Hey film jammers if you had $10,000 to start a production company, what should you buy? There's so much stuff out there
But what are the essentials to get you making money quickly?
I started my production company Lightwave media about 15 years ago. Things were different back then! So here's what I'd recommend today to get started
Now remember we've got links below in the description so you can check out all the gear that we're talking about in this video
I'm gonna simplify the gear into four main categories for when you're starting your video production business
camera lighting
sound and
Editing or post-production now unless you're planning a specialty video business like onlydrones.net or catvideos.com
You're gonna need each of these elements
camera, if you want to be a video producer a camera package is the heart of your system and you don't need to break the
Bank these days to get great quality
It's easy to drool over the features of high-end cameras, but honestly
Most of my business is still shooting 1080p on my good old Canon c100
So here's my recommendations for buying a camera today. The Canon c100. It's a great all-around camera. It has great color
It has XLR inputs for full audio controls a full ready to shoot package is around
$4,000 with batteries and media the sony FS 5 now
I don't love the ergonomics of this camera as much as I do on the Canon and the
colors to me aren't as good as the Canon either but you get 4k recording and
You also get high frame rate shooting which is a nice option and you might open you up to some gigs where you can use
Those the Panasonic gh5 it's also a good camera. It's more DSLR style, but it's a lot cheaper. It's only
$1500 but you do need a lot of accessories to give you the full functionality of a video camera like audio recording it's not included
Lenses, I'm personally a big fan of Canon. They have great color
there's a lot of options in their lens lineup start off with the zoom lens that has a good range for example the 24 to
105 it's going to give you a lot of coverage on the wide end and if you zoom it into 70 and above is you're
Gonna have a nice shallow depth of field for doing things like interviews. It also has image stabilization
So for me, it's the best all-around lens to start with this lens retails for around $900
But I've seen them on eBay and a lot other places use for around half of that
So make sure you shop around kids. The sony has a comparable 24 to 105 lens as well
This lens is a little more money at $1,200
but if you go to the Sony ecosystem
It's gonna be a better option for you. The tripod this is going the last element to round out your camera package
I think Manfrotto makes a really solid tripod. The 504 tripod is a great one
It's a great starter entry-level tripod and it's gonna cost around six hundred dollars
Sackler also makes great tripods. They have an ace system that's around six hundred and eighty-five dollars
Also a great option. Now you can add on monitors and other accessories
Yeah, they'll make your job easier, but I don't feel that they're necessary to start your production company or to start making money
Hey, we got a gimbal
Hey, we got a Steadicam
You know
These are all things that are great to have but up charge them Add them later when you already established your business, you don't need them
right now
Sound now you can always hire a sound guy
But when you're first starting out when I was starting out, I oftentimes quoted a job with my own sound gear
I had a lav and a boom mic that I could bring and monitor sound for more simpler
Situations like just an interview if you're just doing a one-person interview
It's fairly easy to monitor the sound yourself and not bring in an extra crew member
So here's a couple lav mics and boom mics that I'd recommend to get your kit started the Sennheiser MKE
600 this is a three hundred and fifty dollar kit that includes the mic a shock mount and some other
Accessories and it's a really versatile mic to get you started the rode
Ntg-4 boom mic. This is also a really nice starter mic
It's around three hundred and seventy dollars and the plus version includes every chargeable battery in the mic
So if you don't have phantom power
It's got that battery internally that lets you get sound now if you have a boom
You're gonna need a boom pole to attach that mic to if you want to boom it out over your talent
So a starting boom pole here
This one is about $90 and it's a great entry-level boom pole so wireless mics
They're great to have one in your kit. I recommend the rode wireless go. We're recording this episode on one right now
We've recorded most of our last episodes on these they're so convenient and small you do get the logo
but you can flip it around and then you don't see the big rode but to get you started it's really versatile and
Inexpensive and it's got pretty darn good quality, I think and make sure to check out our full review of the rode wireless go
The Sennheiser g3 is also a great wireless mic. It's almost more than double the rode though. It's about $500
It's more robust
I am gonna give it to you as an option here, but it's not gonna go in our final budget as it's just too high
Lighting and grip gear now. I started my like it with a couple Kino Flo diva lights the old fluorescent ones
But now there's so many great options. There's LEDs now which are very versatile. There's not a lot of heat
Versatility is key when you're starting out. Don't just get that light that's only good for close-ups of ants, you know
Get the light that you can use to light interviews and b-roll in it and a bunch of other options
I mean that light for ants is probably
It's kind of cool though quasars. These are really versatile lights and they're soft
We're actually lighting this episode with one 4-foot quasar right now
So I recommend them very highly you can use them creatively for music videos
You can use them for interviews and you can use them in the scene which a lot of people are doing now
They're putting a light in the scene and using it as part of the set design. It's really cool
You can get a kid of 4 4-foot quasar lights for under $500 included with dimmers and a case
So I think that's awesome Kino Flo one of the most trusted names in the video production in lighting world
I've seen Kino flos on set since I started out in the business
They're very popular with producers and rentals and I think there are a great investment though
They are a bit more money than other lights one option is to buy one Kino Flo light and use it as a key light
They make great key lights for interviews and then purchase some less expensive
Lights to round out your 3-point light get a one by one LED light. These are great to have in your kit
They're very versatile in the last five years or so. They become really common on sets
They're really portable and they're easy to manage by yourself
Light panels was one of the first names in the game on the one by one LED, but now there are so many competitors
So many other options out there that you can get for a lot less money
Neewer makes it slightly smaller than one by one light. That's only about 80 dollars. It's bicolor and dimmable
I recommend getting one of those and adding it to your kit. It's a really low investment. You can also battery Power Grip gear
Grip gear. Once you have your lights you're gonna want some modifiers and light stands to control your lights now
I recommend a small grip package with some C stands some sandbags and
Maybe a flag kit to get your production company started to grab four C stands
These will be about four hundred and thirty dollars altogether then grab four sandbags
This kit's gonna be about 25 dollars
This 18 by 24 flight kit from Westcott is about a hundred and seventy nine dollars and two generic light stands is a good place
To start these are $25 together
Post-production editing in post is where you tie all that great footage together you shop for your project and luckily today
Most computers can handle HD with no problem and even 4k now I've worked mostly on Macs since
I got started so I'm gonna recommend a Mac computer
but I am including a PC that one of my friends has been using that he recommends for video editing the new Apple iMacs are
fantastic computers
I have one that's about twenty six hundred dollars with an i7 processor and it's great it edits 4k with no problem
And I've had it for a few years and I just love it
I mean that's to me the best computer I've ever owned so I highly recommend investing a little extra into your editing computer
You're gonna have a lot less problems
Later, when you're trying to export and get those files quickly to your clients on the PC side of things the Dell XPS
27-inch all-in-one computer is a great option too. It's got really fast internal SSD drives
That'll let you edit that 4k footage as well. This computer is around $2,800 all in now
You also need some editing software to get you started whether you choose Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Pro or resolve
They're all great options. They're all really powerful
the tools today are
amazing for video editors and you don't have to worry like you did in the old days like I used to have
cuneiform and I was like smashing clips together. It was terrible everything crashed
I cried a lot more than I do now heck I used Final Cut version two. It could barely handle 480p
But Final Cut X is a one-time purchase. It's about $300 Premiere Pro is gonna run you about 240 dollars per year
So keep that in mind Final Cut Pro X one-time purchase premiere pro 240 per year
You know, what? Do you wanna do it? You want to pay every year more money?
You want to buy Final Cut X once I remember Final Cut X only on Mac
So if you're on a PC, you got to go with resolved or Premiere Pro resolved to me is the best option
That's what I'm gonna include in our budget resolve's free. I mean, you can't go wrong. people love it almost everybody
I know it's switching from premiere to resolve now because it's so stable Premiere has a lot of issues in bugginess
I'm actually on the 2017 version of premiere, which is like three years old just because it has less bugs in the new version
So I check out resolve it's free
I mean
What's the worst that could happen you?
you get a free program you download it you get something else if you want the whole cloud for Adobe at six hundred years just
Premiere is two hundred and forty dollars per year. Keep that mind don't want Photoshop, but you need After Effects
600 a year. Alright folks. Let's tally it all up. How much is that gonna cost us? Okay
Let's start with the camera department your camera package
You got your C 100 and or FS 5 with batteries and media you're looking at four
And dollars either the canon 24 to 105 or the sony 24-105 gonna range between 900 and 1200
I'm gonna go with the Canon tripod. I'm going with the Manfrotto 504 head $600. Let's tally up that camera package folks
$5,500. That's a big chunk of that 10,000 audio package
I'm gonna go with the Sennheiser MKE 600 which is $350 a
$90 boompole and the road Wireless go which is
$200 all in on the audio package six hundred and forty dollars for lighting and grip I'm gonna go with four C stands four
sandbags
two light stands and an 18 by 24 inch fly kit that's gonna be six hundred and fifty nine dollars for
four foot quasar tubes so you get four lights and the little kit so you get a case and two dimmers that's gonna be about
Five hundred dollars and lastly a neewer one by one LED light that's gonna be $80 grand total for the grip and lighting 1,239
Well, it's adding up pretty quick
Okay, and the edit suite I'm personally gonna recommend the iMac just cuz I know it's great
I've used it for a couple years and have had zero issues with it. I love it. It's my favorite computer
I've had in 20 years the iMac with those features is gonna be $2,600 for editing software. I'm gonna recommend using DaVinci Resolve
It's really popular right now and it's free so our grand total for all your gear to start
Your production company is nine thousand nine hundred and seventy nine dollars
So for just under ten grand, you literally have everything you need to start making videos and start making money
So the great thing about gear is you can keep adding to your kit you don't have to buy everything right now
Just get what you need and get started if you don't like something or you want to upgrade it later you can often get back
A lot of the money that you paid for it when you resell it
I know a lot of friends that sell stuff on eBay and they can often get really close to what they bought it for
So keep that in mind make sure to check out all the links below if you buy through the links we have down there it
Really helps our channel. We get like 1 percent of the sales or something like that
I don't know but whatever it is, it helps us, you know helps us get those meatball subs
so once you've built your arsenal of gear
Make sure you surround yourself with great people because you might start to need crew on those jobs and you know
You can't do all this yourself, you know
You're gonna have to have network and people you're gonna grow you're gonna grow you're gonna keep growing
You're gonna have like three directors and four DPs and seven sound guys and 20 PAs and 13
horse
Wranglers, that's how you know you made it
So let us know what you think is the gear to start your production company down in the comments. We'll see you next week
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