What is the one question no one asks?
If there was one question in the industry of which I wished clients would ask more often it’d be, “How do you capture audio?”
Of our entire package of gear the single most important (IMO) piece of equipment is not the fancy drone, it is not the latest camera body, it is not the most expensive L-series lens owned. It actually has nothing to do with capturing video, while at the same time has EVERYTHING to do with capturing video. Okay, can we stop pretending like we didn’t see the huge picture of a microphone above? …..Yes!! It is a tiny black box powered by a single triple-A battery with an expensive little wired mic attached to it. These little guys hold so much value to the wedding films we produce and keepsake DVDs delivered.
Upon returning home from a wedding I always begin backing up footage immediately. Simultaneously, guess what I am most excited to hear? The audio files – crisp sounding – audio files. Not that anything has ever been wrong, but spot checking these is near the top of my post production checklist (often occurring the same evening of the wedding).
If these are so important to me, why does it seem like no one else cares? Perhaps – if there has never been an issue it’d never be noticed? That is my guess. That, and most people do not need to know nor care to know all the finer details that go into the profession (rightfully so). …And for that reason, you could click off this blog post and on to the next..
….but you stuck around to hear what else I had to say!?
We place battery powered and wired mics on the groom, officiant(s), reader(s), singer/mic stand, and sometimes the bride (we have a white one that is easy to hide). We mention they are wired because that is important. They record directly to the attached device. They will not pick up interference from any other devices on the same frequency nor will it send interference to the same devices. To make that clear – your audience will not get messed up audio due to our gear and vice versa. Wind screens – yes please, when outdoors. We also like to place a recording device right to the sound board of the venue at both the ceremony and reception (just to have extra options). No one can tap into these devices as they record live – buttons locked – settings secured.
Why so important? Without it we’d be watching a ceremony with just lips moving and no words coming out. To us and to our style WORDS make our wedding videos what they are. If you listen thru most of our highlights – start to finish – WORDS..