To paraphrase an old saying video without pictures radio, video without audio is poop. Audio is at least 50% of the video you shoot. Without audio your video is simply a silent movie. besides the obvious audio of interviews, natural sound and music makeup a huge part of effective video. I can't tell you how many times I've received video from other shooters for various projects. With the shooter and crew having a conversation and laughing while they're shooting B roll, or shooter shooting from the car while the radio is blasting, this is inexcusable, it's unusable.

Even if you're shooting only B roll, you need to make sure your audio is usable for the final edit. So let's talk about audio. First off, you need to know that analog audio is a lot more forgiving than digital audio. Analog can handle over modulation much better than digital. This is audio recorded at a good level. This is audio recorded at an excessive level, also called over modulation, distortion and clipping.

This cannot be fixed in the mix. Clip digital audio cannot be saved. So take care to record at a proper level. We're on that in a little bit. At the bare minimum you need to dedicate one audio track To natural sound, which is the microphone mounted on your camera, and one audio track to your main audio, which is either a lavalier or hand mic, or an additional shotgun mic operated by a boom operator. I've always put my main audio and channel one my net sound or camera mic on channel two, but you should ask your producer before shooting.

So here are the bare basics. You need a quality shotgun mic mounted on your camera and recording natural sound to one of your cameras audio channels. You need a hand mic along with a lavalier to record the main audio of your interview to one channel. This can be hardwired, which means a mic that's connected directly via audio cable into the camera by good quality mics. A good sign that your mic is not up to the task as if it has a quarter inch connector instead of an XLR connector. You should also have a decent wireless audio system this consists of a lot Wireless body pack transmitter and Lavalier and wireless receiver on your camera.

For added utility you can also get a transmitter with an XLR connector, so you can use your hand mic wirelessly, or plug it into a soundboard. Your wireless system should have tunable frequencies. So if you're picking up radio signals, or other noise you can change to another frequency that is clean. Placing a lavalier mic, I always get a kick out of watching people mount lavalier mics on talent, especially male crew members placing lavalieres on female talent. Everybody gets all bashful and trembling and goes through all kinds of convolutions to put a mic on a woman running the cable up the back and over the shoulder and through the hair, whatever I can relate. My first gig was hiding lava layers on pageant contestants wearing bikinis.

They had as much fun with the awkwardness as I did. On a woman, placing a lavalier mic can be creative, especially if the talent is prudish. I would just go for running the mic cable down the front of her shirt or dress and plugging into the transmitter that has on the back of her dress or pants. If she has a problem with you, if you're male placing your mic, tell her to step off set and have a female member of the crew helper or ask the talent to run the mic cable herself bringing the end of the mic cable out from under her shirt where the transmitter is. If you want to hide the mic so it doesn't appear on camera. I like to use a piece of fabric tape.

You can get a roll of this wherever sewing supplies are sold. It's stickier than gaffer tape and won't damage your talents clothes. Don't use anything like duct tape or packing tape that can leave a residue or damaged delicate fabrics. Do you like my jacket? Putting a lavalier on a guy's pretty strict Right forward, chances are he's wearing a jacket and or a tie. You have the option of using a tie clip and putting the Lavalier either on his lapel or his tie.

If placing the mic on his lapel, make sure you place the mic on the lapel that His face is facing toward when he will be speaking on camera. If his head is turned slightly towards camera, right, place the mic on his left lapel like this. And then you know, make a little little loop de loop and clip it so it looks nice and neat. And you make sure it's under the lapel. And you can tape it down on the piece gaff tape if you want. Whether your talent is male or female, you should make sure the Lavalier is as close to the person's mouth as possible.

So if I was talking off camera like this, I would be talking into the mic as opposed to here where I'd be talking away from the mic. Don't put it away down on the little guys lapel either. Like down here I've seen a lot. Put it up close by his mouth, hand mic position. This is a little more straightforward. Hand mics are very directional.

So as long as your talent is holding the mic below their mouth and not off to the side, you will get good audio without too much extraneous noise. Some people have a tendency to eat the mic while they're talking and in the process cover their mouth for the mic. If you see this happening, stop recording and coach the talent to hold the mic lower. Make sure you have a windscreen on the mic to block any wind noise.