If you are a freelancer like me, there are quite a few things that you need to have in your arsenal at home base to make your productions a bit easier. You might not have all these, but chances are you will want them. I’m gonna take you from Gaffer’s Tape to Steadicams in this week’s roundup.
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Video Camera
If you are a video professional, you need to have a video camera… that is a plain-as-day fact. What KIND of camera you have is whole ‘nother aspect. You might want to go traditional and use an actual video camera like a Sony EX3 or a Canon Vixia, or you could, like me, go the HDSLR route. Personally, one of the best cameras I have ever used (for the cheapest money) is the Canon Rebel T2i (550D). You can get it for around $800 for the body only… if you want more info on HDSLRs check out some of our previous articles on the subject. Either way, if you are looking for a camera, I highly suggest that you check out B&H Photo Video. They have the best selection, and pretty good prices, and chances are you can find exactly what you want.
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Green Screen
There are many ways to go about making your own green screen, either by creating a green wall cyclorama in a spare room or your garage, hitting up the fabric store, or whatever other idea you might come up with. There are a ton of DIY ideas in Jeremy Hanke and Michele Yamazaki’s book, Green Screen Made Easy. If you prefer to spend the bucks, a place I know of called TubeTape.com has a good selection of quality backdrops, complete with stands, clamps, paint, tape, and training DVDs. They even have chroma suits! There are more expesive options like reflective screens with colored LED ringlights, or Chroma Pops, but those tend to get a little more expensive than the traditional green screen method
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Microphones
Now I won’t pretend like I am an audio professional, but I have three types of microphones that I use on a regular basis: wireless lavalier mics, boom mic, and my Zoom H4N (for use with my HDSLR camera). First, the lav… now you can get wired or wireless (the latter is more expensive), but wireless is obviously more convenient. This lets you get a clean audio track with your mic very close to your subjects voice, relatively unobtrusive, and you can use these all alone. Now, the boom mic (or shotgun mic) is kind of either/or; you can clamp your mic to a C-Stand, or have a boom operator run around with you. This option has more of a hassle, but might be a necessity when you are shooting things such as short films or commercials where you absolutely can’t have lavs in the shot. Lastly, the Zoom H4N (or any other handheld portable recorder with inputs) is perfect as a hub to plug mics in and record audio separately from your camera, or perhaps you need to knock out a rough voiceover. It is very handy especially for those HDSLR filmmakers out there.
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Soundproofing
If you do a lot of voiceover recording, or have a green screen set where you are going to be capturing a lot of audio, not being able to hear that dog barking across the street will be a big deal. You can either hope for the best, or shell out the money to soundproof your studio. Beware though, this stuff can get very expensive. Usually you use sound dampening foam, which is cut into textures to capture audio wavelengths, but these can get expensive very fast. Just give a Google search, and you will be able to find something to your liking.
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Lighting
You can either go the cheap, alright looking route with this, or go expensive and have it look amazing. At your local photography shop, you will probably find some softbox kits, and some nicely priced lamps for your beginning budget. That is the cheap way. If you are looking for professional lighting, I would invest in a nice lighting kit along the lines of Arri, with some good fresnels, barndoors, stands, filter holders and whatnot. They run pretty expensive, but you might be able to find something on your local craigslist, or buy off of Ebay. This all depends on how much studio lighting you are going to doing, how serious you are, and the projects you will be taking on.
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Lighting Accessories
Now, if you are going to shell out the money for lighting, you will probably new a few basic extras with your kit. First, reflectors… I like the Digital Juice 5-in-1. You get silver, gold, black, white, and a diffuser. Secondly, you got to get yourself some gels. Amazon and B&H all have different packs, and if you are just trying to get some lighting effects, a basic pack works fine. Also, make sure you pick up a pack of C-47′s aka some clothespins. They will come in handy. Also, some gaffer’s tape wouldn’t hurt.
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Headphones
A good pair of headphones are a must when you are out in the field shooting. If you are capturing audio, then you have to make sure things are clean, your actors aren’t jumbling words, and there isn’t any buzzing from pesky cellphones going into your mics. There are numerous unforeseeable problems that can happen with audio, so headphones are a huge deal. Style is always a factor as well, so for my pick of headphones, I like my Skull Candy SK Pros… they are comfortable, relatively noise canceling… and they look sick! If you want something a little more professional looking and not so flashy, B&H has a nice collection of bulky and earbud style headphones for you to take your pick from.
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Dolly
These are always the really fun pieces of equipment that I get all giddy about. There are two ways to go about this, either buy one, or DIY it. Dolly’s are relatively easy to create, get some skate wheels, some wood, PVC pipe and create a track and vehicle to mount your camera on. There are tons of places to learn how to create dollys on Youtube and after watching a few of them, you will get a pretty good idea of how to do it. Now, if you have the bucks to buy one, you could buy the track and dollys to mount your tripod on, or you could reference our article a while back on creating your own dolly using some bought parts.
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Jib Crane
This is another DIY or buy scenario, although this is a little harder to create on the DIY side of things. Again, check out some Youtube videos of homemade jibs, which still end up costing a couple hundred dollars anyways. If you want to just fork up the cash, check out places like KesslerCrane, or other professional manufacturers, they have some great products so that you can control your panheads on the end of your jib arm for total control (a thing that is really hard to do with large DIY solutions).
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Steadicams and Stabilization
If you don’t want to shoot with a tripod then, well you better either have an unhumanly steady hand or have some kind of stabilization you are working with. Any camera that is small or basically handheld has the potential to be uncontrollably shaky. That is why there are people like Zacuto, Ikan, Jag35 and tons more that offer some very reasonable prices to mount your cameras to create some nice, stable ENG systems so you don’t have to awkwardly fumble with your cameras. Of course there are tons of DIY approaches to this as well, like the infamous $14 Steadicam (I have one) that you can find riddled across the net. You could always just pony up and buy one of the original big dog steadicams.
I understand that I probably didn’t cover everything in here, and that’s fine, everyone is different with their setups, toolboxes, arsenals, or whatever else you like to call it. If you have some pieces that you think ought to be heard, leave a comment below, and share what you have in your bag when you are on shoots. We love sharing our kits, why we use the tools we use, and different approaches to similar tasks.
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Please get rid of the tags, they break the layout and are confusing when reading the piece..
The article is pretty good though! I would also recommend a good preview monitor and some light metering equipment.
Agreed, ruins the feel of a very good post.
A couple decent c-stands are worth their weight in gold. With some bounce cards and a sack full of clamps and clips from home depot with be used constantly.
Hey Toph,
I’ve spent the past six months researching this kind of stuff and then go and put it in a handy post with everything inlcuded. I really nice all rounder with plenty of information for people starting out.
But you missed out a very essential product, the tripod! I would recommend people getting a fluid head tripod, I’ve just bought myself a Manfrotto 501HDV head on 525 legs and that’s a pretty solid tripod for small cameras like the T2i. Also if you have a DSLR a great little extra is a slider (like a dolly but goes on top of your tripod). There’s a great Do It Yourself thread on aonther site which details how to make one. You can also turn these sliders into cheap shoulder mounts. Not ideal for long periods of time as there is no counterweight but the result is pretty good.
As for lighting, LEDs are starting to finally produce enough light for professional shoots with the advantage of attaching batteries for total portability. It’s still very new but the lights are improving all the time.
Have you managed to shoot anything yet? I love the slomo stuff you can produce with the T2i and it’s great that I can fit all my kit into the boot of my car.
Looking forward to more filming tips, I bet there’s now loads of budding filmmakers out there thanks to the T2i.
Adz
All great submissions… I might just have to make a follow up post to this!
Really cool stuff Topher. You done the right thing . . . . . keep going . .
Thanks for the love, Topher!
PLEASE do not buy Skull Candy headphones. I really don’t know why they got recommended. SC’s have a very non-linear sound to them, eg. bass heavy, and are not a monitoring headphone. In other words, you may balance your audio to sound good on the SC’s but when you play it back anywhere else, it will sound like garbage. Also the build quality is awful and they will fall apart within a few months, and you are really paying for a trendy name. Since when is “Style … always a factor” when you’re standing behind the camera? I won’t recommend another company to avoid sounding like i’m just making a plug for someone else, but there are far better options out there. Anyways, that is the end of my rant.
The rest of this article was great, and I’m definitely going to use some tips from it. Thank you for writing this!
hmm.. I didn’t know that about Skull Candy. I mean, I like some style, when it comes to my gear, and it was kinda a crack at those people who buy things based on looks (like me sometimes… hahaha!)
I do think that if you are wanting to purchase a good pair of stuido monitors, the professional brands are always best, but if you just wanna make sure your levels are nice and not peaking, and clean audio… you can go with something a bit cheaper and, in this case cooler… if you want.
Another vote for loosing the annoying purple buttons – what a mess.
Some of you are ridiculous…quit crying about the “purple buttons”. They may not look the best, but he just saved you hours of time searching this stuff by providing the links
Yup, as a lot of people are right now ( with the t2i out) i’ve been researching this stuff myself recently.
great article great round up. This should be pinned on google or something.
Cheers,
Aleksey!
Yeah Aaron.
Do not buy Skull Candy headphones. I have some for my Cell phone that plays music but thats it.
The reason is that commercial Headphones for “regular” people color the audio. Meaning they emphasize the lows and highs to make ppl think the music sounds better.
What you want are clean headphones that are neutral and don’t colorize audio. sennheiser has some very good headphones as well as audio technica and Boss.
However my favorites are a pair of Sony MDRs which ever version you get are pretty good and they last u a lifetime. My very personal choice is the Sony MDR-V6
Also Unless you know what u are doing I recommend DIY lights. Working with ARRI lights or Mole’s or what ever; means you should know how to safely connect lights and rig them up. You should be able to calculate watts and amps in a house or location. Plus they are an extreme fire hazard. If anything for a beginner or simple freelance DIY lights are more than enough, hell I still use mines.
Lastly you should put good studio audio monitors and video monitors. Sound proofing is not that essential but if you have some extra money its pretty useful. Usually I just record ADR and vocals in the closet. If u know what ur doing the results are astounding.
Very useful.
eiii thnxx this post is very helpful….thnxx again
Great article Topher, Thanks!
Really Cool.
I really appreciate your job.
Thanks from Brazil’
Where did you / where can I, pick up the Zoom H4n and how much should I look to spend on it?
You can find one on Amazon for about $350
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0026HZ66I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=musical-instruments&qid=1275424281&sr=8-2
I just picked this kit up. The Headphones that were included are not too bad, good starter kit.
I got mine from a place in Oregon from SuperDigital… no sales tax!
I’m glad you posted that about the Canon T2i! I’ve got a feature film in production this summer that is utilizing the T2i. After seeing the results (and also the season finale of House this year which was shot on the Canon 5D), I decided that it was silly not to take the chance to save money.
Also, I’d like to add that even when you don’t have a jib available, I’ve found that simply having a ladder can make a huge difference. Obviously you sacrifice the motion that the jib offers, but sometimes just having a different perspective can add quite a difference, and while people don’t always have the budget for a jib, they’ll at least know someone with a ladder that they can borrow (if not own one for themselves because they are cheap enough!). My personal favorite is the Little Giant ladder because of all the functions that it has- especially considering it can be turned into a mount for a dolly if you use the plank with it.
Great article!
–
Luke T. Harwath
Please check out my new feature film ‘The Darklings’ at http://www.darklingsmovie.com
Thank you!
P.S. I thought the links you gave were helpful and I clicked on a few because I was legitimately interested.
Thanks again!
–
Luke T. Harwath
Please check out my new feature film ‘The Darklings’ at http://www.darklingsmovie.com
Thank you!
Thanks Topher! Great post with a lot of good info.
An addition to the steadicam/stabilizers is the SteaDSLR. I haven’t seen one yet, but it looks very promising and is reasonably priced.
http://www.steaddslr.com/
Another good audio adapter is the Beachtek DXA-5Da. Easily mounts to the bottom of a DSLR and has XLR inputs. It also kills the auto gain compensation that is notorious on the Canon DSLRs.
http://www.beachtek.com/dxa5da.html
Wierd! How does it disable the AGC if it is an external device and doesn’t have power running through? hmm … very cool thogh!
I believe what is does, is it send a constant static noise through one channel and it records through the other one. You see if you have a constant tone coming in the AGC doesn’t fluctuate at all, thereby killing the AGC. While at the same time you are recording through the other channel. So you get mono audio, but in reality thats all you ever really need for voices, the rest is added in post.
Topher,
I believe the Beachtek DXA-5Da actually outputs a certain frequency to trick the AGC into thinking it always has constant audio, supposedly in the 20 kHz range.
We did a shoot with 3 of them a few weeks ago and couldn’t hear any underlying tone through studio speakers. The audio sounded pretty good, too, considering it’s running through a $350 unit into a mini jack.
P3Pictures has a great (6 part) review of some of the more popular DSLR audio options. Very helpful.
http://www.vimeo.com/5370880
-Dan
Great Article as always. Thank, Topher.
Very good article. I just wanted to throw out there that, in addition to preventing noise from outside entering into your soundproofed room, the foam on the walls also function to deaden the space. Essentially, you are trying to remove echos throughout the room so you as the recording engineer have more control over the sound. If you DIY with blankets or curtains, it’s not as effective, but in exchange it allows you to customize how dead or live you want your recording. Not an error at all, but I thought it was worth mentioning for anyone new to sound recording.
This is a great post Topher! We need more of these! And the roundups too!
anyone half serious about audio should ditch the idea of using Skull Candy anythings – *pause for emphasis* – in their audio chain.
Sennheiser HD-25s are a good starting place with their neutral sound and capability to push high levels with low distortion values – fundamental qualities of precise audio mixing.
This was some good ‘general’ information but I don’t think the title of this article represents your list correctly. If you’re going to start off the list with a DSLR camera, then a lens’ type(s) should be listed as well.
The items you listed are items that one should have for a professional studio. The price marks are all over the place with items like Arri’s lighting, and then homemade pvc dollys, H4N mic and $14 steadicam.
Monitors, follow focus adapters (dslr), studio and run-gun tripods, and proper cases for gear and bags were all left off the list. :\
This was a good start, but I think this article should be followed up with a more thought out list.
Thanks for your comment man! Yeah, I kind of like to leave some room for commenting as well as doing sequels to articles too.
Why is no one recommending the $1000 Panasonic Lumix GH1 as a HDSLR? Do a few google searches yourself and you’ll see why so many people believe it has a better color range/tone than even the $3500 Canon 5D Mark II. Also it has a micro-4/3rds sensor, meaning that you can mount basically any type of lense onto it with an adapter (from full-frame nikon, 4/3 olympus, anamorphic lenses, etc), and you can also film using the mirrorless viewfinder. Also with the inclusion of Tester 13′s hackware, you can obtaining higher recording bit-rates, and thus less compression, when shooting 1080P, 24FPS or 720P, 60FPS.
Hello,
Nice description of the products used for home studio. You need to start your quest of building a home studio off at the heart of the project that would be computer. The better your computer, the better your studio will run. The stronger your heart is, the faster and longer you can run. The most important thing when looking to purchase a computer for a studio would be your processor speed, and your RAM. The higher these numbers, the better. THE LARGER THIS NUMBER – THE BETTER YOUR STUDIO WILL RUN. Processor speed, and RAM. Don’t settle for less, get the highest you can possibly afford.
I have to agree about a good Camera. I use a Sony A100 10mb DSLR which is a low end when it comes to DSLR cameras. But however I do get some great picture quality with it.