When I was mostly an ink-stained wretch, I asked my TV colleagues why they had to mic up the people they were interviewing rather than rely on the microphone on the camera.
"Because that sounds terrible," they would explain.
Doing just home videos at the time, I didn't think it was much of a big deal.
But later, when I started doing more multimedia journalism, I realized they were right. Shooting with an iPhone or a bridge camera in courtrooms or outdoor locations produced sound that was downright awful.
I tried attaching a mic to the Lightning port on the iPhone, but there was some interference, and the sound quality did not improve drastically. I tried boosting the volume in post, but that did not help; in some cases it made things worse.
The bridge camera, like many prosumer DSLRs, does not have a mic jack, so attaching a microphone to that was out of the question.
Then, after doing some reading in online video tutorials, I decided to do what other shooters, even Hollywood productions do: record the sound separately and merge it in post.
Editing software, such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere, can automatically sync a recorded soundtrack with the camera audio, especially if there is a reference sound, such as a clap or saying the word "Go."
(Those clapper boards you always see in movies to signal the start of a shoot? That's used to create an audible and visual sync point for the audio editors.)
To record the audio for my video, I used a voice recorder. Testing it in my living room, the results were remarkable. The camera audio picked up a lot of ambient room noise, while the voice recorder was a cleaner sound.
But, little did I know, the trial by fire was going to be the next day. There was a fire at the local homeless shelter's recycling center. I did a quick raw video with the iPhone to get something up on the web, and then started shooting B-roll with the bridge camera.
Finally, I interviewed the fire department spokesman, under probably the worst possible audio conditions. We were outdoors, three fire engines idling in the background and a 10-mph wind blowing across the scene.
Here's the straight-out-of-camera video.
Awful, isn't it? There was no way I would be able to use that for the website.
If you notice, he's holding the voice recorder, and here's what it sounded like when, back at the office, I used the recorder's sound instead.
Much better, don't you think?
I could probably improve it further by using a lavaliere mic, but this technique can also help improve your home videos as well.
You can see the full video here.
