Post by JohnWe are planning some talking heads. Probably both indoors and
outdoors. We will probably also use some screen capturing stuff too
later on.
Good. THAT is what we were needed to know.
Post by JohnWe have almost zero budget for this project, but I have been given a
Samsung Sports Camcorder (VP-X220L), which has 2GB of internal
memory but is a couple of years old now.
From our initial experiments but it seems clear for most people to
look good, you dont want to got too wide angle on the person you are
shooting, but that if the camcorder is not physically close enough to
the person then the quality of sound suffers a lot. Thus it seems like
we'll need an external mike in order to get half decent sound.
To recap, what we are trying to create is a video, that will be hosted
on the web (possibly youtube). The video needs to appears to be
amateur but "very good quality" amateur.
Don't go out of your way to make your video appear to be "amateur"
It is likely you can achieve that without doing anything. :-)
Post by JohnIt has been suggested that we buy a separate sound recording device
and match up the sound with the video later (e.g. a little Olympus
voice recorder). This seems like it will be a pain to synchronise the
sound with the moving pictures, but if necessary I suppose we might
have to go this way. (Cheaper than buying a entire new camcorder I
strongly suspect!)
What software are you using to edit your video? Most NLE apps
(even low-end versions) allow you to separately manipulate the audio
and video track(s).
IMHO, (and IME) using a $5 clip-on "computer mic" plugged
directly into the computer and recording on the computer produces
a quite reasonably good sound track whether you are shooting live-
action "talking head" video, or capturing computer screen action.
Note also the importance of decent acoustic environment discussed
further below.
You are correct that the onboard microphone on virtually all
cameras (even professional ones) is usually inappropriate (too
far away, etc.) for acceptable audio. But as long as the camera
mic is picking up *some* audio, you can use it as a "guide track"
in editing to sync up the audio from the real mic. You can then
mute the "guide track" and use the better audio track.
Since you already have a camera, try it indoors and outdoors with
better-than-average lighting. Many recent low-end cameras will
make quite respectable video when they have a lot of light to
work with. Frequently a few $$ spent on lighting will have better
results on the screen than the same amount of $$ spent on a camera.
Very often the things that distinguish between embarassing amateur
looking/sounding video and professional-looking video are AUDIO
and LIGHTING.
For lighting try your camera in well-lit locations and don't ignore
the sometimes dramatic improvement from putting an extra light
or two in strategic places. There are many websites that show
low-cost video lighting ideas. Most of them are very clever and
inexpensive but produce very impressive improvement to the
final video image.
Remember that the *direction* and *color* of the light are
often more important than the *quantity*. And note that even
expensive video cameras don't have a very wide dynamic range
for exposure, so shooting in direct sunlight or indoors with a
window behind the subject rarely works well with amateur
cameras and should be avoided.
And be sure to get "clean" audio. Few things make video sound
more amateur than hearing background noises (traffic, phones
ringing, people talking next door, etc.) It is also important to
be sure that you are recording in a place without close-by
(2-4 ft) reflective surfaces. Those near reflections cause a
"hollow" sound which cause most people to instantly and sub-
consiously think "amateur" and "home movies".