This is why I love this place. I would have been sat in the editing room, pulling my hair out, wondering why the hell I can't get the audio right,
As a mentor once told me; "most people aren't smarter than you, they're just trained differently." When it comes to photography I wouldn't know an F-stop from a bus stop. Back in the 1980s, when there wasn't anything like Windows, etc., you did all of your computer work in "C:" and you did all of your own programming. My companies IT guy helped a lot. He told me "It's really very simple, but there's one HELL of a lot of simple." It's the same way with most professions. My craft is audio, and I have many years of experience behind me. I can remember when mid-level recording studios went from 8-track recorders to 16 track, then from mastering on 1/2" tape to DAT (Digital Audio Tape), the introduction of MIDI and the transition to digital computer audio. But the basics are still same, and I just had to learn to apply the basics to the new formats.
You can learn what you need to know, but it is time consuming. I can recommend a number of books to read, web sites to peruse, and there are some great videos on YouTube to get you the information that you need, but applying those lessons in the real world is an entirely different issue. So don't start pulling your hair out - unless, of course, you want the bald look.
As a director you will need to learn to delegate. Your job is not run a camera, swing a boom, apply makeup or run electrical cables, your job is to tell a story in a compelling way. This is not to say that you should not understand the basics of lenses or audio theory, etc; you need the ability to communicate with your team intelligently. Film making is a team sport.
Because of the way the film is shot, a lot of the audio will be directional and distance will play a big part. In terms of making the dialogue sound directionally accurate as the character walks around the camera, I assume it will be best to record audio as normal and let the sound engineer make it sound like it's coming from the appropriate direction and distance?
At the low/no/mini/micro budget level just capture the best quality production sound that you can; the sonic perpectives will come during the rerecording process. If you can't afford a professional try to find an ambitious up-and-comer. The same applies to all the other crafts. Treat them like the professionals they aspire to be. Preproduce to the final detail. Keep them informed and well fed; happy people work harder and more creatively. Be open to their ideas. This will give you much better material to edit.
I don't even know what a Preamp is so I'm gonna assume I'll be well out of my depth and could ruin the film if I try and patch the audio together myself.
A preamp converts a weak signal into an output signal strong enough to be noise-tolerant and strong enough for further processing. These days it also converts it from analog to digital.
And no, you wouldn't ruin your film, you would just spend huge amounts of time making yourself bald because you don't have the knowledge and experience.
I'll definitely take you up on that offer when the time comes.
Whether you use me or not be sure to include your audio post person in the preproduction process, especially as you seem to have a specific audio direction in mind.
I look forward to hearing from you.
but don't worry too much about the quality at this stage: it's only for comparison. 
- our brains process the RAW data from our eyes with impressive intelligent auto-focus image stabilisation colour correction software before we "see" what we're looking at. I'm hoping that