AUDIO
Although audio is 50 percent of the final video product and equally as important as the picture, you’d never know it by talking to a lot of video pros, as it is frequently looked down upon as the poor stepchild of picture. That being said, if the sound is bad then the picture always seems worse than it really is. So always pay close attention to the audio. (See p. 46.)
If you’re shooting a music video, the audio is usually not a concern since you’re dealing with a pre-recorded audio track. But for any other type of video (e.g., an electronic press kit), the sound requires just as much attention as the picture. Luckily, if you’re a musician, you probably know more than the average video guy about what sounds good.
Recording On The Camera
While you get better results by using an outboard recorder, it is much easier to record your audio directly onto the camera, either with the built-in mic or via an audio input if it has one. Whether you’re using the onboard camera mic, using an external mic or taking a feed from a console, here are some tips to help you record the cleanest audio possible:
• Turn off the limiter. Most cameras have a built-in audio limiter that tries to prevent very loud sound levels from overloading the audio circuitry. While this might work okay when shooting those nice vacation movies, it can sound horrible when trying to capture a band in performance. The good news is that in all but the cheapest cameras, you can defeat the limiter by diving into the software menus and finding the Limiter or Audio Attenuator selection in the audio section. You will hear the benefits of this action immediately as the sound becomes a lot more open and less colored.
• Turn the input level down. Just about any band playing live will easily overload the audio inputs of a camera, since they’re usually designed for capturing the noise of a family outing rather than the sometimes thunderous level of amplified instruments. If there’s a level control knob on the camera, turn it as low as it will go without turning it off. If the level control is in a software menu, do the same.
You want to be sure that the loudest peaks never make the overload indicators light. If the level seems low, that’s okay because it’s better to have audio that’s too low than distorted. Low levels can be fixed, distortion can’t.
• Monitor your audio. A set of closed-ear headphones is one of the most important things to have when you’re shooting video since it’s the only way to tell if you’re getting clean audio or not. Make sure they’re closed-ear so you can actually hear what is happening in the cans without having any of the outside world leak in. But even if they’re ear buds from your iPod, make sure you use them.
PRODUCTION
Whether you’re shooting a straight-ahead music video or capturing a performance, the following three simple tricks can go a long way to giving your video a professional look and feel.
• Shoot establishing shots. An establishing shot places the video in a time or location. For example, a typical establishing shot for a performance video could be a shot of a club’s marquee with your name on it, the venue exterior and sign, a flyer or newspaper advertisement with your name in it––anything that establishes the time and place of the event. Even if you don’t want anyone to know these particulars, shoot it anyway, since it gives you some detail about the shoot that can be useful later.
• Shoot lots of B-Roll. B-roll is cutaway shots that are used to cover up an edit of an interview, audio narration, or a picture edit that might jump or look funny. Examples of B-roll might include a close-up of a guitar pick, pictures on the wall, an empty stage or a stage with just your gear on it, a close-up of the kick-drum head with your name on it, a pan across an amp head, or hands on a keyboard. You can never have enough B-roll, so shoot everything you can think of. In the hands of a good editor it will all be used somewhere.
• Shoot multiple takes. More than one take allows for multiple camera angles if you only have one camera, which is something that a good editor can always use. If you have the chops, you can even cut between several uneven takes to make one good one. While you don’t need to shoot at the ratio of a motion picture where they shoot at least 10 minutes for every one minute they end up using, the more you shoot, the more footage will be available to choose from and the more easily you’ll be able to cover up that funny-looking audio or video edit.
