* Matching midrange video cameras to customers’ needs
Start-up costs for a video production business are staggering. Thirty-thousand dollars for editing software, at least $60,000 for a broadcast booth with live text-overlays, another $20,000 for a professional video camera. Then there are labor costs; freelance engineers charge enough to make the most aspiring Spielberg look for another line of work. Unless you’re Kevin Brewer.
The video engineer built a home-based business using consumer software and lower cost video equipment, creating compelling newsreels and documentaries for NBC and Fox Sports out of his Clermont, Fla. home.
Last time, we explored how Creative Vision, Brewer’s husband-and-wife start-up, uses Avid Express DV and other software tools to keep costs low. Here, we’ll explain how to choose the right hardware to do the same thing.
Brewer’s bread-and-butter camera is the JVC GY-500 Mini-DV, which he bought at bhphotovideo.com for $4,000, $1,000 less than it would cost at a brick-and-mortar shop such as National Photo and Video. In choosing the camera, he matched its quality and features of the camera to the needs of his customers.
One example: Public speaker Conni Gordon hired Brewer to shoot and engineer a series of training videos. The JVC Mini-DV camera provides a lower cost method for locking the video to the audio track and continuing a “Regan” timecode position indicator on multiple tapes, both of which ease desktop editing. The camera also has interchangeable lenses so Brewer can get wide shots and close-ups without having to buy a second camera. Brewer says he could have bought Betamax cameras, but they would have been overkill. And he says Gordon was “exceptionally pleased” with the results.
Brewer also uses the Canon XL1, which he uses when customers need outdoor, on-location shooting. The camera, which costs about the same as the JVC, uses pixel-shifting technology to record red, green and blue colors on a separate charged-couple device. Because the Canon records such a clear, bright image in daylight, Brewer has avoided buying expensive Lowell field lighting kits ($1,000 each). And while he could have spent another $5,000 for an entry-level broadcast-quality camera, Brewer relies instead on good storytelling, and post-production transition and overlay techniques.
The video engineer uses FireWire to transfer video directly from the video camera to his computer, a handy feature found in “prosumer” but not Betamax cameras, which trims costs by eliminating the need for a separate studio deck. The JVC in particular is well-suited to a home studio: It doesn’t capture high-definition component video, which requires an expensive deck typically found in broadcast booths.
Another Brewer recommendation: The Panasonic AG-DVX 100 ($3,300), which is intended to imitate high-end film-based cameras but lacks some timecoding features. Brewer can use it to shoot a full-length movie, if the need arises: “With these cameras, I can be more competitive on price, and we can afford to put more into production.”
Leveraging intelligent, low-cost hardware with high-ticket freelance labor has paid off. Brewer has worked with network correspondents such as Connie Chung, shot PGA events, traveled cross-country to cover the Jonesboro school shootings, and engineered videos in the education, industrial, and promotional market segments. Not bad.
