Best way to Mic a room for Bride Prep
 

I'm looking to capture better audio when shooting bride & groom prep sequences. I usually spend a fair amount of time in the bridal suite and try to pick up as much of the dialog as I can. I also do interviews with family members to use for sound bites. Presently, I'm just using the on-board mic on XH-A1. Its not bad, but not great unless I'm directly in front of the person speaking at the time. I was thinking of going with a second audio setup in the room - specifically a shotgun mic, zoom h2 or h4, on a tripod. My question is whether the two audio sources would buy me much. I'm concerned that the shotgun may give me better sound but still wouldn't provide the ambient coverage -say for example someone behind the camera says something interesting. Can anyone share what they are doing?

Art

look up Tye Ford's mic tutorial video. Very valuable info there. The short of it is to skip the shotgun for small rooms where the speaker may not be on axis. The sound will be muffled. Get an omni mic. I have a drop mic usually used for chorus performances. I can place that almost anywhere. It is wired XLR, but has a 20' cable. Any sound sources that are equal distance from teh mic will be equal volume. Place the mic on one side of the room, and you shoudl get fairly even sound.

Hi Jason, could you be so kind as to post the link to Tye's Mic tutorial video please?

thanks

Well first off, it would help if I spelled his name correctly...... Should be Ty Ford.

Since I messed up spelling his name, I'll provide the links. :-) But don't forget about the search link for the forum. It really does work.

Ty's web site
Ty's video tutorial on location sound Go to the "Video" directory and then find the file called "Ty Ford Mic Tutorial VIdeo.mp4" (spelled exactly like that).

Ambient Sound at Bridal Prep.
 

Art: I would recommend a shotgun. The pickup pattern is usually not as tight as the response patterns on the spec. sheet. It will definitely pick up comments by the cameraman
but at a slightly lower level than from pople in front of the mike.

I use a medium shotgun made by Schreiber Acoustics, now NRG; tho they are no longer in production. I have mine wired to send the mono signal to both channels thru isolating resistors. Works very well as I have described.

If you have any further questions let me know.