me and my friends are planning to film a show and the quality of our movies have been pretty bad.
i dont have anything i want for x-mas so im thinkin about just getting stuff to help us out with our show. i have a sony digital handycam dcr trv250 and dont think it has any microphone upgrades available, anyone know if there are any mics i could get that would work with this camera? if not got any tips on what to do?
and the worst thing about our films has been lighting, what kind of light would you recommend i get for my camera? would it be worth it to buy better lenses? and is there anything else that would be a help to filming a show that i could get?
we are just starting out in all this movie making stuff so please speak in words i will understand.

I just watched finding brandon. It was really good, you guys have a randomly awesome funny sense of comedy. I do agree your production could be better, and maybe editing could be a little tighter. Your Bio's say you are all comm majors at your school, so you should look in to the free things they may have to offer (pro DV cams, lighting kits, film cams...) Its so hard to afford anything while going to college, so why not reap the benefits of what you are already paying for? If your school does not have such resources, go to home depot and buy some halogen worklamps, 500-1000 watts and familiarize yourself with post production picture enchancement to get the best you can. As far as lenses I don't think you can change lenses on handycams, so I would refrain from putting too much screw on stuff in front of it because unless you are spending big bucks the glass will not be as good as your handycams lens (Some handicams have zeiss lenses i think...)

Anyways Good luck guys! I do a sketch comedy TV show at my school and we have problems mostly concerning audio. Its fun though and one hell of a learning experience.

id use a standard lense kit at minimum: ND Filter(cuts down on light and increases colour depth slightly), Circular Polariser(glare & colour depth), and a UV filter for lense protection

*not lense, filter kit. sorry

I was thinking about getting a microphone simply to get better sound quality in the voices. The camera's stock mic does a good job capturing voices and sounds the problem is sometimes the voices come in too high-pitched.

i would highly reccomend NOT using the cameras stock mic, it will pick up everything... this is not a good thing. You will hear the motors in the camera, the annoying little sounds that you dont want to hear like a loud refridgerator humm in the background. Invest in a nice shotgun mic, or barrow one, you will hear a dramatic difference. Also, I cant emphesize enough how important lighting is for film. Without light scenes look dull on film, eventhough the might not to you eye. Lighing exaggerates shadows, highlights, and brings out color tones. It is the best way to make your films look better.

i agree with parnell on the filter kit, then u shuld also get a nice shotgun mic., and as big jay said, lighting is huge, the better the lighting the better the picture.