Digital video and festivals

Bryan Doyle · June 20, 2004

Hello I have a panasonic pv-gs70 mini-dv camera.. I have made a few movies with my friends, but I was really hopping to do soemthing fairly seriouse before i decide to go to college for film next year. The camera has 3ccd's and its picture seems to be good to my standards, but is not always perfect. I was wondering if I could use the camera to make a short movie that would be up to festivals standards. I just want to be able to do soemthing with my movie after making it. I bought an external audio technica atr-25 mic and use adobe premeire. Is there anything else i would need to make a quality digital film? What should i do with it after post production? I know alot of films are made with the xl-1 and even the gl-1 and vx-1000 have made some quality movies the pv-gs70 doesn't seem to be to far off from those.

Thans alot

Bryan Doyle

Alvin Pingol · June 21, 2004

You must focus on content before you start worrying about the quality of the image.

You can shoot on 65mm with truckloads of grip equipment if you wanted to, but with poor storylines, locations, acting, wardrobe, and a general lack of knowledge, it would be useless.

Same deal, you can use the most expensive audio equipment, and the most expensive high-end NLE system, but as always: GIGO.

Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Of course, I'm not calling your work garbage (not even possible, as I have not seen any of your work), but GIGO is a general term that essentially means that if you start with something below par, no matter what you do to it, it will always be below par.

Having said that, if you shoot a feature with almost any camera: if it is photographed well, lit well, and has strong content, it should be acceptable for festivals so long as it's on the right format.