First Short Need Sound Advice

[j138abstract]

Hello,

I am shooting my first short and am a bit concerned about the sound. I will be shooting on a Panasonic AG-DVX100B. My question is should I record the sound though the camera or seperately. If I do it seperatlely is there a standard recording device I should use?

Sorry if this is really basic. If it helps I am shooting a horror short with about 80% of filming to take place indoors.

Thanks in advance

 

[spinner]

If you are asking if you should use the mic built onto the camera, don't.

Try to at least get your hands on a good shotgun mic that you can mount on your camera...

-- spinner

 

[John@Bophe]

my suggestion would be to use the camera to record the audio, but follow Spinner's advice and get an external microphone to capture the audio. Built-in mics tend to pick up camera mechanics which adds noise to the audio capture. You should check out your camera specs to see if the mic input on your camera is a stereo jack or mono jack. If it is stereo and you plug in a mono mic -- guess what, audio on only one side and static on the other (had that happen once). You could get around this by plugging a mono to stereo adapter inbetween your mic and jack. Or get a stereo external mic.

I would advise recording audio onto the camera as opposed to recording it to an external device because if you record to the camera, the audio will at least be already synchronized with the video. If you record to an external source, you will need to use the clap board to create a definite cue for you to line up the audio and video so they appear in sync. If you are making a professional piece, you might do it differently, but for someone starting out -- recording on camera will save you a lot of time and hassle...as long as you use the external mic, that is.