Audio

Audio almost always winds up being the forgotten child of the video family.

In many productions, if not all, the audio is of equal or greater importance than the video. The audio provides the basic critical foundation for the video content, and is probably the major factor in determining the quality of the overall production values. Just remember that probably 80% of your production content will be provided to the audience by the audio stream. Awareness of audio is probably less than the visual pictures presented, and well-recorded audio is not "noticed" by the viewer. It disappears and becomes as natural as a real experience. The secret to great audio is knowing the basics of sound generation, knowing what types of microphones there are, how they work and what they provide, and how to apply them to each different situation. Basic types are hardwired, shotgun, or wireless mikes. Hardwired mikes are usually of any design including dynamic and condenser, and the pickup patterns are of the omni-directional or cardioid type. Shotgun mikes are highly narrow in their pickup pattern, much like a shotgun blast pattern, hence the name. With wireless mikes, select the UHF dual antenna true diversity pickup systems. They offer the least problems of receiving interference. But watch the perspective of the sound provided by the wireless mike on the talent versus the scene composition.