would you rather watch

a video that is super low resolution but

it has crystal clear audio or would you

want to watch something in 8k resolution

with having terrible sounding audio

where you can't hear any of the dialogue

or there's no sound design or anything

chances are most of you are going to opt

for picking the first option with lower

resolution but higher quality audio

[Music]

all right well i've got chelsea here

sitting in for me for this interview

setup and the first thing i want to do

is talk about using a boom mic and

that's what i've got right here this is

a rode ntg5 microphone it's a shotgun

microphone and this is boomed overhead

so the direction of the audio basically

is being captured like this so these

shotgun microphones are really good

from rejecting sound coming from behind

the microphone now these are really good

for capturing really clear and natural

sounding audio now some things to

consider with

shotgun microphones first of all if

you're indoors it's actually better to

use a super cardioid microphone as

opposed to a shotgun microphone because

the way it's designed is able to pick up

dialogue much better indoors than a

shotgun microphone however it is really

common to use a shotgun microphone in

fact probably the most common shotgun

microphone out there used on

professional sets is the sennheiser

mkh416 and those are used on hollywood

movies and episodic tv shows and all

kinds of stuff it's a really really

great sounding mic now when it comes to

placement there's a couple of things

that you need to consider with a boom

mic first of all the obvious thing is

you want to make sure that it's out of

frame but you want to make sure that

it's just out of frame so it's as close

to the talent as possible now once it's

outside a frame another thing you want

to consider is making sure that it's not

over their head or too far away from

their mouth now if i'm indoors i like to

just keep the microphone bare like this

because

it just sounds much cleaner and crisper

however if you are outside or

if there is an air conditioning unit or

something that you can't control then

you want to put something over it like a

dead cat or something like that just so

that any kind of wind noise or anything

like that is going to be blocked from

say that dead cat or whatever the case

may be now for getting that mic boomed

overhead of the talent what you need to

use is a boom pole this one right here

is a little bit shorter it's made for

travel because i travel quite a bit for

work and i do quite a lot of interviews

traveling so this thing just kind of

fits in my check case a lot better than

a longer boom pole and then i've got

this boom pole holder which fits into a

grip head of a c-stand and then

obviously at the bottom of the c-stand

we have a sandbag on it for safety you

want to have that on all of your stands

whether it's for grip

lighting

or sound just make sure you have it on

there for safety now shotgun microphones

are really good and sound really natural

but i wouldn't recommend using just that

if possible what i would also recommend

using is a lavalier microphone this kind

of gives you

the flexibility to kind of balance sound

out either to use a mix of both of them

or just switch to the lav mic if it just

sounds better now when i'm filming

interviews i much prefer to use both the

shotgun mic and a lav mic in conjunction

with each other just because you have

the flexibility of in post choosing

between the two mics whichever one may

sound better when you start eq'ing it or

maybe you want to blend them together to

kind of get a richer sound i've done

that as well now the placement of the

lav mic largely depends on uh what the

setting is sometimes if you're doing a

more of a cinematic piece where it's a

you know you want to make your

documentary or interview kind of look

more like a netflix interview then you

might want to hide that lavalier

microphone and there's a number of ways

i'm not going to go over all the ways in

this video how to do that but you can

hide it under a collar maybe in a hat

you can hide it

under someone's shirt with some stickies

or something like that so there's a

number of ways to be able to hide that

lavalier microphone if you want to be

able to do that now one major benefit of

having a wireless lavalier microphone

over a shotgun microphone would be in

this kind of scenario where your talent

is really far away from the camera for

whatever reason now

not typical for your traditional

sit-down interview like with the framing

that we've got here where i would

normally be sitting in this blue chair

but think of a youtube host or a tv host

or something and they're walking around

in the frame and maybe they're even

turning their back to the frame or

they're just really far away from the

camera

this microphone here on my chest is

picking up the audio much clearer than

say the shotgun microphone that's over

there about 10 to 12 feet away from me

so up until now you've been hearing the

wireless lavalier microphone but since

i'm here in the seat i'll kind of give

you a comparison between the shotgun

microphone and the wireless lavalier

microphone so you can kind of get an

idea of the different audio quality and

characteristics between the two so right

now you are listening to the rode ntg5

running in to an external recorder which

we'll talk about here in a minute and

you can tell there's much richer tones

sounds a lot more natural and not as

boxed in as this wireless lavalier

microphone and when i switch over to

this wireless lavalier microphone you

can really hear the difference in audio

quality now this wireless lavalier

microphone that i have on my chest right

here it's a really good microphone it's

made by senkin it's kind of an industry

standard it's really popular it sounds

really good but it's obviously gonna

sound much different and in my opinion

not as good as a shotgun microphone in

most scenarios now in this kind of

scenario right here i'll typically opt

for the shotgun microphone audio first

uh just because to me it always sounds

more natural

much more real to life and it just it

just sounds a lot better

but this wireless lavalier microphone

has come in handy numerous times in

interviews where it just ended up

sounding better than the shotgun

microphone or if i just kind of brought

the mix up a little bit of the wireless

lav in with the shotgun microphone audio

it started to sound even better just

depends on the room so from a

microphone's perspective having a boom

mic and a lav mic are really great to

have as a combination when recording

interviews

now

speaking of recording that audio there

are a couple of ways of doing that now

you can record right into camera but

even the best cinema cameras out there

don't have as good of preamps as a

dedicated sound recorder now this right

here is a dedicated sound recorder this

one's made by sound devices but you can

go out and get whatever brand that you

know works within your budget or

whatever the case may be but there are

specific features within these field

recorders that are dedicated sound

recorders that you get that are benefits

over say a cinema camera and one of

those things like for example this right

here is i have three audio channels that

i can use and they all provide phantom

power through this xlr input and the

reason why that's so important is

because my shotgun microphone actually

requires phantom power to even work

so i can send phantom power to this

shotgun microphone which is really good

and then i have two other channels that

i can use to plug in

maybe another lavalier mic or whatever

the case may be additionally this field

recorder is able to record in 32-bit

float audio now if you're not familiar

with that term it's essentially like

recording in raw versus mp4 or taking a

raw photo versus a jpeg you have way

more information

in that file that you can use in

post-production and this is really

helpful for

analyzing it through a program to maybe

remove background noise or

maybe the the talents are speaking

really loudly or really softly

you can use the 32-bit float audio and

it's really clean all the way

through the whole range that it recorded

so you can bring that audio up without

bringing in introducing a lot of hiss

and noise or if something appears to

have clipped or something like that and

gotten you know really distorted at the

high end you can bring that level down

and balance that out and most of the

time it cleans up perfectly all right

the next thing i want to touch on is

capturing room tone now room tone is

essentially just getting the tone of the

room so you're just recording absolute

silence or essentially silence to

everyone on set so that you can get a

good clean plate of audio so that if you

need to do any cuts in posts or there's

any awkward pauses or whatever the case

may be and you do a cut you can use that

room tone to kind of blend those two

cuts together so it sounds seamless as

opposed to just having a real harsh cut

of audio now while you are recording

that audio you also want to be

monitoring that audio just like you

monitor your cameras while you're

conducting the interview you also want

to be listening to that audio that's

being recorded just so that there's no

surprises when you get into

post-production when you're monitoring

audio you can catch things like a

microphone dropping out or interference

or anything like that or maybe

when you're conducting the interview and

you heard a car drive by

or a plane go overhead it may not seem

that big of a deal because we hear that

stuff you know day to day day in and day

out but the microphones could pick that

up and amplify that sound even more and

create just a massive headache in post

production or maybe even completely ruin

that take so it's really important to

monitor that audio and the last thing to

consider when capturing audio is

to treat the room as best as you can for

sound now this may not always be

possible because of location

restrictions or whatever the case may be

and i'm talking like turning off the air

conditioning unit if you can or the

heating unit if it's the winner

unplugging refrigerator if you can or

anything like that that you can hear a

buzz or a hum or anything like that and

then another thing is to control reverb

if that's something that you want to do

you can use sound blankets just to help

anything to kind of deaden that sound

from bouncing off the walls and

everything like that and then reaching

your microphone so with that said that's

going to kind of wrap up this video on

audio i hope you found that helpful or

useful hopefully something in here was

helpful if it was consider subscribing

to the channel so you can find more

helpful tutorials on filmmaking and all

that kind of good stuff well thank you

so much for watching and i hope to see

you soon peace

[Music]

you