Any filmmaker will agree that capturing sound correctly is just as important as capturing great images. Sound can make or break a professional or amateur production, so making sure you know your way around a microphone can’t hurt. So let’s go over some basic ways to capture sound and take your video to the next level of awesomeness we all know it can be!
The sound from your camera does not always suck! it depends on how far you are from your source of sound. The camera mic is ok as long as you are about 10 feet or about 3 metres away.
Any more that that and you need to use an external Microphone and maybe even an external recorder.
Check out some of this equipment and see how learn how to use it with your team.
- Microphones that
have a 3.5mm stereo mini jack normally require some type of separate power source, so make sure you have batteries!
- XLR microphones normally use the power given off by the camera or device they are connected to, but double check to see if it requires it’s own power source before recording.
- Before recording, try taking a 5 second video clip and playing it back with headphones. This will give you a good idea of how the camera or recorder is picking up sound, that way you can decide if you need to change locations, sound levels or mics, etc.
- Finally, make sure your microphone is on and the camera is set to use it! If your microphone isn’t turned on, you won’t capture any sound. The same thing will happen if you don’t tell your camera to use the external microphone (normally located in the cameras settings, however newer cameras detect the microphone automatically and don’t need to be told about it).
Sound Poem Challenge
These were created using Garageband. Get to know the basics of Garageband by having some fun experimenting with the software. Gather some sounds from the school import them into Garageband and have some fun manipulating them.
CREATE YOUR OWN 30 second Sound Poem about ISM to be played to the rest of the class
You will learn how to use Garage Band in Class but this video might give you some ideas too.