In this episode you'll learn about recording
interviews in a variety of situations, and
a few tips on how to get the best results.
It is such an important part to so many
projects, let's look at a couple of
situations where you may need to record
and the tools that could help we look at
ENG which is electronic news gathering.
Tabletop, and recording with lavs..
First things first, and we talked about it before.
You need to be prepared, check
they have spare batteries and that all
your equipment is charged.
Use new batteries every time, and make sure you
have a means of backing everything up,
being a videographer you'll have found
yourself in a variety of situations
where you need to record an interview...
a location might suit the client but can
be a little unrealistic when it comes to
recording audio.
You may need to suggest
that they have an alternative place to
shoot that'll be a little more suitable.
Listen to the location on large
diaphragm headphones, this will help you
hear any problems before you start recording.
Clients will often say there
are loads of locations on site to record
but often very few of those locations
are ideal for recording audio, you may
only get one shot with an interviewee, so
get as much information beforehand about
the suitability of that location or
ideally recce the locations beforehand.
Record to an external recorder such as a
Xoom H6, that'll cover a lot of recording situations.
The mic inputs on a DSLR are
not great and can cause an awful lot of
noise and distortion on the recordings.
Bring a shotgun mic and a mic stand,
bring the shotgun as close to the
interviewee as the framing of the shot
will allow.
This will act as a backup mic
to the lab, now please note the camera
mic will not be usable in a mix.
it will be fine to use to sync up shots as a
guide track, but it's not suitable for a
professional.
Handheld mics are a super tool for
recording a presenter in ENG, there are a
couple of recording options that you
might consider.
This is the tascam DR-10X - this little recorder
pokes straight into your mic, which
allows you loads of portability, but one
lovely little feature of this recorder
is that there's a backup recording
happening at the same time as your main
recording, but at a lower level...
so any surprise jumps in the volume will not be
distorted on the lower level recording
...within reason.
Another great tool is the
wireless mic system, and these neat
little tools plug straight into the XLR
mic, and the receiver directly into your
recorder.
Sennheiser make the XS
system Rode make the rodelink
Newshooter, and there are another couple of
options out there you can explore.
All of those options on the Adorama website.
Tabletop interviews can be nice to record.
Generally you control the situation
with everything locked off...
There are a couple of things you could
look at...
firstly the surface of the table - there
can be a lot of sound reflection from a
hard surface, and a blanket covering that
surface can be of some help.
Recording one person is easy, but if
there's more than one person then it is a
little trickier.
Generally I'd use the Zoom H6 with the
interchangeable heads and multiple
inputs to cover a lot
of situations.
It's such a diverse recorder.
Try to mic each person
individually.. being recorded onto their
own individual track.
If the number of mics you have is an
issue then you could
use the XY heads to pick up two people
and then the others directly.
Try to isolate the mics as much as
possible as bangs on the table can drown
good takes.
So for roundtable discussions...
you could try the Zoom H2N...
it records four tracks at once, and you
can pick up everyone around the table.
It could also be very useful as a backup
recorder should any air mics fail.
Now the law mic unless used properly
can cause a world of pain... you need to
look at your positioning - shoving it
under your subjects ear or armpit is
missing the sound from the mouth,
and I've seen it happen again and again.
Also don't put it under heavy clothing,
as it just muffles the sound.
If you find your recordings are way too
muffled and try to rescue them somewhat
by rolling off the lower frequencies...
shelve everything from below a hundred
Hertz and then
increase the shelving slowly, and you'll
hear the muffleing reducing... and the
voice emerging, but be careful as to how
far you go, clothes rustle have
destroyed many good interviews.
Stickies are the way forward, and allow
you to hide the mic effectively,
put an under cover over the mic to reduce
the clothes rustle.
Now go and put a roll of fabric
tape into your kit bag so if you don't
have any stickies when you need them,
you can use the fabric tape instead
without destroying the person's clothes
with glue residue.
So we've covered some
situations that you may find yourself
needing to record, don't forget to
generate some sort of sync point from
either a clapper board, or even clapping
your hands on camera.
It'll save you hours in the edit post syncing.
I'm Keith Alexander and you've been
watching AdoramaTV.
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