August, 2007

• 19 August

  Choosing the highest quality microphone option

  So those are the microphones and the ways they connect. But how do they perform?To test performance, we used a high-quality, digitized recording of a woman speaking, played back over computer speakers at a standardized volume. To create ambient so

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• 19 August

  Choosing an XLR adapter for your camcorder

  So, if you want to use a high-end microphone with your camcorder and you don't have an XLR jack, you'll have to find a way to convert from the XLR cable to the 3.5mm connector on your camera. We explored two alternatives.The first was a "line matc

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• 19 August

  Choosing a microphone: the three questions

  This leads us to the three issues you need to address before buying a microphone. Note that you have to ask the same questions whether the microphone is wired or wireless, since the issues are identical.What is the pickup pattern?First is the pick

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• 19 August

  Checklist for using an external microphone

  When you attach an external microphone to your camcorder, you're going to have to change some settings on the camcorder to tell it to ignore its internal microphone and record from the external. You'll also have to set gain controls to make sure that

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• 19 August

  Capturing High Quality Audio

  It generally only takes a video shoot or two before you realize that the weakest link on your camcorder is the microphone. Don't worry: It's not you, or really your camcorder for that matter, just the simple fact of life that all onboard microphon

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• 16 August

  Which is better: Flat or three-point lighting?

  I had my own opinions on the matter of which lighting technique to use for streaming. However, I wanted confirmation, so I contacted Roger Chang, who produces two shows for Ziff Davis Media — DL.TV with Patrick Norton and Robert Heron and Cr

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• 16 August

  Three-point lighting and conclusion

  As mentioned above, the interviews with local band No Speed Limit were primarily to create a DVD to send to festival promoters along with a couple of songs from a concert I shot on New Year's Eve. The group also wanted to upload the interviews to

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• 16 August

  Flat lighting techniques

  After speaking with Chang, I was eager to try his idea of using one key light behind the camera because this would save transporting another light on portable shoots and would guarantee absolute even lighting across the face. Rather than using the

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• 16 August

  Setting up Flat and Three-point Lighting

  The dramatic shadows created by three-point lighting have been a staple of movies and television production since their inception, and three-point lighting remains highly touted in most tutorials, articles, and books on video lighting. However, a

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• 9 August

  Applying Compression

  Our tasks are arguably a bit out of sequence here, because when I apply compression I typically do it before normalization or other amplification. But for discussion purposes, it’s better placed here. To apply Soundbooth’s Advanced Co

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