Buy Local or Import?
I’m proud to be a South Australian film maker, but it can be damn expensive! Just recently I had filmed a seminar for Interclinical Laboratories at a function here in Adelaide. They said that there was a wireless system in the conference room, so I thought nothing of it, came along and set up as usual feeling good that I would be able to get some good audio for the DVD the client wanted – I was wrong! Not only was the system old and noisy, but only a few minutes into the seminar the lapel unit died, even after putting new batteries in it and everything! Luckily for me I had a good shotgun mic in my kit and wasting no time , set it up. This event was going to be the last straw! I NEEDED a good lapel mic, so I started to do some research on brands, Sennheizer was my #1 choice after speaking with some sound guys. Now I wanted to buy from Adelaide initially, then I decided to get some prices around Australia. Now let it be known, I knew that a kit would not be cheap, but come on! $800 Au for a Sennheiser Lapel kit felt a little steep, so I decided to look off shore to see what I could find…. BINGO! I found a nice little shop in the US called Unique Squared, that had an ENG kit available for $750 AU plus postage , this kit included with the lapel mic a SKP100G2 Plug on Transmitter (worth about $400 AU), good for eliminating those leads on location when you are using a shotgun mic, or if your recording vocals from a hand held, plus a free e835 hand held mic (worth about $100AU). What could I say, It was a little more than I wanted to spend but I got a great kit for any occasion !
I’ve found that buying from overseas (or sometimes just interstate) is the only real way to go. Unfortunately in Adelaide there only seems to be one retailer holding the sole rights to many products we need as filmmakers, and, due to that situation these people seem to dictate their own price for many items, making them un-affordable for the independent filmmakers.
One thing to be wary of (and to do your research on thoroughly) is the warranty situation for some of these items. Many items purchased in the States are only covered by warranty over there (or have a return to base type warranty).
I recently purchased my HDV camera (Sony) and could have paid $1,000.00 less if I purchased overseas, however the warranty situation swayed me to be ripped off here.
I’ve seen the Sennheiser kit that Mat is referring to in this article and it was well worth the purchase price!