I spent a lot of time thinking about the most noticeable mistakes made by those in the Homebrew scene; this is the first of a series of seven articles looking at that. Or eight. Or twenty.
My blog, my rules baby.
Feel free to join the conversation and suggest your own deadly sin below!
DEADLY SIN NUMBER ONE - USING THE CAMERA MICROPHONE
Regardless of the quality of your camera, the attached microphone is not designed to give you good audio.
No really.
See, microphones are designed for different purposes. There are different pick up patterns and frequency ranges, each designed to record in specialized ways. The more expensive the microphone, the more specialized its use. A microphone designed for a drum set isn’t going to work as well in recording a trombone, and vice versa.
And your built-in camera microphone? It’s designed to pick up everything indiscriminately. You, the dog in the next room, and even the motor of the camera itself are all picked up with equal importance. Even in a best-case scenario, you’ll end up with a permanent hum from the camera’s mechanisms.
But there is a way to optimize the sound you get from any microphone: placement.
Makes sense, right? How close the microphone is to the subject effects how well that sound is recorded.
To give you some idea, your average directional shotgun microphone used on professional movie sets is at optimized distance at 2 feet from the actor’s chin. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s a decent ballpark.
The basic set up for reviewers is more likely to place the camera at least 6 feet away from the subject. Other videomakers will often go further. Are you beginning to see the problem here?
Of course, it’s always possible to place the camera to optimize sound quality, but then you’re highly limited in what shot’s you can get. Essentially, you’re being held hostage by the microphone. And even with the most optimized placement, you're still not going to eliminate the hum from the camera’s motor.
MICROPHONE TIPS
No getting around it, anyone wanting to make the jump into video making of any kind needs a separate microphone if they want good sound quality. There are several approaches you can take to get better sound. I’ll avoid the more obvious options such as lapel or hand-held microphones and get into more outside the box suggestions.
- Remember, it’s more about microphone placement then microphone quality. And just because a microphone is more expensive, doesn’t mean it’s best for your needs. I’ll reiterate what I said previously; as microphones get more expensive, they get more specialized. Do your research, and don’t be afraid to talk to an expert.
-You can take a page or two from the big boys. That carbon fiber extendable pole holding the microphone is called a boom. If you’ve a friend you can rope in, duck tape and a broom handle will give you the same function.
-Going back even farther, in the late 1920’s filmmakers would hide microphones in various props such as flower pots and have the actors perform the scene around them. This would likely have to be built into the concept of the show, but this can help to improve the audio quality while keeping the microphone invisible.
-Record the sound separately and after the fact. When filming the highly influential El Mariachi, Robert Rodriguez would have his actors re-do their lines immediately after he cut. In this way, the rhythms and pacing would be fresh in their minds. In editing, he would cut to another shot when the dialogue started to go out of sync. No reason you couldn’t do the same.
-Godzilla dubbing. Similar to the last tip, except the videomaker makes no attempt to sync the audio. Again, this has to be incorporated into the show concept, but in the right hands this could have a lot of potential.
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