Professional Video Production Equipment for Under R30k

With numerous screens, channels and social networks just waiting to be loaded with good content, now is the time to learn how to produce quality video content on the cheap!

It’s very likely you or your agency/company can see many good reasons to be producing video content. Whether to keep your blog updated with exciting visual content, or to build up your pitching material; you’ll want to get in on the YouTube action, but probably don’t know where to start (and don’t want to make fools of yourselves with amateurish clips).

You could outsource the video production to a third party, but expect to pay between R30 and R100k (eek!) for the shooting and post-production of a 3 minute video clip. That’s not sustainable if you intend to regularly post video content.

I got the low down from the guys at Stax, Digital Experience, HiFi Corporation and Incredible Connection to find out what I could get with the R30k that would have covered the first clip. It turns out that to make good movies you need the following essentials:

Camera

For your purposes your number one concern is streaming rates at the end of the day. High resolution, high definition, these are all fancy words for slow download times and as our video guy Danny K says, “For low budget, high impact video: remember that content is everything, not quality - HD is pointless in our country, we can't run it (too costly, too slow). Essentially anyone with a cellphone and a great idea can rock online video.”
Obviously our aim is to get the highest quality image without compromising on speed, and for this Alfie Do Santos at Stax in Fourways recommends two prosumer models. (“pro” from professional, “sumer” for consumer)

Alfie swears by the JVC Everio GZMS100 at a bargain price of just under R2000. With image stabilisation, a 35x Optical Zoom, and straight-to-YouTube upload button this handy little device is great for Web video producers, but you will of course want to do some post-production work before you post to the Web.  

Alfe’s second choice was the discreet Sanyo Xacti  which despite its frivolous appearance records in full HD and strikes the perfect balance between being a stills camera and a handycam. At R1800, it’s a deal. With both Alfie’s suggestions however, sound is going to be an issue. While both cameras boast “Dolby Stereo” this is no guarantee for good sound, and there is not plug-in for an external mic.

To counter this, a dictaphone is the way to go. The Olympus DM450 at R2199 has a high frequency mic, which will capture almost studio sound quality. Even if your image quality is average, if your sound quality is professional, you can pull it off. Alfie says a number of bands are using high quality dictaphones to record their albums or songs and then uploading them to the Internet. Dictaphones are a great way to get professional sounding audio, just use a homemade clapper-board or an accurate time code to match the image and sound in the editing stage. With small screens being the order of the day, sound is really “where the difference comes”.

Kuben at Hifi Corp probably had the best camera suggestion with the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1 (R3500), which uses back illuminated CMOS Sensor technology to improve shooting in low-light situations, so that the image clarity is significantly enhanced and the grain drastically reduced. It is also has the benefit of being a compact camera. For those looking for a higher-end model, compromising portability for Full HD, the Canon 500D comes with 2 lenses (a wide angle lens for those essential skatepark shots), 15 Megapixel and an 8GB extra hard drive inbuilt. Going for R8499 with a tripod and a bag thrown in, this is a fair deal. 

Lights

Good lighting is one of the most important elements in a good movie. Lastolite reflectors (R800 from Singer Photographic ) offer large reflection areas, but pack away into a compact pouch. Use reflectors to bounce light back on to the faces of subjects to drastically improve a shot. Avoid shooting in low light as the picture will inevitably come out grainy. The best light is daylight, but if you need to shoot at night be sure to change your light setting to tungsten on the camera. 

Action

A laptop: Video editing calls for sufficient RAM and a fairly powerful computer. Macs have been the mainstay of video editors for years, but most new laptops can now handle video editing, and will come preloaded with basic editing software, like Windows Movie Maker or iMovie.

Additional memory: For shooting video footage you will need a lot of memory, so this calls for high performance mini SD cards (Transcend 8GB High Speed SD  R499.99 – HiFi Corp) and an external hard drive (Transcend HD 1,5 TB with Turbo connection R899.95 – HiFi Corp)

Post Production Software:

Audio filtering software: Recording the sound separately with a Dictaphone will eliminate most of the hush and mechanical sounds of the camera but you can clean the sound up further with audio filtering software such as Audio Cleaning Lab (R700 from Incredible Connection) or try out Magix.com to get started for free!

 Video editing software: Khumo Motingoe from Incredible Connection recommends Pinnacle Studio Version 14 for PC users, which offers easy editing and many fun automatic effects (R1600), but her colleague Damon Smith, who works in the Mac section, puts it like this; “Apple is for movie-making, PC is for business.”

Mac provides iMovie as part of the iLife suite pre-installed on every Mac and the surprising thing is that 6 out of 10 people who use iMovie are using it to create professional videos for business purposes. For those who need more functionality, Smith recommends Final Cut Express (R1500), which offers the same ease of use of the iMovie software but many of the serious video editing functionality of the industry standard, Final Cut Studio (R17000). Garage Band, Apple’s sound editing program, will let you clean up sound, so there is little need for an extra sound-editing program. 

The budget

(If I were making the decision)

•   Camera: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1 Camera (R3500)
•    Dual core Mac Book Pro 15 inch: (R18000). Dual core means faster processing power and the Mac comes with iMovie, iPhoto and Garageband, which integrate well with Final Cut Express (R1500).
•    I’d throw in a Tristar Tripod (R399) designed for smooth panning and a stable camera.
•    An Olympus Dictaphone (R2999).
•    Light reflectors: (R800).
•    Extra memory: Transcend 8GB High Speed SD (R499.99).
•     And an external hard drive: Transcend HD 1,5 TB with Turbo connection (R899.95).

Total: R28596 (All in and below budget, yee ha!)

Special effects: If you want to create special effects with a small budget, you have got to check out this site. The presenters show you how to make a new effect every week (think Hollywood style effects for under $50).

Also check out: 

• So you wanna be a YouTube superstar?
• Interview: The state of play with Gamestate
• What does 2011 have in store for online video?