The Gear You Need to Shoot Indie Films at Home or on Location

It’s by no means been simpler to produce your personal movies, quick movies, or even feature-length films than it’s now. While video manufacturing isn’t precisely an affordable passion to get into, you don’t want a movie studio funds to get studio-level pictures. No piece of kit will routinely make you expert with a digicam, but when your abilities are struggling towards the restrictions of your {hardware}, these instruments may open up some prospects for you.

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A Good Tripod

More than nearly something you’ll want a very good tripod to maintain your digicam, no matter digicam you’re utilizing. Finding the proper tripod could be a little bit of a entice, as a result of it’s simple to discover a very low-cost tripod–you may stroll proper right into a Target and get one for beneath $20—and if you’re first beginning out, possibly it’s best to. But as your wants develop, you’ll discover that not all tripods are created equal.

For starters, some very fundamental images tripods are designed with static pictures in thoughts, however when capturing video, it’s your decision extra motion capabilities. An excellent tripod for video will likely be in a position to rotate freely and easily with out sticking. You may additionally need to search for a tripod with a swappable head, so you should purchase the appropriate head for the pictures you want, quite than attempting to adapt your pictures to your gear.

Stands, C-Stands, and Assorted Clamps

Making certain all of your tools is in the appropriate spot–and holding it there–is such a posh and vital job that it’s an entire profession in Hollywood. Don’t fear, in the event you’re working a small (or one-person) manufacturing, you possibly can nonetheless get away with fundamental setups, but it surely’s price studying in regards to the varied varieties of substances you need to use to place your lights and microphones.

Tripod stands are universally helpful for positioning issues like lights, and so they’re extremely low-cost. They’re normally sturdy sufficient to maintain up LED lighting panels, GoPros, microphones, or different small units. You in all probability gained’t need to use one as your digicam’s fundamental tripod, since they normally solely have one screw on the highest that doesn’t present for a lot digicam motion. Plus, they knock over fairly simply, so that you don’t need your costly digicam perched precariously on prime of it. But for a lot of the opposite gear on your set, they are often actually helpful.

C-stands are a step up in the event you want one thing sturdier, and particularly if you would like to grasp gear overhead. On prime of extending upwards, you possibly can connect extension arms to them that permit you to attain out horizontally (or at an angle) over your topics. This is especially useful for, say, mounting directional microphones that work higher after they’re positioned above a topic, because it focuses on the sound of the topic it’s pointed at whereas not selecting up as a lot environmental noise. Notably, that is additionally why you see a man on movie units holding a giant stick in the air over subjects. That’s a transportable increase mic, and in the event you plan to do location shoots, particularly with shifting topics, it is likely to be price getting a boom mic pole with a built-in XLR cable, as a substitute of a stationary C-stand to your microphone.