How many videos and short movies are ruined every day from bad audio? People will forgive mediocre video. If it is slightly out of focus, handheld, dim lit or whatever. But they will hit the stop button, change the channel, or grit through their teeth with bad audio. How important is it? What do you pay for on a airplane flight? They give the picture away for free, without the audio you don’t have the story, the emotion, the mood. Maybe I’m just an audio engineer, but I enter my work in a lot of film challenges and man is it a challenge to sit through most of these movies because the other movie makers neglect the sound.

So you bought a cheap camcorder with a built in microphone? Is there anything you can do to make this situation better. I will show you a few really fundamental tricks, while featuring the bad audio moving toward the good.

If your camera has an 1/8″ input for a microphone, purchase a small stereo mic that will sit on the hot shoe. Even the $30 to $50 units will improve your audio quite a bit. Get that mic closer to the talent, with an extension. It’s the same kind of cable that a pair of headphones uses. Get a microphone stand and mount the mic above the talent’s head pointing the microphone at their mouth. Turn off the A/C and any really noisy appliances. Listen to the sound coming from the camera with headphones, make sure it sounds good.

Links for XLR to 1/8″ mixer.
http://www.juicedlink.com/index_files/CX_camcorder_XLR_microphone_adapter_audio_mixers.htm
or
http://www.fullcompass.com/product/240770.html