what’s up guys segi here and welcome to another five minute Friday in this new series I spend five minutes or less giving you the most important information or my opinion about a specific topic or product because who doesn’t have five minutes so let’s throw five minutes on the clock and get started one of the most important aspects of video production is actually audio I feel like most of the conversation when it comes to video be it for YouTube or someone wanting to move into more of a professional site a video usually revolves around image quality there’s a lot of focus put on the choice of camera the settings the lenses being used image stabilization low-light performance and a lot of other topics which don’t get me wrong are very important but I think sometimes what gets forgotten or maybe just overlooked is audio and I believe this has to do with the misconception that the success of the video depends almost solely on image quality and this is so not true there’s so much more that goes into creating video those are ideas scripts story camera placement
lighting framing on-camera performance and then of course sound now naturally essentially every camera you buy now has a built in microphone and this is where most people start and of course if you’re using your phone for video you can use the built-in microphone to get audio along with your video and don’t get me wrong I love getting gear but at the same time I’m a big believer in the notion that the best tools are the ones you have so I don’t want any of this discussion to discourage you or make you feel like you can’t start creating content with what you have there are so many things that you can get better at when creating content just using the tools that you already have right now sure at some point you might want to get a better camera better lighting or a better microphone but don’t wait until that happens start creating now they’re incredible creators out there who do amazing things with their phones so you don’t always need the latest and greatest gear make sure to check out demon who has an entire channel dedicated to helping you create content and
succeed on YouTube with your mobile phone but when it’s time to start upgrading your audio there are a few things that I want you to think about first the built-in microphone on your camera it’s just not gonna be that great when you buy a camera you’re paying for greater image quality better resolution frame rates low light performance better dynamic range you’re not paying for professional audio components the first thing I would consider is to use an external microphone instead of the on camera or on phone mic an external microphone is gonna do a better job at picking up the source for a few reasons first it’s gonna use much higher quality components and we can let the microphone take care of the audio quality and the camera will take care of the image quality next it’s gonna allow us to use the right type of microphone for our applications sometimes that’s going to be a shotgun mic with a more directional pickup pattern that will help us isolate the subject in other cases it might be a lavalier microphone that is mounted right on the subject and will give us better audio if the subject is moving around we
could also use a wireless lavalier microphone which uses a system with a transmitter and a receiver so that the subject doesn’t need to be tethered to the camera in addition to higher quality audio components these microphones also allow us to use the right pickup pattern for our application and they solve the next problem which is distance the issue with using a built-in microphone on the camera is that the microphone has to be the same distance from the subject as the camera so if the camera is 2 feet away from the subject that might be fine but if the camera is 10 feet away from the subject then the microphone has to be 10 feet away from the subject as well and that’s gonna make it pretty difficult to get a good recording so here’s a quick test of me recording when I’m very close to my camera about 2 feet it’s okay so right now I’m about 2 feet away from my cinema camera I just wanted you to be able to hear what the built-in microphone sounds like again when I’m about 2 feet away from it and then again at about 10 feet away alright and now
I’m about 10 feet away from the camera and I just wanted to give you an idea of what this would sound like if I was using the built-in microphone on the camera from about 10 feet away and we can easily hear that this isn’t gonna work for us so with an external shotgun microphone we can already narrow down that pickup pattern and director right at this checked and we can also mount it off-camera and get it to be just a few feet away from the subject by using a longer cord the lavalier microphone book wired and wireless is placed even closer to the source and can also help us isolate our subject from distracting background noise now regardless of whether you’re using the built-in microphone on your camera or an external microphone the easiest way to get better audio is to record in controlled environments if you’re recording in your room your office or a studio you can use anything from curtains to sound blankets to
help treat the space you’ll be amazed at what a huge difference even seemingly small changes can make in eliminating echo all right so now
turning this back to you I want to know what you think is audio important part of video or do you think that great visuals can overcome that audio also I want to know a little bit about your current audio setup and what you’re looking to do in the future and do you have any other tips and tricks that you use to get better audio if you want me to do a more detailed video about getting better audio with different mic setups for different cameras let me know in the comment section I’ll put together a tutorial but this wraps up this episode of five minute Friday if you enjoyed it please let me know by leaving a comment giving this video a thumbs up and if you haven’t yet join the community by hitting the subscribe and notification buttons also if you have any follow-up questions I’ll do my best to answer every comment I get so go ahead and drop them in the comment section below for more tips and tutorials you can always find me on Instagram Twitter and Facebook at Tech your talk and you know what I always say bye nice or bye twice good luck and see you
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