Izzy Video 101 – Shotgun Microphones
A shotgun microphone is nothing to be afraid of, despite the intimidating name. In this installment of Izzy Video, I go in-depth on what a shotgun microphone is, from the inside out.
The shotgun microphone is my favorite type of mic to use. The audio I get from mine is MUCH better than the audio I get from my lapel mics.
This video is available to members only.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:00 am
Best piece of advice: point the shotgun mic downward toward your interviewee. And wouldn’t you know I forgot to do this yesterday and I got all kinds of background noise. As soon as I listened to the audio at home (I had headphones on the location, but somehow I still didn’t catch this) I heard the music playing in the background. The interviewee’s voice is still okay, but it could have been much better.
Oh well, live and learn. Thanks for the tip Izzy. Really makes the premier subscription worth it.
Michael
October 9th, 2008 at 6:07 am
Michael,
Thanks for the great feedback!
I forget my own rules all the time! I can create a tutorial — for example — about pointing the shotgun microphone down from over the subject, and then the next day forget to do that.
Video tutorials are great, but they don’t change habits immediately I guess. I think the value is in the information. You hear/see it often enough and it starts to become ingrained. Awareness is where it all starts.
Thanks for watching! And thanks for saying that the Premium Subscription is worth it!
March 13th, 2010 at 12:28 am
Actually, I DO have a question about shotgun mics. You demonstrated a shock mount on a pistol grip. But how do I get rid of the handling noise when the mic is inserted into my camera shotgun mic holder clip (Canon XH A1). Using the mic and touching the camera defeats the purpose of eliminating behind-the-mic noise! (applying a high-pass filter helps a bit)
Thanks