What is a shotgun mic?
 

This may sound dumb, but I am a newbie.

What is a "shotgun" mic?

Thanks

It is an external mic shaped like a shotgun. It usually refers to a directional mic, but not necessarly.

By "shotgun" Frank means like a straight pipe. Most are designed to be most sensitive to sound directly in front of one end and reject surrounding sounds.

And, there are long shotguns and short ones. The long ones usually are more directional and can be used from farther away, while the shorter ones can be used in quite close. Sennheiser has a nice range of good ones in their MKH series, starting at around $1200, and Neuman (pronounced noiman) has even better ones with interchangeable heads. Sennheiser, Audio Technika, AKG and some others also make some cheaper ones in the $300-$600 range. There are lots of others out there too. For a long time the Sennhesier MKH416 (and the newer MKH60) have been sort of considered to be the standard by many people--ie., if you can only have one shotgun, you can't go wrong with one of those. Professional soundmen, of course, have a variety.
Just spending a lot of money on a mic, however, won't necessarily give you good sound. They're like cameras...very dependant on the user. If you're interested in a good mic, you might check out PSC--Professional Sound Corporation, in L.A. Very friendly and they don't embarass you if you show your ignorance and ask elementary questions, as I've done numerous times.