend any particular quality equipment I would appreciate it.

Rew

Whats your budget?

A_Danger

anywhere between 1500 and 3000 at the minute, well the longer I leave it the more money I will have to invest in it but I'd rather buy something of decent enough quality for starting off rather than going all out buying top notch stuff straight away

Rew

Probably more suited to Audio Visual Editing Forum

For that kind of money:
Canon DSLR that shoots 1080p- Any of them will do so you can suit your budget, len's are where you will want to spend the real money
A few memory cards
Tripod - Get a Decent one and video head
Zoom Recorder - The H4N
DSLR Mic - Rhode Mic is best
Boom Mic - Dont know a lot about these
LED light panels - Lots of Cheaper ones on EBay
Possibly a camera stabiliser if your doing moving shots - some cheap options on Ebay like Flycam or mid range stuff like a Glidecam

You will need software and a Computer to edit the footage. Some big external disks for storing footage.

There are a lot of different ways to do this and TBH and thats just my amateur 2c if you dont have experience you should start reading up on video/film production, looking at tutorials reading reviews of cameras and gear before you pay out anything. You could start using nothing but an iPhone and go from there.

Youtube has tones and tones of howto videos made buy guys who are posting up sketch and vfx videos.
Have a look at these for a start:
Film Riot
frediew2
Sam and Niko
devangraham
Surfaced Studio

A_Danger

cheers! very helpful! working on scripts at the minute so it could be months yet before anything is actually filmed but obviously need to know all this stuff too

clarescards

If you're writing scripts at the moment, why not try and contact some of the students in IADT doing film and television production, instead of trying to do it all yourself. Most enjoy doing films just for the experience, try looking at U tube for Oscar FortyFive or their facebook page of the same name.

condra

If you want Full Frame, a used Canon 5d2 will set you back around 1000 on adverts.ie. Otherwise, a 550d would be perfectly awesome (the 600d and 650d are more expensive and use basicly the same 18mpx sensor)

For lenses, you don't need autofocus, so I would strongly urge you to get Samyang lenses, which offer insane image quality, for very little outlay.

Consider sticking Magic Lantern firmware on your Canon.

A Hague camera stablizer would be awesome too. Don't bother trying to make your own, it will weather you like a blizzard of self hatred.

Learn about things like white balance, shot composition, crossing the line, etc..

Then get Adobe After effects with Magic Bullet plugins, and make sure your scripts don't suck....