It is a privilege that Film Annex is giving such a wonderful platform to share our thoughts and experiences.

Film making has always been my passion since my school days. My friend Jaydeep boosted me up in materializing my passion. We started out with Jaydeep's Kodak point-n-shoot digital camera and then later he upgraded to a Handycam. But things changed with the advent of DSLR. Film making has gone a level higher henceforth. From amateur to professional, the DSLR has become the talk of the town. Personally, the video quality of Canon DSLRs is what I bank on. Nikon is good but the manual functions in video mode in Canon gives it an extra edge over the former. The video quality in Canon also appears to be a bit more 'filmy' than Nikon.

I personally own a Canon 600D and I am quite happy with it. Though I would suggest to buy the 60D if you have that extra bulge in your pocket. The swiveling screen of both the 600D & the 60D helps a lot while taking shots from unusual angles.

Now coming to the point after some blabbering.

1. Shoot in Full HD mode (1920 x 1080).
2. Shoot in 24 fps, because as they say that keeping the frames per second to 24 gives the video that most sought-after film look.
3. Plug in an external microphone to capture more distinct sound. The in-camera mic is good but an external one performs better. Go for the Rode Video Mic.
4. Keep the Audio mode to manual. Check the audio level before pressing the record button. If the audio level is just touching the yellow marker it means that there will be no audio clipping in that place. Always reset the audio levels when moving to some other place.
5. Buy a Steadicam if you can afford one. Otherwise use your tripod as a Steadicam. The use of Steadicam is to ensure image stabilization.
6. Keep everything in manual mode (most essentially the focus control). Change focus while shooting according to your main subject and other subjects present in the frame. Use shallow depth-of-field when shooting any particular object or living creature.
7. The lesser your f number (wider your aperture), the shallower will be the depth-of-field.
8. In Canon DSLRs put the Picture Style to Faithful mode. What it does is cut down the contrast totally to give that film look.

Concluding this part of my tutorial I would like to say that camera is just a medium of filming. Focus on the subject matter more and therefore I think you can connect with the viewers which is the main objective of film making and hence will make your film making journey fruitful.