Summarize the following:
Primarily, the most cost-effective and high-quality cameras that you can use easily are Mini-DVs that record digitally to tape. The quality is high enough, the tapes are easy to store, and the cameras are widely available and cheap enough that it's usually the best option. A small Panasonic or Sony camcorder usually runs between $300 and $500. Sony premiums are the most popular Mini-DV cameras among skaters, useful for their portability and quality. More expensive options might include the Sony vx1000, vx2000 or a vx2100, which are professional-quality, but probably excessive for the beginner. Make sure you have a Firewire 400 port on your computer. Ideally, Mini-DVs should also use LP mode for maximum quality of the footage. Fisheye lenses is useful for keeping both the skater and the obstacle in the frame, allowing the lens to maximize the width of the field of vision, giving the impression that we're both very close to the action and far enough away to see everything happen. It also helps smaller objects appear somewhat larger, or taller. It's a common trick that's both practical, psychedelic, and just plain cool. You're not going to be able to edit on the fly while you're trying to skate around, do tricks, and finding an easy-to-use editing software will help make your video professional and straightforward. Before you film anything, make sure you'll have an easy way to edit it. There are lots of free editing options, like iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, Avidemux, all of which are standard or available for free. While not necessarily as professional, these programs are simple to use and should result in high-quality videos that are perfect for beginners. Professional options, like Final Cut Pro, VideoStudio Pro are available if you want a wider variety of options during the editing process and a higher-quality video product in the end. Before you go out filming, do some scouting to find good places to shoot video. It's no use to waste time carrying around a camera while you and your friends look for a place to make a video. Do that work ahead of time. Find a good spot with good easy-to-film, but challenging obstacles, so that you'll have something worth remembering. Ideally, it would be good to find a place with several different varieties of obstacle. A good grinding rail? A good set of concrete stairs? A gap? Try to find a park or a plaza with everything you'll need for some good tricks and enough space to do them in. Make sure that wherever you're planning on filming is skater friendly and that you're not trespassing on private property. It's more traditional to film in locations that aren't full-on skateparks, to illustrate your ingenuity and creativity, but a skate park would be a fine place to film, as well. It'll be more time-efficient to film many skaters at once, who are all trying to do the same, or different, tricks. If you're trying to film your friend do a 360 hard-flip, it might waste a lot of camera battery and space to keeping waiting for restarts and recoveries. If you can keep filming different people, though, you'll end up with a lot more good footage that you can edit together in the end. Try to always buy and bring two of everything to a filming session. Get two batteries, two tapes, even consider getting an extra lens if necessary. Because it can be so difficult to coordinate getting a bunch of skaters together and getting the trick worked out to a filmable quality, you don't want to have to cut the day short because you've run out of batteries. Never miss that critical shot by staying prepared ahead of time. If you are using a apple or android, make sure you bring a charger, or have charged it fully.
Buy a Mini-DV camera. Use a fisheye lens for the camera. Get some basic video editing software. Find good obstacles for filming. Film a group of skaters. Get backups.