The nature of this business has become so technologically heavy that it is hard to not become some sort of techno-geek in the process. Except for the outside fringe producers and film purists, most documentarians shoot on some type of digital format. This could be HD tapes, HDV tapes, direct to hard drive, or the newest P2 cards. Any of the commercial vendors, such as Sony, Canon, Panasonic, or Grass Valley all have cameras that record to these formats.

Digital still cameras (we prefer Canon SLRs) are also some of our favorite gizmos. We can shoot thousands of stills like we did for Arlington:In Eternal Vigil and use them in our films. What is also nice about the digitals cameras is they become a great archiving tool. We travel to the National Archives II in College Park, Maryland and use their resources of historical films and stills. In the case of stills, we can literally order up hundreds of Matthew Brady original prints and photograph them on provided flat tables.

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