These are my personal views on what to spend money on, if money is short and you want to make super-low-budget action films.
Once you have a camera as good as the GH1, to me a better camera is not priority number one until you have the following:
Lenses – in my experience these determine the limits of what you can film more than most other things. E.g. if you do not have enough light because you do not have fast lenses, you cannot get the shutter speeds you need for a decent slow motion. Same is true for angles and then for the combination. If you want to film inside a car and light is scarce then you need a lense that has the right angle and enough light. Having the right lenses can often make the difference between being able to film at a location or not, because you typically do not have a professional lighting setup and probably will not for a long time.
Rigs – Read this for more details because I don’t think you should spend a lot of money on this but build the stuff you need or look for cheap stuff on ebay (even DIY stuff by others) rather than spend insane amounts of money on this but it is important as far as your filmmaking possibilities are concerned. I think, if you own a shoulder rig and a super-simple steadicam-like stabilizer, no matter how cheap, you can shoot a movie people will like without anything else. Sometimes a solution as simple as drilling a hole through a piece of wood or just using a tripod as a low-tech stabilizer will do.
Light – Since most of the time when you’re not filming outside in bright daylight light is a problem, having a cheap portable option is of immense value. I would start with a portable LED light that can be used with batteries. There are even rather cheap ones where you can adjust the light temperature. Placed well this can make the difference between a nice and a ruined shot and it is small, light-weight, easy to operate which might be nice if you film guerilla style somewhere where you have to get done quickly. If you have more money for some more light, something bigger with more power that works for more than close-ups (I bought a rather cheap flourescent light I am still happy with because it packs quite a bit of lighting power if you want to illuminate an entire room) would be my next coice. Don’t forget some color gels. Together with cardboard and gaffer tape it’s the low-budget lighter’s kit.
OK, these are by far the most important things IMHO, maybe next I would think of the little things that make your life easier when filming (because that is usually where time is your scarcest resource)
Little Things – i.e. at least an extra battery for the camera or plate adapters so you don’t have to fiddle around with screws when you change rigs.
Tripod – for more details read this but bottom line is, tripods that allow nice smooth panning are typically rather expensive but for static shots the cheapest tripod is good enough (maybe not convenient to get it set up and everything but for a static shot nobody will be able to tell the difference between a 19$ and a 19000$ tripod. My advice would be, if money is really scarce, buy one of the super-cheap tripods with a video head (I got one like this for about 60$, I think, because the Amazon customer reviews where OK) and see where its limits are. It is always good enough for static shots but spending the 40$ more than for the cheapest photo tripod will give you the option to get one or the other usable pan if you practice a bit and don’t use an extreme lense.
To be continued…
lowbudgetactionfilms 