I am trying to film an infomercial. But I have no idea what kind of mic I need. I just want to get a bare minimum required for broadcasting, cuz I can't spend so much. So what kind of mic do you guys suggest? how much and where can i get it? Thanks.
Bad sound is the bane of most low-budget productions: personally I'd rather have the imagery shot on VHS and the sound recorded by someone who knows what they're doing than the imagery shot on IMAX-3D and the sound recorded on a $5 walkman with the internal mike.
A decent mike isn't that expensive to rent if you have a production sound company nearby, and often you can find sound recordists with their own equipment who'll work for the money you'd have had to pay to rent their gear. I haven't made a short for a couple of years now, but we used to use something like a Senheisser 416 or similar which gave good sound even in locations with a lot of background noise (at times we shot documentary video with two cameras running at the same time, and the difference in sound quality between the one that had the proper mike and the one which only had its internal mike was huge).
