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Interview Sound in a shop

S

substitute

Hey,

I'm doing an interview inside a shop for a charity promotional video. For various practical reasons, I am going to be using an external mic attached to the top of the DSLR. I'm concerned that if the mic isn't facing the floor, it's gonna pick up a lot of noise behind it (it's a shotgun mic).

Has anyone got any tips of how to minimise the external noise that might be picked up behind it, or is it just not an issue?

Thanks
 
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Get the mic off of the camera; that is the best way to reduce extraneous noise. You have to get in close; the closer you get to the person speaking the less background noise you will pick up. A handheld interview mic or a lav is the best way to go, otherwise you should get the mic on a boom-pole and have someone "swing" it for you.

BTW, if you are booming the mic should be pointed at the notch at the base of the throat os it picks up the mouth and chest resonance.
 
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Alcove Audio said:
Get the mic off of the camera; that is the best way to reduce extraneous noise. You have to get in close; the closer you get to the person speaking the less background noise you will pick up. A handheld interview mic or a lav is the best way to go, otherwise you should get the mic on a boom-pole and have someone "swing" it for you.

BTW, if you are booming the mic should be pointed at the notch at the base of the throat os it picks up the mouth and chest resonance.
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Thanks for the advice mate, especially the last bit.

The last interview I did, I did had the mic off camera on a shotgun mic held with a mic stand, but it took ages to set up and I had lots of heavy equipment to carry. The people I'm interviewing are just volunteers and I think the set up time and presence of all the equipment made them a bit uncomfortable, which is why I thought the DSLR mic would be better as it's more discreet. It's not ideal, but I've decided that getting the performance (for this project at least) is more important than the technical side.

I was just wondering if there are any tactics to reduce background noise with a DSLR mic or if you're just stuck with it?
 
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You can do some work in post production but it's not a solution, just a plaster over a wound that's already inflicted.
Noise reduction is possible, it costs a bit for a good one but you can get some results. Do you have $100 to spare? What kind of environment will you be filming in, will there be background speaking, people walking around and all?
 
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MetalRenard said:
You can do some work in post production but it's not a solution, just a plaster over a wound that's already inflicted.
Noise reduction is possible, it costs a bit for a good one but you can get some results. Do you have $100 to spare? What kind of environment will you be filming in, will there be background speaking, people walking around and all?
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I'm making sure to get a few seconds of static environment noise just in case I need do noise reduction in post, but like you said, it's not great.

Filming is to be in a (very) small charity shop, I'm turning up just as they're closing, so there shouldn't be people walking and talking etc. by the time I do the interview. But there might be the odd noise here and there if there are people in the back rooms clearing up and that sort of thing.

I'm filming tomorrow so I don't really have the time to buy anything, but just out of interest, what is the noise reduction product you're talking about, is it a piece of hardware or software?

Thanks
 
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AudioPostExpert said:
When you say "getting the performance", I take it you mean getting the visual performance? If you don't just mean the visual performance than as Alcove said, it's far less likely that you will record a usable performance with a mic mounted on a DSLR.
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The video is to attract volunteers for a local charity. So it's crucial that the volunteers seem comfortable, happy and say the 'right' things to get the viewers excited about volunteering. So by performance, I guess I mean the body language of the volunteers and what they are saying.

These guys aren't really confident public speakers or actors and I think the presence of all the equipment can be intimidating. Time spent fiddling with the external recording last time meant I wasn't as able to focus on them.

In terms of getting decent sound quality, I'm testing the mounted mic at home tomorrow. I'm going to compare the sound quality to my first interview (which used the shotgun mic) and see if it's noticeably different. If it's not good enough then I will use the boom mic on the mic stand again.

Maybe you can get some secondary interviews in a more controlled room and interlace them with comments and discussions taking place on location...
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That's a good idea, I have realised that I don't necessarily need the interview to take place in the main shop area, as long as the viewer can see that person working in the actual shop. But I think the shop should be quiet enough once it's closed to not have to worry about background noise from people. I think hiss is the biggest problem I'm likely to encounter, or 'thin' sound.
 
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Performance in this context is an emotional expression.

Its a small retail shop, just position your subjects so that when your interviewing them the mic is pointed away from the cashier \ front door and other noise generating areas.

Do capture some of those sounds, separately from the interviews.. you may actually end up adding those sounds back in to make it more "real" sounding. Capture lots of cutaways, items on the shelf, close up of the register, etc.
 
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wheatgrinder said:
Performance in this context is an emotional expression.

Its a small retail shop, just position your subjects so that when your interviewing them the mic is pointed away from the cashier \ front door and other noise generating areas.

Do capture some of those sounds, separately from the interviews.. you may actually end up adding those sounds back in to make it more "real" sounding. Capture lots of cutaways, items on the shelf, close up of the register, etc.
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Emotional expression is exactly the phrase I was looking for. Thanks for the advice, I never think about filming cutaways of static like shelf items, but actually this sort of footage could prove invaluable later. I imagine I'll be doing some pretty serious cutting on this interview to get the sound bites I need, so it's safe to say I'll need a lot of B-roll.

After testing the mounted DSLR mic, I've decided to go back to the much less convenient shotgun, mic stand and external recorder configuration. The hiss from the mounted mic was just to much to deal with unfortunately (like you all said it would be!).

Thanks for the help guys
 
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wheatgrinder said:
Performance in this context is an emotional expression.
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This raises an interesting point which is overlooked by the vast majority of lo/no budget filmmakers. When you say "emotional expression" do you just mean facial expression and body language or do you mean the whole package? The former is purely visual but is only a small percentage of the whole package. Depending on the emotion, the way people speak changes; the pitch, speed, volume, harmonic content, pronunciation and even the breathing between the phrases. Every single sonic property of speaking is modified or changed dramatically depending on the emotional state of the speaker and what they are trying to comminicate. In fact, it's an essential part of human personal communication and humans are extremely sensitive to the implications of even very tiny changes/variations. The vast majority of lo/no budget filmmakers are visually oriented and only think of production sound (if they seriously consider it at all) in terms of if the dialogue is audible. Just recording audible dialogue does not account for all the usual nuances of human vocal communication. This is one of the main reasons why lo/no budget indie films tend to be so uninvolving and therefore boring and is one of the most obvious differences with commercial quality films.

In other words, if you want to capture a performance you MUST record high quality production sound. In this respect, sound is much more important than the visual image.

G
 
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clip on mic. quick, easy to set up and not as distracting as a shotty hanging overhead. If you going straight to DSLR I hope you have a model or solution that turns off the auto gain.
 
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