I can't stress enough that your audio is as important or more important than your pictures! You must invest in a mic and recorder, especially if you are using a dslr. Fortunately there are some good quality mics and recorders for not a whole lot of dough. On the set of Sisters we are using an Azden shotgun mic, some lapel mics and a H4N Handirecorder. We are also feeding out from the recorder back into the camera so we have two recordings, one in camera and one external. If you want to feed your sound back into your dslr for recording, you'll need an attenuator, like the Sescom Line to Mic Attenuation Cable. If you don't have one, you'll just get a garbled mess, because the camera won't be able to read the signal coming out of your H4N (or other recorder). Take some time, do some testing, and get a dedicated sound person to monitor your sound while you shoot. You will be soooo glad you did when it comes time to edit and you have clean, robost audio to work with! Crummy audio WILL render your footage useless!

The second most important piece of the equipment puzzle is the lens kit. We are shooting Sisters with two prime lenses, Canon's "nifty fifty" 50mm f1.8 EF (a $100 lens!!) and their 35mm f1.4L (a $1600 lens!). The 35mm L series lens is the perfect choice for the 70D as it adds the professional quality of the L series, and since the 70D is a crop-sensor camera, you get the look of a 50mm lens (one that is on a full-sensor camera), and usually don't have to worry about the vingetting that is common with this lens when it's on a full sensor camera. I also wanted to see what I could get feature-quality shots with the nifty fifty, since it is in the price range of a lot of start-up shooters. It is not an L series (Canon's professional line) lens.

There is a certain amount of equipment that is essential to any filmmaking, not the least of which are the camera and lens kit. We are shooting Sisters in full, indie, guerrila style with Canon's newest release, the 70D. I chose this camera, because it's so inexpensive it will be a tempting purchase for any start-up filmmaker, it shoots great pictures, typical of Canon dslrs like the more expensive 7D, but also it has two new features that I think will be game-changers for indie's. And anyway, it was just begging to be field-tested inside of a ninety-minute feature film project!