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Budget filming kit question

I was asked this week to help someone out with specifying a basic video filming kit. He didn’t want to ‘spend thousands’ on a professional level setup, but needed enough to not look amateurish.

I’ve been asked for similar advice before. Here’s my response, which contains quite a few nuggets of information – including filming and audio tips – that everyone should take some note of.

The main pieces of equipment you need to get started are:

Digital HD camera

A high-end consumer-targeted camera will suffice for most ‘non broadcast quality’ projects. Buy a unit from a reputable brand and compare features such as frame and focus rates, lens quality and sensor quality. These are the crucial things – rather than other pointless features such as social media uploading and on-camera editing. It’s also very important you get one that has both an external microphone input and a headphone output (both usually standard 3.5mm connectors). You’ll probably find this will narrow your buying options from hundreds to just a few. Expect to spend anything from £600 to a couple of grand. Anything less and you’ll be disappointed. For comparison on the upper-range, even mid-range pro cameras can cost anything up to ten grand.

Tripod

Spend £100+ on one. Get one with a robust frame, and a maximum height around 6ft (unless you’re only ever planning to film short people). A carry bag is also very useful if you’re every likely to go on location.

Microphone

Good sound is more important than good pictures. We have both a clip mic and a handheld. Clips are best if you’re doing a piece to camera where you have time to set up. If you’re doing ad-hoc interviews (such as vox pops on the street) you’ll need a hand-held. Expect to spend upwards of £100 for either. You get what you pay for and it’s worth the investment. Make sure you also get the right cables for the mic(s) you buy.

Other equipment worth considering:

  • Batteries: Have spares for everything, including your camera battery.
  • Reflector: A pop-up reflector can add some extra light into your subject by bouncing available light into a shaded area. It’s a simple thing, but can improve overall lighting with little effort.
  • Pop up backdrop: Easy to stow-away, but will give you an instant background should you need one. We sometimes struggle to find a big enough area of ‘clear’ wall to film against, so a pop up background comes in handy. Depending on what you get, you may also need a stand and clips.
  • Lights: Lighting is a bit of an art, but will give you more consistent results than you will ever get relying on ambient light – particularly if you have natural day light in the mix, which is very unreliable. You can spend several hundred pounds on a two-light setup with stands etc, so do some research before buying.

Tips:

  • If you’re relying on ambient light, film near a window (but not with the window behind your subject)
  • If there’s background noise (traffic, people, builders, air con), either ask politely for everyone to stop, or move location. Don’t expect to be able to get rid of background noise in post-production.
  • Always have a standard toolkit, roll of gaffer tape, blue tack and studio clips in your kit back. They’re the swiss army knife of filming.
  • Spend a few hours on YouTube. You’ll find tutorials from industry experts on everything from basic direction to lighting, sound and post production. I once found brilliant lighting tutorial from a guy who had trained as a lighting engineer alongside George Lucas.

Have fun!