Emmy winning sound producer/engineer said recently on the Digital Production Buzz podcast:
“Audio with no video is radio. Video with no audio is surveillance.”
He is absolutely, completely spot on. Well, he did win an Emmy after all. But audio does get overlooked when it comes to producing video. It really shouldn’t. if it wasn’t for the audio how would you be able to pace something accordingly? Or for that matter. How would you be able to understand the message?
I don’t know who said it, but there’s the adage of if you can’t understand what a video is saying without audio than you will lose your audience. I disagree with that. The power of video is the fact that you are using more than one sense. Because of that, your retention goes up!
So, making sure you record good audio is key. There are several tools out there, but having a great microphone can really either make or break your video. There are several types to choose from whether it’s a boom, on camera shotgun, lavaliere or handheld. Then to choose whether it needs to be wireless or not! There are other tools like a digital recorder, and then syncing the sound later. if you don’t have these external tools to record sound, then make sure you get your camera or phone in a quiet area and get close to the subject. See my post here on that.
The next thing to think about is music. Your music has to fit the personality of what you are trying to convey. You can’t just arbitrarily insert random music as it has to fit the pace of the video and the subject matter. This is something we take great care in at our studio and it sometimes is the most time consuming. But we find the right track that fits. Just take a look at some of our videos and see if you feel we missed the mark.
Audio is just as important to plan for as video and having the right tools at hand will not only give you leverage when it comes to the editing process, but it goes a long way into making your clients look and sound great!
