If you want to do it right, you really need to save your money and buy a decent shotgun microphone. There really is no replacement for that equipment. Check on eBay which sometimes has great deals. Also, the brand "Audio Technica" is usually quite a bit cheaper than Sennheiser and I?ve had really good luck with the audio quality of these mics.

That said -- if you still want to avoid a shotgun mic, you might consider wired lavalier/lavaliere mics. These are the little mics that clip to clothing (I think Radio Shack actually calls them Tie-clip mics or something and sells them for around $20). It would be a pain, but you could mic your actors and the sound should come out decent.

Hope this helps.

Dan Rahmel
Author: "Nuts and Bolts Filmmaking"
http://www.cvisual.com

If I were to get a shotgun mic, is there any way to hook it directly into the audio input of my DVcam? I heard of some kind of....can't think of the word right now...but a cord where you plug the mike into this cord which then can plug into a handicam. Am i making any sense at all? 🙂

Most 'pro' mikes have XLR connectors, so you'd need an XLR to whatever socket your camera has convertor.

If you can get your hands on a mic separate from the camera (most computers come with them), then go to B&H Photo and spend about $12 on a slate (or clapper whatever you wanna call it), i then would use a laptop computer and plug the mic into that and et the bit rate at the highest setting (you can set it at whatever youre diting program will work with, remember higher bit rate also equals bigger file). And then jusy sync the sound up in post.

I did a commercial like this, worked great, though if you're shooting outdoors or in weird locations (sewers or something like that) you might not wanna take your laptop to some locations etc.

Does this help/make sense?