4 Tips For Better Cinematic Audio

On this video, Ted Sim (from Aputure) and Andrew Jones (from Deity Microphones) talk about making better audio for your videos and go over 4 useful tips that will help you elevate the sound on your next production.

We focus a lot on the image quality aspect (camera, lenses, lighting etc.) but for video, at least 50% of the experience for most users is the audio. High-quality audio with O.K. video is fine most of the time while an amazing video with poor audio will likely result in a subpar outcome.

So what can you do to improve your sound in your next production – here are Jones’ 4 tips for this video:

Use sound “effects” – recording in a super quiet environment might be good for certain shots but having no sound “effects” might result in a hollow sound so you need to add in some room noise or ambient (either in post or by actually recording it on location – which is always a good idea).
Boom perspective – when you shoot a wide shot it might be a good idea to record using a boom from further away so that the viewer will get a feeling of the perspective and the way the sound comes from your subject as if he or she hears them in real life.
Record wild sound – “Wild sound” is getting back to what we talked about in 1# – recording environmental audio, while “wild line” refers to having your actor repeat a specific line in a few different ways (which is always a good idea).
Clean Dialogue – this is super simple – try and have your actors record their lines by themselves (no actor should overlap each other). You can still have an actor talk over another but try and get a clean version as well if you can so you will have something to play with in post if you decide to do so.

Recently we published a comprehensive article (and video) showing how Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake (now on DPreview) talk about the importance of mic placement vs. mic quality and give a long list of tips for recording good sound.

On LensVid we have a very extensive section devoted to sound recording for video productions.

Iddo Genuth

Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.