Possible Equipment

In this post, I have set up the possible equipment that we might be using whilst filming the music video. We have two basic lights which we may need to use in some shots. However we want the video to appear as quite dark and to be an eery setting, therefore we may only need to use one as the lights could be too bright. Camera wise, we may use a Sony HDV HDR-FX1E, (This is my dad's camera which he uses to film gardening videos for his own business and website). It is a large camera with HD quality of 1080p. The camera is very technical so we will experiment with the focus, different apertures, white balances in order to define the colour cast of our video. before filming begins. In order to do this we will look at YouTube videos on how to get the highest quality and the best way to keep the camera still whilst filming smooth sweeping shots. We have a much smaller camera that we will talk about in later posts if the original camera is not right for us. We do have a tripod which will be useful for the shots that we want to be static. The only problem that we might face is the fact that the camera is quite heavy. We need to find a way that will keep the camera from shaking in the shots which we want to be hand held. Another problem that I found is that the camera is not equipped with a memory card slot. This is because it is an older camera and only carries a tape. We will have to import the videos straight onto Final Cut Pro via a FireWire cable. This could be very time consuming, but to get the high quality from the camera this is the risk we will have to take. In order to save time we will upload certain footage separately, so we can edit some scenes whilst the other sections of the video are being imported. Whilst filming the music video we might also have to consider recording the scene we want and then stop, and then if we need to do a scene again we can start the camera again. By having one continuous shot with lots of scenes it will take a long time to edit. We can do short individual scenes and if they are not perfect or have gone wrong we can simply and easily discard them without having to upload the footage and delete it that way. In the next few posts we will show some test footage using this camera and analyse fully our experience with it and whether or not it is right for our music video. We will do some test footage outside and inside to experiment with the lighting, and hopefully using our models/artists on the location.

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                 

                                  

                                  

                                  

                                    

Video of the Sony HDV HDR-FX1E: 

Here is a video showing  the exterior of the camera, and how to use the basic features.