If you have 2000 pounds to spare, a Senheisser 416 or MKH60, support and boom, and an SQN3 or similar.

Lower than that I can't really say. I've mostly used the 416 mike for sound recording in the past, though the MKH60 seems a bit better.

Well, I just make films with friends for fun basically. We are all fairly young and the real goal of the shoots is not to make a good film that will gross heaps of money but to make a film that we enjoyed watching, making and that may do well in Award Ceremonies for Young Filmmakers.
A sound recording set at ?2000 will be far too much. Do you think that I should just stick to recording the sound with the microphone on the camera?

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You can't keep 'em out, they're already in!

If you can, try and get a mic--ANY mic--on a boom over the actors' heads; it makes for MUCH better sound quality. For about $500US--not sure how that translates to pounds--I was able to pick up a decent shotgun mic, a cheap boom, and a cable to hook it up to my camera.

A directional mic pointing directly down at the actors is much better for two major reasons: first, it can be much closer to the actors than the camera and remain the same distance for all the angles you shoot, and second, because it's pointing directly down, it will pick up MUCH less background noise. The only thing to really worry about is wind when you're shooting outside.

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Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my vodcast on iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=96931870
and my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com

Yes, I probably should get a microphone on a stick to do the actors and the sound justice. I actually realized that I needed one when I saw your 'Equipment Overview'. I loved the bit when you dropped your camera, that was funny...in a kind of mean, primitive way. Do you know any websites for ordering sound equipment?

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You can't keep 'em out, they're already in!

If you want to see the effect I get from the microphone on the camera you can go to ?url? http://youtube.com/watch?v=n_Z2R4mAHbg?/url? and see what you think.

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You can't keep 'em out, they're already in!

Yeah, that's camera mike sound :). In particular you can hear the background noise changes noticeably between shots, which calls attention to the cuts.

I know there are some cheap shotgun mikes around but I'm not sure of manufacturers. Even one of those attached to a wooden pole with some sticks and rubber bands to dampen movement should give much better sound.

Yes, I thought it was that damned white noise. In some shots you can hear the faint echo of me shouting 'Go' and the noise reverberating throughout the large room.

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You can't keep 'em out, they're already in!

BTW, I've been looking at mikes myself, and there seem to be quite a few used ones for sale at reasonable prices on ebay.co.uk. I ended up buying new because I don't trust used gear that I can't open up and repair myself, but you might find something decent and cheap there if you keep your eyes open.

Thanks, I'll have a look.

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You can't keep 'em out, they're already in!

Have you ever, or would you ever, record the sound and speech from your actors afterwards in a studio and dub the images with the separately recorded sound?

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You can't keep 'em out, they're already in!

That's done all the time. It's called ADR (additional dialogue replacement) or "looping". With actors who aren't experienced in looping their dialogue, getting it right can be very time consuming. And if you don't have a really good sound designer/mixer, the studio recorded dialogue can sound artificial and flat.

While all big movies use ADR - especially for dialogue during action and effects scenes - as a no budget movie maker I try to avoid doing a re-recording at all. One little trick I've used quite well is to have the actor repeat the line while still on location then kind of "force" it to sync up during editing.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Yeah, we've done ADR before, but it's a big pain. In most movies I've edited there have been a handful of lines that are hard to hear, usually it's been possible to, say, take a line from closeup to replace the same line in a wide shot. Since it is a wide shot, even if the dialog is slightly out of sync with the picture most people won't notice.

The one time we had to replace almost every line was a short when the budget was so low we couldn't even afford to get a decent mike and had to rely on the camera. That took a long time and while it wasn't too bad there were shots that never looked right, particularly when projected on a cinema screen.

BTW, when you start doing more serious movies, it's possible to find an experienced sound recordist with equipment willing to work for the amount you'd have to pay to hire the gear. If they wouldn't be working otherwise, they might as well take 50-100 pounds a day and work on a low-budget shoot, and you get the gear plus someone who knows how to use it.

Thanks, the odds are that I'll just use the camera microphone to record the voices of my actors, seeing as though we are not making this money for any commercial use - more for fun and the pleasure of making a watchable movie, and the fields where we are shooting this scene are very peaceful anyway. I think I'll leave sound recording to when I start making proper films.

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You can't keep 'em out, they're already in!

Buy an Edirol. It is only $400 and it's better than a traditional DAT. It's completely digital, so you have no conversions to worry about. As for a mic, buy a lavalier. These two things will go a long way to master sound and are worth it.