Basics Of Camcorder Sound Recording - How To Shoot Better Home Video

Videos are exploding all over the Internet, especially on MySpace and YouTube. Some go viral, and some, let’s face it, are viral. A lot of us are making our videos public for the very first time… while wild video camcorder work attracts attention, it’s good to have some control over when it’s wild and when it’s not.

Sound, or “audio” is another story; if it’s bad, it’s just bad. If your audience can’t hear the person who’s talking, they’re just going to click “next.” When people using a camcorder get involved in what they’re shooting, (even those with some experience), the first thing they forget about is sound. Audio that accompanies video has a major impact on the perceptions of the audience, but when you are capturing a scene, you are part of that scene. Your brain tends to block out sounds that appear as normal until you watch the playback later. Then, Ooops!

The following article is excerpted from our book “How To Shoot Better Home Videos – Help From The Hollywood Pros.” We hope it helps stamp out bad camcorder video!

Shhhhhhh! The audience is listening…

No Talking!
It might seem that it "goes without saying," but… don’t talk, laugh or gasp while recording, unless you’re deliberately commenting on the scene. Your mouth is two inches from the on-board microphone. Anything you say can, and will, be used against you. Once you have learned to curb your enthusiasm enough to shoot in silence, you can begin training yourself to hear the sounds that are going on around you. It’s not just enthusiasm that can draw attention to the camera operator - shuddering sighs of boredom can bring the viewer’s attention to a standstill, especially if it is accompanied by an unexpected camera movement that feels like a huge wave just rolled under the boat.

Hearing your surroundings

If there is a loud air conditioner and you have control over it, turn it off. If there is freeway traffic outside the room where you are shooting, get a “cutaway” shot of the freeway, through a window. (A “cutaway” is a shot of an element that may or may not be part of the scene but contains information helpful to the audience). Once the audience knows why the sound is there, they will find it less disturbing.

Example:

You may be shooting a wedding outdoors and crows suddenly start making a ruckus. Get a shot of the crows and you’ll be less likely to have to spend futile hours trying to eliminate the screeching of the crows from the “soundtrack” (the audio track that accompanies the video), once you start editing the ceremony.

Microphones

The “microphones,” those instruments capable of converting sound waves into electric current that are built into consumer camcorders, are very good for general sound. They are particularly reliable. If you’re getting picture, you’re getting sound. However, they are very limited when it comes to interviews, acting scenes, and important conversation.

The further away you are from the person whose words you are recording, the more general audio the microphone is going to pick up. It will also pick up air conditioners and any motor that may be humming away, including a desktop computer.

When you purchase your camcorder, make sure it has an external microphone jack. That is, an input, usually a "mini jack" that takes an external microphone, if you intend to use it to record clean audio such as interviews or narration. Many camcorders are now being built without these, and audio capture is restricted to the built-in microphone. This could really limit the usefulness of your audio. If you have one of these cameras, try to shoot as close to your subject as you can to eliminate unwanted ambience (general sound being generated by the location in which you are shooting).

Camcorders and other electronic devices do so many things; a person is inclined to assume it’s going to do the simple things, too. When we visit the sales associate in the camera department we always ask, “What is it that this camcorder doesn’t do?”

Besides the on-board “omnidirectional mic” (which captures sound from all directions), you will want two types of additional microphones in your home video arsenal, assuming you bought a camcorder with a microphone jack. The first and most important is the shotgun. This is a unidirectional microphone and the “cardioid” version (with a heart-shaped “pick-up pattern”) is designed to reduce feedback. This means that the pick-up pattern of the mic will pick up the on-camera subject at whom it is pointing, but sounds occurring at right angles are greatly reduced. This results in much higher quality audio.

The second type of microphone is known as the “lavaliere” (lah vah leer), it attaches to the speaker’s clothes and is perfect for interviews, so having a pair of them is a good idea. The cordless "lavs" or "lav mics" are the most useful, but it’s important to listen for occasional radio interference. The corded type is much cheaper and okay for sit-down interviews.

Headphones:

Now that you have some control over your audio, you will want to "monitor" it with headphones. Any will do, but the better the quality, the more useful they will be, and those that block noise coming from anywhere but the camcorder are preferred.

Once you’re monitoring the sound with a headset, you’ll be listening for air conditioners, dogs barking, radio interference, and any other noises that distract from the audio that you’re capturing. It’s good to remember that there are at least 2 sound recordists on any serious movie set (the boom person, and the actual recordist). One catch-phrase in professional video production goes, “If you didn’t get the audio, you didn’t get the scene.”