Hey!

I need some help regarding a documentary im planing on doing in a couple of months. The plan is to follow a popular MMA fighter around and document his training/build up to his upcoming fight and/or just document what being a fighter is like. We will probably be shooting indoors for the most part and we will be doing interviews with him, coaches and training buddies etc. The documentary will be featured on some of the bigger MMA sites in Sweden so I want it to look professional.

As for my own experience I have done a couple of successfull highlight videos(editing) but I've never shoot anything myself and I have no education or experience when it comes to filming/recording but I am however a very fast learner and fairly smart ?;)?

I am wondering what kind of camera and equipment you think would be suitable for my project. The budget is around 2700 dollars(at most! preferably less).

I realise that I need a camera and I've been looking at:
Sony HVR-HD1000E
Canon HV30(or HV40,I don't really know the difference)

What would be the major differences between the HVR-HD1000E and the HV40/30? If you have any own suggestions feel free to suggest them. Also it would be nice with some "on the fly" focus wheel or something similar but also a auto focus mode. I use Sony Vegas Pro 9 for editing and my computer specs are:
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 3650
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ ? 2600 MHz
Chipset: nVidia GeForce 6100V

I think I'll most likely need some sort of an external mic and a tripod but I don't know what kind so I need some help there.

If there's anything else that you feel I'd might need feel free to post that too.

Thanks in advance

Go big or go home!