digital film production kit on a $6000 budget

Can someone perhaps recommend a lightweight balanced shoulder rig for the BMCC 2.5K with the following features:

- places the camera over the shoulder pad for good balance (no weight on arms)
- ability to offset the handles so they are centred to the body
- mounting arm to allow field monitor positioned centre view
- mounting point for audio field recorder
- mounting point for camera mic
- can switch to a tripod baseplate with little fuss
- allows a battery plate behind the shoulder pad
- top handle for handling the rig

I do not value over engineered heavy rigs that are poorly balanced. Remember, this is for my daughter, not for a stocky bloke.

Even if it's a mix of different manufacturer parts, that's fine.

Any ideas?

I think you are thinking too big for a present. A kit like that will put a lot of pressure on her to actually use it, not to piss you off.

My suggestion (expensive enough):
a BMPCC with metabones bmpcc speedbooster, the tokina 11-16mm, sigma 18-35mm, and maybe a 14mm pancake mft lens for undercover shooting. A cage for the bmpcc (i like the varavon, get it with the raiser for 15mm rails) Then a sennheiser me66 with rycote assessories (grip windshield boom), an external recorder (zoom h6). nd (or nd&ir) filters for the lenses or a cokin filter holder system with the appropriate filters. Tripod: sachtler ace m is good price value. Cheap cowboy studio shoulder mount. A zacuto z-finder display loupe. Indieprotools battery adapter with the appropriate batteries (canon or Sony).

A bagpack to fit all that stuff in. Insurance for the gear so she has no fear of breaking it. An iMac (with dedicated GPU) for editing and davinci resolve.

The rest of the money (if there is any left): give her vouchers for filmmaking workshops & vouchers for your local rental house, to play around with lighting setups and other cameras! I.e. its a lot of fun to do slow motion shots with the red at 120fps.

I think you are thinking too big for a present. A kit like that will put a lot of pressure on her to actually use it, not to piss you off.

My suggestion (expensive enough):
a BMPCC with metabones bmpcc speedbooster, the tokina 11-16mm, sigma 18-35mm, and maybe a 14mm pancake mft lens for undercover shooting. A cage for the bmpcc (i like the varavon, get it with the raiser for 15mm rails) Then a sennheiser me66 with rycote assessories (grip windshield boom), an external recorder (zoom h6). nd (or nd&ir) filters for the lenses or a cokin filter holder system with the appropriate filters. Tripod: sachtler ace m is good price value. Cheap cowboy studio shoulder mount. A zacuto z-finder display loupe. Indieprotools battery adapter with the appropriate batteries (canon or Sony).

A bagpack to fit all that stuff in. Insurance for the gear so she has no fear of breaking it. An iMac (with dedicated GPU) for editing and davinci resolve.

The rest of the money (if there is any left): give her vouchers for filmmaking workshops & vouchers for your local rental house, to play around with lighting setups and other cameras! I.e. its a lot of fun to do slow motion shots with the red at 120fps.

No offence taken. I valued much of your input!

The idea is that she actually does use the kit, and yes, there is pressure for her to do so. She's taken that onto herself, I'm not forcing her. The BMCC was her choice, so going to the BMPCC won't really suffice. She's already written and story-boarded a short creative piece that she wants to produce at some point.

If she finds movie making is not for her, or perhaps not this aspect of it, then she may adjust her career direction, but she would have given it a solid try.

Paul,

First, let me give you high praise for investing in your daughter's film making future. That's great!

I've been following this thread for some time, and been thinking about it for some time. About 4 years ago, after a bad divorce, I had to liquidate most of my high priced broadcast gear after going bankrupt and look to building my shooters package for about this price. It was December 2010 and I had $6K.

I should preface my comments that I don't consider myself a film maker, but rather a video producer. I have almost always separated the industry in three categories.

Film Makers
Movie Makers
Video Producers

The first one needs to tell stories, no matter if anyone watches it. Typically, they don't make money, and have a spouse or other benefactor who funds their life.

Movie Makers - well that would be guys like Speilberg, Lucas, Bay and most of the Hollywood elite. They make money.

Video producers have stories to tell, but more importantly have bills to pay, so they settle to tell other people stories full time, and sometimes they get to tell their own stories.

The package you have built almost leans towards my film maker category, which might not be the path you want her to take. In other words, shouldn't she be outfitted to make some money, learn to support herself and grow?

With that in mind, my list of items are considerably different than those that have gone before me, and no doubt will cause some controversy.

I'd start with a video camera. If you want it to be 4K, look at the Sony FDR-AX100. At $2K, it produces amazing images. You can check out a recent sample reel on YouTube at

This all in one package will allow her to shoot everything from SD to 4K at a very affordable price point, leaving lots of money for accessories.

Tripod: In my estimation, one of the most important purchases. A good one will last a lifetime, and improve the look of everything she shoots. Plan on a minimum of $1200.

Sound: Seinnheiser has a great package that includes a wireless lavaliere and a butt plug. Look to spend about $800.00. Then consider a decent shotgun to be mounted on the camera. Audiotechnica makes a decent one for a few hundred bucks.

Filters: I'd only have you purchase a polarizer, as the camera has 3 ND filters built in.

Software: A student subscription to Adobe's Creative suite will be about $20/month. Then add a subscription to Lynda.com. They teach every piece of software and some hardware too. Completely required to master a wide and complicated software package like CC.

Computer: I know many creatives like Mac, but you can get so much more power with a home built PC. For about $1200, you can build a state of the art computer system with 9TB of FAST RAID, capable of playing back 4K smoothly.

If you want to really impress, check out the Samsung 4K monitor. At $600, it makes my footage pop.

So, It's long winded, but I guess I've spent your $6,000, plus an additional $45/month on software and learning subscriptions.

She can shoot everything from weddings, to commercials, to her films.

Hope this helps

Darren

The package you have built almost leans towards my film maker category, which might not be the path you want her to take. In other words, shouldn't she be outfitted to make some money, learn to support herself and grow?

Thanks Darren, great post!

I find it quite amusing that I'm putting together this kit to accomplish almost exactly what you reckon the video camera kit should accomplish, but with the advantage that she can also do more serious high-end work with the BMCC should she choose or should it come her way. So yes, you're right, leaning towards film making is correct but also fully capable of working on commercial jobs.

I believe that, to learn digital film making, working with raw images has to be in the workflow and part of your technical learning (that's besides the story telling and so on). My daughter is the kind of person who can get quite practical but then also enjoy sitting for hours doing the fine tuning, so I have no doubt about her ability to jump in at the high end where there's more expensive gear and a greater burden to work the image more before delivering a final product. Because of this, I believe, the Blackmagic camera will turn out to be a much better fit for her than video and she will enjoy much greater rewards.

As for film making VS movie making, what she ends up doing is really up to her. The online distribution scene is progressively opening up, so making money from movie making may be closer than we traditionally think.

O yes, and right now the balance between learning and making money is between 100/0 to 80/20. Telling her to go out and make money with her gear now is the quickest way to kill her creativity during the bit of carefree time she still has before striking out on her own in a few years.

I find it quite amusing that I'm putting together this kit to accomplish almost exactly what you reckon the video camera kit should accomplish, but with the advantage that she can also do more serious high-end work with the BMCC should she choose or should it come her way. So yes, you're right, leaning towards film making is correct but also fully capable of working on commercial jobs.

What makes you think Video cameras don't do high end work? What are you defining as high end work? Because she has a BMCC or a 4K camera, you're telling me she will, with all her current experience or even experience over the next 5 years - gain higher end work than someone with a video camera? The company I work for produces international television programming for some of the toughest networks to get content on. Aside from the project I am working on with the BM4KCC, it is all shot on HDCAM and P2 format video cameras.



I believe that, to learn digital film making, working with raw images has to be in the workflow and part of your technical learning (that's besides the story telling and so on).

Most of us on this forum learned on a product called film or video tape. We adapted to RAW, but since RAW is currently limited to just a handful of cameras, once again, I have to disagree that learning to colour correct in RAW is not really different from doing it with a regular file. In some ways, it is easier in RAW, and then I would argue learning to do it with a non RAW camera is better.


My daughter is the kind of person who can get quite practical but then also enjoy sitting for hours doing the fine tuning, so I have no doubt about her ability to jump in at the high end where there's more expensive gear and a greater burden to work the image more before delivering a final product. Because of this, I believe, the Blackmagic camera will turn out to be a much better fit for her than video and she will enjoy much greater rewards.


OK


As for film making VS movie making, what she ends up doing is really up to her. The online distribution scene is progressively opening up, so making money from movie making may be closer than we traditionally think.


Now see, this is a generational thing. My generation was taught to find our passion in some way that we would learn our craft, and learn to support ourselves. Your generation teaches their children to follow their passion, and the money will follow. I hope your generation is right.


O yes, and right now the balance between learning and making money is between 100/0 to 80/20. Telling her to go out and make money with her gear now is the quickest way to kill her creativity during the bit of carefree time she still has before striking out on her own in a few years.

As it should be, but face some facts about her first gigs. They are going to be weddings, low low end corporate videos, maybe a local commercial, nothing huge. Have you tried to do a run and gun with a BMCC? Hell, you can hardly see the viewfinder in bright sunlight.

I think you would do better putting the $6K into education. She needs to see what the entire industry offers, not just film making.

My 2 cents, and I'll step off the soapbox now. I'm sure you know better.

Darren

What makes you think Video cameras don't do high end work? What are you defining as high end work?

I said "more serious high-end work with the BMCC" and with that I'm referring to what a camera like the BMCC offers when shooting raw VS video. And yes, raw does make it easier - much more possible - to get to that more special final product that could set someone's work apart from the mainstream if they are pushing their craft to the edge.

In my experience with video production / post production, serious colour grading is rarely employed and, when it is, the source footage has to be really well shot and close to the final goal otherwise so much of the image starts falling apart when you push a little too hard trying to achieve something special which the original footage just cannot give.

With raw digital cine cameras that's obviously much less of a problem, affording more radical creative decisions to take place in post. However, this usually applies to more creative productions like intro sequences for TV shows, commercials, music videos, films, etc. A lot of what video is commonly used for, even though high-end, is visually just rather plain and quite easily achieved in-camera without much further ado.

I think you would do better putting the $6K into education. She needs to see what the entire industry offers, not just film making.

To see what the entire industry offers... wow... it's taken me about 25 years to see much of this industry but not yet that much! She has seen some of it and from that she's made a choice.

Our approach here is hands-on centred around a camera and other tools and gear, not just theory but a practical starting point to see where it leads creatively and perhaps into a career.

For a while yet she has the luxury of seeing if her passion will lead to making a living. I'm giving her that chance and I'll help her on the business end of things to see if what she loves doing could generate revenue. To serve the goal of giving her this starting opportunity, the BMCC should do very well indeed; I believe it will do much better than just help her start.

There are surely many different but valid approaches to getting into each industry and each person has a different story to tell. One day she'll have her own story of where it all started and what happened from there. Perhaps her story will be about how her Dad should have rather started her out differently, perhaps rather with a video camera, but that's also part of what she will learn and experience. Not so?

I've taken an interest in the Zacuto QR Shoulder Pad which allows a short rig balanced on the shoulder with a Quick Release for tripod mounting. The idea is to use it with a field monitor.



Could a camera cage like the ViewFactor Contineo work nicely on top of the Zacuto QR Shoulder Pad?

I'd add rods plus a battery plate. The rig would also need front and top handles.

I'd look into a more complete Shoulder Rig that places the camera in front of the operator (especially for a Blackmagic camera to take full advantage of the screen).

Have you looked into the Kamerar/Photography & Cinema (PNC) shoulder rigs, or the Ikan Flyweight?

I like the PR-1 kit from PNC because of the Swiss Rod addition, standard 15mm rod setup, and the ability to move the rig around in both size and style for the shooting situation. - you can just start clamping parts of that rig to the 15mm rod to build it up (slap handles & the shoulder pad on for a smaller/lighter shoulder rig - and can be upgraded to Carbon Fiber if you want to).

What concerns me about the Zacuto shoulder pad is that if it's on your shoulder - for $300 you only have the pad and a QR plate, you can't see the screen at all to adjust settings/use focus peaking, and doesn't come with handles to mount on rails.

Zacuto (and others) has a rail kit that will attach caged camera to this pad. You will need a EVF that can be aligned back to operator's eye, and a grip handle for right had attached to rail. You can also add follow focus on left to balance rig out. See previous posts on camera rigs and cage setups.

$6000 is too little for a decent setup. $10,000+ would be more like it.

I've challenged my daughter to keep up an active interest in cinematography to the point where she has paying customers and can go independent of me before this BMCC kit becomes hers. If she drops out, the kit remains my company property. Until then, I work with her to teach her the craft and the business aspects.

I'm starting her out with a few key items (BMCC, Speedbooster, SmallHD DP7 OLED, Zoom H5) and she has to learn what else is needed and then expand from there. I have one F mount fish eye lens for her. However, her business activity has to fund the other items.

I took to heart the advice given in this thread to seriously consider a good tripod. The Survey on Tripods and Heads thread is really excellent...
http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4733

I'm still researching tripods but I'll allocate a fair budget for a used set with a good 100mm fluid head.

The reason why I'm getting the field monitor before the tripod is purely logistics in getting used equipment into South Africa.

Thank you all for your advice, encouragement and criticisms. It has all been much appreciated!

Our journey starts in a few days.

i would not get a 100mm head: they are unnecessary heavy for the setup you have and you can get a 75mm to 100mm adapter plate but not the other way round. a lot of sliders and other gear comes with 75mm bowls preconfigured so you cannot use it with a 100mm head.

the sachtler ace was released during or after the time of the thread you linked and after hunting a decent tripod for almost a year, i gave up and reluctantly bought an ace m. The fluid head is made of plastic which is a con BUT it makes it also a very lightweight (but not too lightweight).

personally i wanted a tripod that had adjustable drag and counterweight that starts really low, for the moments when i just want to use the camera with a basic setup. For a lot of tripods the minimum counterweight setting is adjusted for 3kg or something like that. the problem with the used, more "professional" ones is often that they only have one drag setting for tilt/pan - so slow panning is almost impossible. The ace m has 3 settings for tilt and pan.

actually the sachtler was a pleasant surprise, panning is super smooth, drag adjustment works great, its solid built and the only real downside i found so far is that the angle in which you can adjust the head in the bowl is kind of limited due to the huge screw handle they have there, which touches the legs of the tripod if you tilt it too far.

except for that i can really recommend it.

i would not get a 100mm head: they are unnecessary heavy for the setup you have and you can get a 75mm to 100mm adapter plate but not the other way round. a lot of sliders and other gear comes with 75mm bowls preconfigured so you cannot use it with a 100mm head.

the sachtler ace was released during or after the time of the thread you linked and after hunting a decent tripod for almost a year, i gave up and reluctantly bought an ace m. The fluid head is made of plastic which is a con BUT it makes it also a very lightweight (but not too lightweight).

personally i wanted a tripod that had adjustable drag and counterweight that starts really low, for the moments when i just want to use the camera with a basic setup. For a lot of tripods the minimum counterweight setting is adjusted for 3kg or something like that. the problem with the used, more "professional" ones is often that they only have one drag setting for tilt/pan - so slow panning is almost impossible. The ace m has 3 settings for tilt and pan.

actually the sachtler was a pleasant surprise, panning is super smooth, drag adjustment works great, its solid built and the only real downside i found so far is that the angle in which you can adjust the head in the bowl is kind of limited due to the huge screw handle they have there, which touches the legs of the tripod if you tilt it too far.

except for that i can really recommend it.

Thanks for your advice! I had the Sachtler Ace M on my initial list. You raise quite a few good points in favor of the 75mm head.

It's been a while now with our new MFT BMCC. The F-mount Speed Booster does a great job. We were able to pick up a used set of Samyang cine lenses (24 & 35). This camera's quality is superb! DaVinci Resolve is brilliant! Shooting RAW with manual primes is truly rewarding.

Carrying the kit around is a weighty business and as it grows so will the demands to manage the cases and bags. This camera has my daughter out and about and even doing fitness and strength exercises to better manage the weight! Shooting with a BMCC is physically demanding in a very good way!

There's certainly much to learn and it's wonderful to do it hands on. I'm slowly working with my daughter to make something of her career choice. She has shot impromptu at public music performances at the Cape Town V&A Waterfront, shot on Table Mountain, at softball games, at the beach... the camera gets a lot of open mouth stares here in South Africa! Some people walking up to her gawking in some kind of stupor. Of course it's still nothing compared to a fully rigged BMCC.

So lots of test shots, framing, various options for hand-held. We still don't have ND filters, which is a challenge in sunny South Africa. This is how she learns based on actual needs to solve shooting problems. No tripod yet, but that teaches the value of one. Yes, an external viewing monitor with sun hood is essential. Shooting off the internal battery has been fine so far.

I've just used the BMCC as a stills camera today, using Resolve for grading, shuttling through shots to pick the frame with the perfect framing and focus... such a positive experience!

Paul, good to have your update on your daughter's progress and enjoyment of the camera and so on. Perhaps she will join the forum and benefit from the discussions here.


Rick Lang
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Don't underestimate the capabilities of the BMPCC as a professional grade cinematography tool. Here's an article where an upcoming feature film was entirely shot using just BMPCC cameras from a well known director.

http://nofilmschool.com/2014/10/scary-g ... iel-myrick

My Personal Kit:
Fotga Vari ND (Ebay $10)+Tiffen UV filters (1/lens)

Dustin - can you share your experiences with the Fotga Variable ND - its pros and cons? Thanks.

I do agree with getting the best tripod with a "Pro" fluid head you can afford. A used O'Connor, or something similar is better than buying a cheep one that she will become frustrated with quickly.

I went with this advice and acquired an O'Connor 50 with Peter Lisand legs, all in good condition.

This is our first fluid head tripod and all I can say is WOW! At last I know why you guys are suggesting this route... large, solid, sturdy, smooth in all directions, easily handles a BMCC rig with lots of room for future camera accessories.

Although this tripod is heavy, it's no longer just my daughter going it alone. We now have a production company of seven people with enough muscle for the heavy lifting. The hard carry case also helps a lot! Thanks again for all the advice!

Here's a photo of our tripod...

Paul, now a seven person production company? That little girl you helped has grown up! Congratulations, Dad.


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Paul, what kind of exercises did she do to prep up for heavier camera rigs?