Recording audio and video seperately

[AvayaNovice]

Hi,

I've got Premiere 6.5, and I'm using my Sony TRV720.

I figure that this is a decent camera, I just hate the audio it records.

We're about to start filming a movie (low budget). I'd like to use my sony camera because I think the picture it gets is good enough, I don't want to have to buy a nicer camera.

My question is this: and I'm sure it's fairly simple...

Can I record my audio seperately from my camera? I've got a portable DAT recorder. My camera has a minijack for a "plug-in power" mic. I want to use a boom with a mic on the end, and all I've ever seen is some device that costs $150 dollars that will allow you to convert from a minijack plugin power mic to a regular XLR mic.

Secondly, what's a good boom mic that's fairly cheap? Or can I use any condenser microphone?

Ok, so back to my question.

How do I take my audio from my DAT recorder and sync it to my video in premiere? I've got a nice Echo Audio digital sound card. I just have no idea how syncing works.

Any explanation, or references to good threads or anything would be great.

I figure the audio quality from my DAT would be better than my camera.

 

[EdwardMartinIII]

I know, this is late, but I've recently learned these things.

Video from the camera can be fine and is already in sync, as long as you plug your microphone into the microphone jack of the camera.

Even if you DON'T want the camera-recorded audio, and must record separately, try to find some spare mic and plug it in there to record the scene anyway. This adds a synchronised audio file to your video. Once you've filtered your externally-recorded audio, you can import it in and sync it exactly up to the camera-recorded audio

You should buy and use a slate for all situations. Not only does this help you keep track of your takes, but it also provides a visual+audio cue for sound-syncing. Especially if you're going to do a feature, I recommend you buy a real slate (plastic dry-erase, with the little magnets to make a good click. On the audio file waveform, you'll see a peak where the slate clacks. Line that up to the first video frame where the slate arm isn't blurred (in motion) and you should be pretty good.

We are a very low-budget operation. We bought a cheapie microphone at an electronics store for twenty bucks. We bought a bamboo pole for a buck at a garden supply store. We bought a sheet of foam at a sewing store for a buck or two. We wrap one layer of foam around the end of the pole, then press the microphone into it (to dampen vibration from the pole to the mic), then wrap more layers around the mic, leaving a "tube" about an inch deep, then rubberband the thing together. We run the mic plug directly into the camera. Then, our sound girl handles the boom. We recently shot a short outside movie where the characters are whispering and it worked perfectly -- even when the wind kicked up (the foam acted as a windbreak!)

Unless you have a very fancy DAT, the audio quality from it and the audio quality from your camera are going to be quite comparable (16-bit digital recording is 16-bit digital recording). The deciding factor here will be your choice of microphone.

I use Goldwave to filter the hiss from my audio. It's under a hundred bucks and allows me to grab a piece of silence from the waveform and build a filter using those parameters. The last short movie we shot was about six minutes long, with about 20 scenes and filtering the audio for the whole thing took me about twenty minutes.

Is that any help?

Cheers,


Edward

"Cut a hole in the door. Hang a flap. Criminy, why didn't I think of this earlier?!" -- inventor of the cat door