Written by Wyatt Beckson聽
It鈥檚 me again, Wyatt Beckson, a graduating senior. I know this pandemic hasn鈥檛 been the friendliest to us, especially those of us graduating this year. Nonetheless, we can still reflect on the benefits this department and university has provided us with, including the film program’s equipment – available to all majors/minors in the program.聽聽
For me, the Canon XA40 is about the most practical and versatile camera that I鈥檝e used from the equipment room. This camera is very compact, making it very easy to handle when using handheld shots. Additionally, the touch screen design makes handling and manipulating the in-camera settings very manageable. Another aspect of this camera that I like is the two XLR audio ports, allowing you to utilize any of the XLR cables we have available, enabling you to hook up literally any applicable microphone directly聽to the camera. If you haven鈥檛 tried this tactic yet, using this methodology takes away the extra tedious step of syncing your audio, which could take hours. What鈥檚 more, you can do all of these things while shooting in beautiful 4k imagery!
I know you might be intrigued, but are probably wondering about the drawbacks of using this camera. Luckily enough for you, I can honestly only think of just one. This one major drawback isn鈥檛 even that big of an inconvenience. The thing to keep in mind when using the XA40 is that the video output for this camera will be a single AVCHD folder. This means that no matter how many clips of video you take, you will always only end up with one file that also has an undefined file size. Having that said, always be mindful to upload your files to a hard drive with plenty of space, just for insurance.
I hope I鈥檝e provided you all with an at least decent source of advice or perspective. Hopefully, with this information, we can all become more practical filmmakers and scholars.
Your resident film major,
Wyatt Beckson 鈥�20
He/Him/His