I’m a writer and I think I can be a great director, but I am just not familiar with the equipment I need. Can someone tell me how much it cost to get the essential starting equipment to make my film at least look semi professional.
Canon XL-H1 will offer you HD (although HDV, reduced-quality HD [1440x1080 versus 1920x1080], which may not be preferred). This is in the thousands of dollars and is considered "prosumer." This would be what you’re after if you’re on a professional shoot with a high "consumer" budget.
The Canon HV30 or HG10 are high-def camcorders with 24-frame-per-second movie modes (they’re consumer-level), the HV30 being slightly lower quality but easier to edit because it, too, is HDV. They’re good as "crash cams" or if you don’t need something too professional. They’re anywhere from $650 to $1000, depending on where you’re getting them. JVC and Sony have a number of excellent HD options, but they are not 24-frame-per-second like the HV30/HG10 and thus may look like video and not film.
It depends on your budget and what you plan to do.
Look up the difference between HDV and AVCHD–there’s a slight quality difference, but ultimately it shouldn’t matter TOO much–HDV records on MiniDV tapes and is easier to edit, but if you want full quality go AVCHD.
Realize, however, that good films, regardless of the equipment used, will be good films. Some Sundance movies were shot on vanilla 60i video with consumer camcorders!
Good luck!
- Steve.
