My quest for the perfect Indie Film Production Kit (Pt. 1 – The Camera)

July 18, 2010

Having left college, leaving behind all their lovely lovely toys… I mean, equipment, I’m on a quest to build my own Indie Film Production Kit that rivals what I was using before in order to make my own independent films in the future. Although I’m going to University in September, and will no doubt be able to borrow equipment there, there’s something liberating about having your own gear; something I discovered when filming my short film ‘Robot’. Instead of having to worry that you’re hogging equipment or -even worse- not going to be able to get access to the equipment you need when you need it, you know full well that you can do whatever filming you want whenever you need to do it. Towards the middle of making ‘Robot’, I managed to bargain my way into purchasing a Sony HVR-A1E, which is effectively a miniature version of the Sony HVR-Z1E – a common camera in the industry, used by many lower budget HD productions out there, and many Standard Def. productions as well. Sony Z1s are popular among independent film makers, documentary makers, wedding videographers, and even massive studios like the BBC due to their low price, decent quality and their portable size (this is compared to massive HD studio cameras, rather than consumer camcorders, naturally).Yes, yes, enough about the Z1. What about the A1? Well the A1E is a much smaller camera. Think of the old sort of Handycam size – not the new ones that are the size of a matchbox and fit snuggly your palm, but the ones that were all the rage before the consumer video market kicked into HD mode. What makes it so special, then? Well, from what I gather, t it was designed to mimic the image quality of the Z1E, while pushing the form factor much smaller than it’s bigger brother – and that it does. This makes it ideal for productions like car review programmes, or candid camera shows that need to get a good quality image from a space that wouldn’t be able to house a bigger camera such as the Z1. The small size also makes it useful for filming in areas of high risk, such as the News, that film in places where media presence may not really be appreciated. But I’m not going to be doing that, I shouldn’t think.
No, the reason I’ve bought this camera is because it’s cheaper much than a Z1 while retaining most of it’s attributes. And now that I’ve been able to use both cameras equally, I can firmly state that there was really very little difference in quality, despite the A1E only having a single chip CMOS sensor, and the Z1E being a 3-chip CCD monster in comparison. When spliced together, it can easily become difficult to remember which camera shot which parts of a scene, especially when viewing footage in a lower resolution (this is a good thing for people who will ultimately down-rez their footage for DVD distribution or non-HD broadcasting). Even at full resolution, though, footage from an A1E doesn’t look out of place or even noticeable in a video shot with Z1s. This is  really impressive, considering the massive difference in size and sensor.
Unlike most of the affordable camcorders that are aimed at the consumer market, however, the A1E includes the biggest dealmaker for me. A lot of the other HD camcorders I looked at included a host of auto-features such as autofocus, autoexposure, auto-white balance, auto-tune, autotrader, autobahn, automatic doors, auto… You get my drift. This is great for, well, consumers, but, as such, they were all missing one thing that I had grown to love so much after using Z1s and Z5s at college; the Manual Focus Ring! Now, a lot of people who don’t know what they’re doing despise the focus ring. They avoid it like the plague and stick to having their focus tweaked by the camera, which, coincidentally, probably thinks the pot plant in the background looks much more important than the person you’re interviewing and decides to focus on that instead. But I digress a little. The point is, I love being able to manually focus on things, allowing the transition from a shallow to long focus in a pseudo-artistic manner. It’s fantastic; it allows for much more control over what the camera is doing and lets your films look so much more professional. So overall it was a win win situation.
And thus it was set; I bought myself an A1. In fact, a couple of my newest short films were filmed on it and it’s come out looking pretty sweet, especially in well lit areas. I am very impressed and cannot wait to get more use out of it, and having finally found a copy of the manual online I can finally work out how to get the best out of this little beast. With that, my first hurdle (and probably the most expensive, at £1100) was jumped in my quest for the perfect Indie Film Production Kit. Next up; the challenge of tacking sound, tripods and dollies, and lighting. Here we go…!

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