How to Buy an External Microphone for a Camcorder

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Christopher Rokosz, actor, director, producer. And I'm going to give you some of my advice on how to buy an external microphone for your camcorder. Well, they say that video is two thirds audio, and they're right. What that means is you could have a beautiful HD picture, but if your sound sounds horrible, your product is going to sound horrible. And my advice has been--and I've been teaching how to do video production for years--is never use the microphone on your camera. Never use the microphone on your camera unless you're videotaping grandma's birthday. And this particular camera over here, its microphone is first class, but it's a first class omni-directional microphone that picks up just about everything very well. It's stereo, it's a great mic, but you're going to have a very hollow sound. Its job is to be mounted to the cameras and pick up everything. People breathing in the next room, cars going by, it's not a great one if you're trying to do production. And if you're looking to buy an external, that's probably it. The other thing is, you've got to decide what kind of camera you have, and what kind of mics can go into it. Because some cameras like the smaller Sony's, you can only buy a microphone that fits through them. They'll say they'll have a microphone input, but it can only get through their custom hot shoe here, and the hot shoe is the place on top that microphones usually attach to. Now, your major kinds of microphones for cameras are going to be your omni-directional like this, omni meaning everything--it's going to pick up in front of it, to the sides of it, even a little bit around to the back of it almost--not right in back of it. But it's going to pick up everything. Or, like this microphone, shotgun, is very uni-directional, meaning that you point it at something, that's the sound it's picking up, and it leaves all the other sounds around. Used in television and film all the time. This that I've taken off, is the wind jacket, or the wind cover. This makes sounds of air moving across it muffled. It makes a nice, crisper sound. So, first of all, identify whether your camera can even take a mic input. Some of them do not take them, okay. And only your professional ones will have what they call an XLR input, which is going to be a hole in the side of the camera that looks like this, all right. If yours doesn't and it just has the mini input, which is like the ones that you find on your average headset for your iPod or your headphones. You put those in, and they do make adapters if you want them more professional quality. Again, professional will have the XLR in it, and you want a shotgun. The other is the lavalier microphones like this. In fact I'm wearing one right now. They're nice and hidden, and it's sending a radio signal to a unit like this to pick it up, so this is attached to the camcorder, I'm not tethered in there. Audio is very important. Make your decision wisely. I'm Christopher Rokosz, we'll see you in Hollywood."