Re: Sound Sweetening

The first big step in recording good audio is NEVER use auto-gain (aside from the rare crazy run-and-gun scenario) never never never.. learn your audio kit.. do a mic test, and ride the level yourself - even while shooting. Too many camera ops are lazy and just throw the audio pick-up in auto. If you are a good camera op it really isn't an issue to find the sweet spot to set your dials so you get decent pick-up with headroom. Auto gain will always boost up the ambient junk noise around you. Most newer cameras can record 4 tracks. I will usually set 1 and 2 to manual mode, then route 3+4 as auto-gain back ups of 1+2 in case there is some crazy levels hit.

Second is mic placement. A windy location isn't windy on the mic if the talent has their back to it, or the lav mic is placed on the back side of a collar… so on…
Also, a good boom pole operator should be able to read the wind and place the boom mic in a direction/angle to minimize wind-noise on the mic.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.


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