Videos with white backgrounds are a popular aesthetic choice that’s clean and simple. It used to take a movie studio to film a scene with a white background like in the Hollywood movie “The Matrix” or as seen in Apple commercials. But shooting a video with a white background isRead More →
B-Roll is footage that documentary filmmakers use to make watching their films more interesting or watchable. B-Roll can range from being used to cover up an edit or cut in the middle of an interview soundbite to re-enactment footage to footage visually explaining what is being talked about. Amateur documentaryRead More →
LED video lights can be tremendously useful for videographers and indie filmmakers for two main reasons: they’re small and often light so they can fit into tight spaces and small lighting kit bags, and they’re also often dimmable, which saves you from fussing with sheets of diffusion or external dimmersRead More →
There are many reasons to consider using an external video recorder for film and television. In some cases, external HDMI or SDI video recorders can serve as better quality recorders than the camera they are shooting on, in other cases they may be a backup dual system recording method, andRead More →
Professional video recorders that capture ProRes or DNxHD video on solid state disks (SSDs) are compelling products these days, because of how much they speed up post workflows (skipping conversions) and also because of their increasing affordability. Although workflows and specific needs differ from case to case, whether you’re shootingRead More →
If you’re the parent of a young athlete or if you play any one of a dozen different sports, you might be wondering, “what’s the best video camera for sports shooting?” Selecting the best video camera for sports can be a difficult task because there are so many choices onRead More →
The Panasonic DVX 200 (check current price on Amazon) is out now and people are wondering: is it worth it? Although the DVX200 looks a lot like many other traditional pro video cameras, it’s actually a brand new type of camera under the hood. We’ll go over some of theRead More →
When you’re making a nonfiction film it’s often important to get a documentary release form from all the participants, to show that you have their permission to film them. When do you need a documentary film release form? Examples Ideally you would have a signed documentary film release form forRead More →
Not every tripod is created equal, and finding the best video tripod for your purposes can be difficult. Most tripods are meant only for still photography which means they both 1) aren’t meant to support much weight because still cameras are lighter than video cameras, and 2) still camera tripodsRead More →
Let’s say you’re making a documentary film. You have your subject and… nothing else. While there are plenty of generic film equipment lists for fiction films, documentary films often need specialized equipment. So here’s our complete documentary film equipment list. Some documentaries may need only a fraction of these itemsRead More →
[wp-compear id=”1493″] If you’ve got an excellent subject for a documentary film but a not so excellent budget, you’re probably wondering: what is the best cheap documentary camera? Filmmakers make hundreds, perhaps thousands of documentary films each year, and their budgets range from virtually nothing on the low end (think:Read More →
Clip on lavaliere microphones or lav mics can be a crucial bit of your DSLR video kit. If you’re doing any interviews or documentary film work with a documentary film DSLR, having a wireless lav is essential, and if you’re making narrative (fictional) work, wireless lav mics can be usefulRead More →
Often the difference between film and video work that seems amateurish and work that seems polished and professional comes down to sound. The viewer won’t recognize well-recorded sound but they definitely will recognize poorly recorded audio. And nowhere is that more true than in omnipresent documentary narration. Note that allRead More →
Wireless boom microphone systems can be extremely handy for two main reasons: first, they avoid the need for XLR cables getting tangled all over sets (especially if the boom op has to be far away from the camera op), but also because they allow the boom operator to move fluidlyRead More →
Let’s say you don’t want to use a DSLR shotgun microphone that sits on top of your camera but instead you want to use a boom pole and a shotgun mic mounted on top of that to capture sound much closer to your subject than an on-camera mic will allowRead More →