Microphones?

Question

Are there any affordable microphones for movie making, that don't have to attach to a camera. You record sound separate, then connect it to the computer and add it into the movie.

Well I mean a separate microphone not the one installed in the camera but a hand held microphone to record voice, like they do in movies, where they have the slate or clipboard to align the video and sound together while editing it.

Answer 1

Most movies record sound seperately with a shotgun mic, and recorder. Longer shotgun mics are used for outdoors, and shorter ones for indoors. Reason, longer ones tend to give reverb indoors. The shotgun mics used in most movies are farely expensive, yet you can get a decent indoor mic for 2-$400. You could also get a shotgun mic that isn't too ong or too short. These tend to work okay for both scenarios. Also, alot of people use a hyper cardioid mic indoors, as an alternative to a shotgun mic...Hyper cardioids are cheaper, and can get really good sound indoors when used correctly. You can get decent Hyper Cardioids for around $100 a lot of times.

Now, after you decide which mic to go with, you have to get a boom pole. A boom pole is the long pole that the shotgun or hyper cardioid mic is attached to. Good ones cost around $200, but they're easy to make yourself. I have a link that shows you how to make on for like $20.

link: http://adamisaak.org/diy/boompole/

After that, you need something to record to. If your camcorder has XLR inputs, you can hook the mic directly to your camer via XLR cables. If not, you have to have a recorder with XLR inputs to plug the mic into. A real good one is the PMD 660, shown here:

http://www.oade.com/digital_recorders/hard_disc_recorders/images/PMD-660_CF.jpg

It retails for around $500. It's not top of the line, like the ones they use in movies...(they are usually in the thousands)...but it will get you nice sound. If you don't have at least that kind of budget, then you're going to limit yourself alot in the quality of your recorded sound. Yet, you do have options. There are cheaper recorders out there without XLR inputs. So you'd have to buy the recorder, (100-300 dollars roughly), then the XLR adapter, (10-25 dollars roughly), so that you can hook the mic to the recorder. Then, there's the ultra cheep. Zoom makes a portable audio recorder with XLR inputs for $100. It is the only one of its kind and price range. It's quality...you get what you pay for.

If you have any further questions, let me know. I know how overwhelming this stuff can be at first. I not only sell the equipment, I am an indie filmmaker.

Good Luck,

Dontae Housley
A/V Equipment Sales
[e-mail]
www.tapeworkstexas.com

Answer 2

if you were going to do this, you'd need more than a microphone. you would need some kind of recorder, preferably something that will record high quality for your film. this doesn't always work in movie making because invaribly, outside noise or some other noise obstructs the main actors and you want to have some kind of control over that. to accomplish this, you would need to record background noise and sound effects as well as re-record the actors lines (this is called ADR or looping). Here's a great website for film sound design:

http://filmsound.org

good luck!

Answer 3

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