Well I think pretty much any decent external microphone you acquire will be better than a built in mic. I don't have any specific suggestions but just some thoughts:

Do the Sony Handycams have a mic input? If they don't, you'll have to rig up a different audio solution.

How long are you shooting for? I'm (trying to be) filming a short next week and it will be all done in a day, so in terms of renting it will be pretty easy and cheap. If you're not filming for very long and your camera has a mic input I'd suggest looking for a rental house that you can get a mic and whatever necessary equipment from. For example, at the place I'll be renting from I'll be able to get a mic for $5 cdn. Given that we'll only be shooting for a day we won't end up with a rental fee at the end of the shoot that is astronomical.

Hmmm I'll be shooting for a day or two.. Handycam is of my friend so I don't know much about it. I'll ask him tomorrow.

I'll try to ask at some other places for mic. Thanks for the reply.

Surely, you have a computer? If so, that's your audio recording device (if that handycam doesn't have a mic in). Use $100 to get a decent mic and jury-rig it to some broom stick or pole for boom miking from above. Make sure you have some sort of a clapper to be able to later identify takes and sync that video with your sound files.

Oh, so you mean I should use a simple mic to record the audio by plugging it with handycam? Is that what you are saying? If not, can you please elaborate especially the last sentence? Sorry, I'm kind of new at this.

One of my friend has a mic from Shure. It's SM58LC, I think.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001ZWBL0

Tell me if this mic will work.

Haha, the SM58 is one of the most distinctive microphones ever. That mic is pretty much one of the best devices you can get in the $100 price range, but it's optimized as a vocal mic. If all of your audio is going to be recorded with someone having a microhpne right up to their face, it will be fine. I seriously doubt this is the case though.

Try to find a boom/shotgun mic.

and navio, Vasic was saying that you could just use a computer, hook the mic into that, and use that as your recording terminal. And in regards to his last sentence, just read this ?url? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapperboard?/url? and you'll understand. 😉

Alright, so u are talking about dubbing in post production?

quote:

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Originally posted by naviobb

Alright, so u are talking about dubbing in post production?

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Well if you feel confident that you and your actors would be capable of that and are confident you'd have a greater quality product that way, go for it.

But if you're referring to Vasic's suggestion again, I'm pretty sure he wasn't suggesting that. He was just suggesting that instead of an external audio recorder, just bring your computer on set and rig it up with a mic and a boom pole to record people.

Personally, I'd have issues with doing that because the possibility for damaging the hardware and memory through dropping, bumping around, or static electricity is relatively high. If that's what will work best and you need to do it though, by all means go for it. Just be extremely cautious. 😉

Let me rephrase to remove ambiguity and confusion.

I have a MacBook. I also have an AVCHD camcorder (Canon HF-100). When I shoot on location, with a decent crew (camera operator, boom operator, sound recording engineer, etc), I bring my MacBook. I also bring an external microphone and stick it at the end of a pole (a boom). I hook that microphone into that MacBook. I can use GarabeBand to record the audio, or any other audio recording software (if you have a Windows laptop, Audacity does a great job and is open source and free).

When I return from the location, I have a bunch of AVCHD video files with a stereo audio track (captured by camcorder mics) as a reference audio. I also have separate AIFF (or WAV, if it's a windows laptop) files on my MacBook for every shot we took. Since we used clapperboard on every shot, I have visual and sonic reference to use when syncing those audio files with the video inside my Final Cut.

SM58 is a great vocal mic, and if you can't get anything more appropriate, even that one will be better than the on-board camcorder mics. For some $80, I had found a cheap and versatile little Behringer (B-5), a condenser mike with swappable capsules (uni- and omni-directional), with low-cut rolloff filter, -10dB attenuator and it seems quite capable for the money. Whichever mike you use, though, you'll need a blimp of some kind if shooting exterior shots (wind).

Of course, there is always the ADR route. You could just shoot the reference audio, and then do everything else in the recording studio (synchronise dialogue, foley, etc). Some major directors only do this, others only use original dialogue recording from the set. The most challenging issue is with inexperienced actors. If you choose to record your dialogue in the post, your actors will have to build emotional performance without any emotional feedback, i.e. without reacting to others on set, in costume, under lighting. They will have to re-create full emotion under intense pressure of delivering lines precisely in sync with video, repeating endlessly short phrases, totally disconnected from the flow of a scene and emotional build-up. Very few extremely gifted actors can do this consistently and well. For us, mere mortals, using actors who are willing to work for free, capturing dialogue well while camera is rolling is essential.

Oh, alirght. Thanks for the explanation. I'll try it out 🙂

Thanks Vasic for clearing that up!

Haha, I assumed you meant a desktop computer and I was trying to make sense of that. 😉

Good luck navio!

Well, if your set has enough power, you could also bring a desktop PC (with monitor, mouse, keyboard, desk...). Since there's already tons of gear on the set (all the lighting stuff, wardrobe, props, not to mention craft table) another fold-out table with a desktop PC isn't all that much to add. Laptop would probably be easier though...