We used one of the Canon DSLRs for all of the shooting, I forget which model, but it wasn't quite the "top" one, but close. We had a variable zoom lens that could go down to f-stop 4.5, and a 50mm prime lens that could go down to 1.8 for low light shooting or for when we wanted a nice shallow depth of field. You're right, focus sometimes was a problem because of that, and it was hard to get the actors to not move when it was in play. We used a light meter to get our settings, and made sure to white balance regularly.
For audio, depending on crew availability, we had either one fellow with his own full pro audio rig, or when he couldn't make it, we ran the audio to a 2nd video camera with XLR inputs. I can't recall what brand/model the shotgun mic was, but I believe it was a middle-price-range Sennheiser.
I agree that there was a lot going on, probably too ambitious of a story for a 10-minute film. We had 9 locations! Then add the underwater scene. What also complicated shooting a little was that because we were working with less experienced actors, we shot each scene mostly sequentially to help them stay on track rather than bundling each angle's lines together, so there were a lot of setup changes for each shoot. The director and production manager/editor generally came up with production schedules that reflected that, so other than the underwater shoot which ran to 2am, we were either out on time, or just had short overruns.
It was a good crew, and everybody got along and had fun while making sure things got done. Probably the only "drama" behind the scenes was the tug of war between the writer and director over what to cut, and how to shoot things to make sure the essence of her script stayed rather than the importance of any particular line. This was very much a "say the line as written" type of shoot rather than letting the actors try different things, but given the schedule, that as probably a good thing because we knew when we got what we needed and could move on.
Ahh, I see the others from the festival are online now as well.
http://www.youtube.com/accesssacramento The last 10 uploads. Only go look if you're curious what other local productions look like. For reference, "The Breakup" won the audience award for favorite, and "The Watering Hole" won the producers' choice award. No real standouts in my opinion, but I thought "Buddies" was effectively done.
