Equipment for Making a Documentary Film

Series Summary

The development of film came alongside the rise of America as a world empire. The technology developed in the late 19th to early 20th century and quickly became a staple of modern culture and mass consumption. Many trace the beginning of film to a moment also considered the advent of the comic strip as we know it: Eadweard Muybridge's famous pictures of a horse's stride, which proved that in fact there is a moment when all four hooves are off the ground. This series of photos looked like a comic yet sparked a crazy idea in the minds of other artists: What if we took pictures like that and flashed them in sequence like in children’s flipbooks? The birth of celluloid film ten years later came in Louis Le Prince's "Roundhay Garden Scene."

In this free video series, professional filmmaker Kevin Lindenmuth gives you expert advice on how to produce your own documentary. He leads you through everything! And his video quality is excellent! This guy knows his stuff and is a born teacher. He explains what you need to start a documentary and how to budget, cast, shoot, edit, and distribute your finished product. Kevin has been there! He knows. He also shares ideas on scripted versus unscripted projects, how to choose subject matter, how to use music in the film, and much more. Watch these, and you’ll be ready for the Academy in no time!

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Kevin Lindenmuth and on behalf of Expert Village I'll be talking about documentary filmmaking. There are three important things you have to have before you even start making your documentary. First you have to have a camera. Make sure it's a digital camera, make sure it's one of the newer models, doesn't matter what brand, who makes, what you spend on it. Of course you buy the more expensive camera it will probably be a little bit better but cameras range in price. Digital cameras run four hundred dollars to five thousand dollars. You'll probably be shooting mini DV and mini DV cameras are in the four hundred to two thousand dollar range. I've shot many of my documentaries that way and the quality is fine, it's broadcastable, you could actually show it on TV just make sure that when you edit you maintain the digital quality, the digital signal so that's really important. If you don't want to buy a camera go to like a local college, look at their film video studies or whatever, find a film student and they'll probably have a camera or put an ad in the paper or on the Internet, just find somebody who has a camera but no matter what, you need the camera to start the documentary. Make sure that if you're using somebody who has the camera make sure that they're available because you don't want to start doing this and then the person disappears so that's one of the advantages of owning your own equipment. The second important thing is audio. Don't use the camera microphone, use an external microphone. You could use for the interviews a Lavalier microphones, like a clip on one, it could be a wireless or with the wire going to the camera, it could be a hand held mic or it could be a boom mic. Just make sure you have really good audio. Camera mics are good but they pick up everything in the room that's why you don't want to use it for an interview you just want to hear the person talking. Camera mic is good if you're just outside shooting stuff with that, out and about in the car, that's good but for interviews you use an external microphone. Microphones again range in price from fifty bucks to a thousand dollars or two thousand dollars just depending on what you're budget is and what you want. The third thing is lights, make sure you always have some lights. You could buy professional lights, couple hundred dollars a light or you could go to a hardware store, buy those aluminum scoop lights or halogen lights, that will do the job. You have to have light especially with the interviews, they have to be well lit you've got to be able to see them, can't be flat, just be as creative as possible with what you have. Again that depends on your budget and what not. Just make sure that you have several lights for the production. So camera, audio, lights. Three things you need before you can even start shooting."