ACADEMY GET THE BEST OUT OF YOURMIC
1. PICK THE RIGHT MIC FOR THE JOB Tailor your kit and your technique to the subject or situation
how a mic can be positioned, that lets you tailor your choice to the subject. There are many polar patterns, but the most common are bidirectional, omnidirectional and cardioid patterns. A typical shotgunmic has an elongated polar pattern (called supercardioid, hypercardioid or lobar depending on how narrow its shape is) and this makes its pickup highly directional, letting you pick out a single source while suppressing background noise. This means it needs to be aimed accurately, but shotgunmics are often the best option, being highly versatile and able to be mounted on the camera, handheld by you or the subject, or mounted on a boom if you have a spare pair of hands. Lavalier mics can be omnidirectional and cardioid, and both have advantages. Omni mics don’t need to be pointed at the sound source for the clearest pickup, but will pick up other sources – though their range is small, so shouldn’t do so toomuch. Rarer, directional lav mics need a little more setting up, as you want thempointing to the subject’s mouth, but should give a stronger recording when done so.
The most important thing is to start by upgrading your camera’s built-inmic to somethingmore capable: a dedicated external microphone. If using a hybrid stills and video camera, the built-in stereomic can be improved upon quickly, and though a camcorder’s shotgunmic will probably be better, it’s still nomatch in terms of quality or range of options offered by external mics. But what sort of mic do you upgrade to? There’s no one-size-fits-all solution, and what you really need is a range of devices to deal with different subjects and situations. Your kit should at least include a shotgun mic, and wired and wireless lavalier mics. With those, you’re capable of dealing with a range of subjects. They can be run through an external mixer/recorder to improve quality and allow some mixing, or straight into the camera. All mic types have their own polar or ‘pickup’ pattern – a three-dimensional area around the mic that governs where it’smost sensitive to sound, and therefore where the recording is clearest. Some are capable of switching between patterns, but most are fixed. It’s this pattern, as well as
“What you really need is a range of devices to deal with different subjects”
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PRO MOVIEMAKER AUTUMN 2019
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