Media Suite Recommendation

[lionsl2005]

Hi all,

 

One of my school is turning their ICT suite in to a Film and media suite. I had a word with the headteacher who wanted the followings.

 

1. camera to record videos.

2. Apple imc

3. Green Screen

4. Tripod

 

What else needed ( possibly lighting)

 

any recommendation for the camera and iMac specification please. anyone have this similar setups?

 

Thanks

 

lionsl2005

[dhicks]

If this is a media "suite", is there going to be more than one computer / camera / tripod? If they've specified Mac(s), do they plan to use specific software? Is this for classes of general pupils to use, or is this something for GCSE / A-level students to be trained on?

 

If you have a Windows network and you're buying a suite of Macs, don't forget to include MDM / management of some sort in the budget. Just the one or two machines can be joined to Active Directory and manually managed easily enough, but more than that and it's worth having a decent management solution in place. We priced up JAMF for something like £10,000 for a suite of 22 Macs, which is expensive but cheaper solutions shoudl be available.

 

If this is for older students for training purposes, I'd go for a Blackmagic Design device (from around £1,000), then use DaVinchi Resolve (free) for editing - that's about the cheapest "pro" setup if you're training people. If this is for classes of general pupils then iMovie on the Mac is probably okay, although we use the excellent web-based WeVideo. For a camera, a DSLR will produce nice video, plus you can use it for still images.

 

For a "tripod", if you have a nice camera you'll want something with a fluid head to make pointing the camera nice and smooth. If you just want to hold a (not too heavy) camera steady in one position then an Amazon basics tripod will do okay. I quite like the look of the Padcaster, which turns an iPad into a camera, complete with tripod and lense setup.

 

Green screen: if you have a dedicaed suite then it might be nice to be able to paint a section of the wall for use with chromakey. That also means you can install lights to evenly light the backdrop, which is always the tricky part with chromakey. I'm not sure how much lightfield cameras and similar have come on yet, but I think there's at least one mobile phone on the market that is advertising being able to remove the background from a video in real-time, so the need for chromakey might soon become redundant.

[DrBeaker]

What's the reason behind the "Macs" route?

 

A standard Windows PC of i5, 8GB RAM and an SSD is adequate enough for video editing these days, I've done far more at work on far worse hardware.

 

How are you going to be storing the footage and raw files etc? Unless you've got dedicated drives or a NAS etc that's going to be the biggest challenge. Rendering speed over the network or access times.

 

...

Green screen: if you have a dedicaed suite then it might be nice to be able to paint a section of the wall for use with chromakey. That also means you can install lights to evenly light the backdrop, which is always the tricky part with chromakey. I'm not sure how much lightfield cameras and similar have come on yet, but I think there's at least one mobile phone on the market that is advertising being able to remove the background from a video in real-time, so the need for chromakey might soon become redundant.

 

Brilliant idea, this was toyed with at one school but IIRC never got off the drawing board.

 

I'd love to be involved with something like this, sounds like then school wants to develop the students skills to be fair.

[lewisVeryPC]

Green screen: if you have a dedicaed suite then it might be nice to be able to paint a section of the wall for use with chromakey. That also means you can install lights to evenly light the backdrop, which is always the tricky part with chromakey. I'm not sure how much lightfield cameras and similar have come on yet, but I think there's at least one mobile phone on the market that is advertising being able to remove the background from a video in real-time, so the need for chromakey might soon become redundant.

 

I used to do Media at college and unless the lighting was even all over the wall then it caused image distortion when rendering it on Final Cut. This was 10 years ago though so I expect it has become better at recognising the desired colour since then!

 

If you can get blackout blinds and lights to illuminate the wall/green drop down screen as dhicks mentions this would be a good set up, although you would need a light source close to the wall/green drop down screen to prevent shadows from the presenter casting a shadow. The only challenge may be from the filming users wanting to have low light source on themselves however the solution is that the foreground non-green screen can be light adjusted.

 

My old Macbook has a free app called SFX that could render a green screen in real time, I'm not sure if there is a free Windows equivalent though.

[SamanthaD]

I'd bypass the Headteacher and go to whoever is actually teaching the unit (though keep the Headteacher in the loop).

 

Macs - not needed. As it's a new venture I'd steer them down a Windows route as there's no precedent set yet.

Green screen - although painting a wall would be cheap unless the wall is perfectly flat and smooth there'll be shadows on the bumps. I'd go for a wool serge cloth curtain on a track that can be stretched and weighted correctly to give a flat, matte finish (and can be kept clean by putting away when not in use)

Camera - what's the end goal? Do you need UHD resolution or are you making YouTube clips? Ascertain what the need is first (and budget) then you can look at cameras. Pointless buying a 4k camera if you're only kicking out 1080p. Also consider storage and data transfer if you're working in a 4k environment.

Tripod - buy something that will exceed what you need now. You can't go wrong with Manfrotto or Silk - if the budget's there now spend it on quality parts - cameras will be updated in time but hardware is unlikely....