I'm making a short film with a home camcorder, how do I make the audio sound professional?

Question

Should I record audio on an external microphone? How do I make it so that if a character is saying something, and I cut half way through their sentence, they don't have to say it again?

Answer 1

Using an external microphone is almost always going to give you better results.  Which external mic(s) you choose is another matter - I'm no expert.

Regarding the editing, I think you're talking about split cuts (L-cuts and J-cuts) - that's where the video and audio are cut in different places.  How you do it will depend on the editor you're using.

Answer 2

Good question and yes, I would record your audio on an external microphone; the on-camera mics are never good, no matter how professional your camcorder is. However, not all camcorders have mic inputs, so you must determine whether your camcorder has one or not. If you did have one, it would be a 1/8" mini-stereo microphone input, resembling a typical headphone jack on the camcorder, usually labeled mic. If you find your camcorder does have this jack, you are in luck, as you would be able to use an external mic.

  Regarding external mics, the most common are the shotgun, lavalier, or handheld broadcast mics. For a short film, I would recommend the shotgun mics (they are the ones you see on boompoles in movie productions). Make sure it has a mini-stereo jack to be used on your camcorder...all of the cheaper mics are mini-stereo. Some mini-stereo shotguns I recommend are:

   1) RODE VideoMic is the best mini-stereo mic. It produces excellent sound and comes with an integrated shockmount to connect right into your camcorder shoe. ($150)

   2) Sennheiser MKE300 almost as good as the RODE mic as far as sound quality, but it is a bit more flimsy. ($130)

   3) Azden SGM-X is an inexpensive mic that produces good sound, compared to the on-camera mic at least. ($110)

If you want to go further and upgrade from a mini-stereo input to the professional XLR inputs that take professional microphones, you could purchase an XLR adapter (like the ones by Beachtek).

Regarding your second question, about wanting to cut to a different shot but keep the audio, I know you can do it on the more professional programs such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, and Avid Media Composer. All you have to do is unlink the audio from its respective video file, by right clicking the audio track, and select "unlink" or something like that. This way, you can cut and delete a part of the video file witout taking its audio with it. I have tried to find this feature on the consumer editing software, the Pinnacle Studio (v9.5) but I was unsuccessful. I apologize that I could not find a cheap way to do it, but if you are a student (or have a kid who is a student) K-12 or college and have proof of it, you could get Avid Media Composer, the same program all the pros use, a $4,000 value (seriously) for $295 with an academic discount (see: http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?... )  Hope that helps!!!!