For an 9 – year old

[Anonymous]

I want to get my 9-year old son into video. What’s a good starter camera:

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[CraftersOfLight]

What equipment do you have already? PC, editing software, etc.?

How much are you looking to spend?Do you want solid-state (some form of flashmemory)or tape/disk based recording media? You want a tripod with that?

What level of interest does he currently have/show in it? Is he “accident” prone? how much manual control do you want to have available?

There are lots of nice consumer grade cameras out there and the answers to the above can help sort through some of them.

[EarlC]

Pretty much anything in the Canon Vixia line is a good place to start. Of course, hot with the youngsters are the Flip Mino and Flip Mino HD type cameras – they love the portability, ease of use, and many of them have the means for direct uploading to YouTube.

Kids are remarkably resourceful, inventive and creative. A camera of his own doesn’t have to be a major investment at this time. Most anything in the $200 to $600 range should do for a first camera, BUT like Crafters notes, it depends on what video editing and computer, if any, resources will be available as well.

[birdcat]

I used to teach the video & photography Merit Badges to Boy Scouts and the biggest question I have first is what is your son’s level of experience? I have been shooting stills since I was 6 and at age 12 added movies (16mm & super 8).

Kids can make fantastic video given some innate skill (a good eye), some training and lots of exposure (read get out there and do it).

If he has had some experience with photography already that would be a plus but not required.

He needs to understand some basic rules such as the rule of thirds, leading lines, chiaroscuro (contrast of light to dark), framing and such and with those he can practice to hone them.

Personally, unless he’s already shown some serious sticktoitiveness I would not spend a lot of money on a video camera – There are smaller Flip style cameras that take some decent footage for less than $100. You also may want to get him involved with editing the video once done shooting. Windows has a tool called MS Movie Maker that comes with it free that can be used to start with but many of the big professional non-linear editors have sub $100 versions (Sony, Adobe, etc…) that give a lot more power and ease of getting a good final product.

Please feel free to ask any questions and also encourage your son to get online here (with your supervision) and ask his own questions.

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys. Great info! This is more my idea than his so I think the smaller Flip may be the way to go until he shows serious interest himself.

[EarlC]

If this “creative nudge” by you results in anything, I suspect that the Videomaker Forum participants would LOVE to see something that gets produced and posted on YouTube or whatever. Is this YOUR way of sneaking into the biz for yourself 😉 “Well, honey” I’m just trying to get him started on a great career path and we’re going to need this computer, that equipment, these monitors, those mics, and a partridge in a pear tree.” 🙂

[hmueller]

Hi

The Flip is certainly a good choice but you should also consider the Kodak Zi8 which is similar but has an input for an external mic – something that might become useful as your son gains experience.

Heidi

[EarlC]

Too much camera at this point, IMHO and I would suspect pop agrees. It is, however, where I still think I’m going if the finances will just squeak up a tad more between now and fourth quarter. If not, Heidi is likely to talk me into one of the Canon Vixia models as a mid-step to higher def, but sadly more compressed, production.

[Grinner Hester]

My lil man gets my hand me downs. He still sports an 8mm camcorder today. A simple miniDV camera and Premiere on a laptop will keep any 9 year old busy for quite a while. Here’s a piece he helped me shoot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5PGdzjRTRU&feature=search

[hmueller]

Getting a camera is just one part of “getting into video” for kids. The other part is editing. I would like to recommend the following book and DVD – it is really step by step and kids (even us older kids) find it very fascinating: Creating Hollywood-Style Movies with Adobe Premiere Elements 7It includes all the video source clips needed for the editing excercises.

[BruceMol]

I’m working with a couple of 13 yr olds and we are finding the lack of mic input very annoying and limiting. However, it is helping with learning about post production, gathering Foley, creating takes just for audio, using another camcorder as an audio recorder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb4e9r3cmZE

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