External Microphone advice please!

[Rmb4hawk]

Hi. I recently bought a Samsung NV7 digital camera. It has good movie features, which is part of the reason I got it. However the internal microphone is not very good, as it doesn't have great range and picks up alot of camera noise. So I want to make short films, but with some reasonable quality sound. There appears to be no jack for an external mic. So what are my options. Can I get a seperate microphone or and sync the sound to the image in editing. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers

[Ronnoco]

Hi. I recently bought a Samsung NV7 digital camera. It has good movie features, which is part of the reason I got it. However the internal microphone is not very good, as it doesn't have great range and picks up alot of camera noise. So I want to make short films, but with some reasonable quality sound. There appears to be no jack for an external mic. So what are my options. Can I get a seperate microphone or and sync the sound to the image in editing. Any help would be appreciated. Cheers

Unfortunately I don't think you have any options. Video and film production equipment which I have used is at a totally more advanced level of sophistication. The digital still and video consumer equipment is really only designed for very simple shooting of family or other events with normally ambient sound arriving at the built in mic on the camera.

Ronnoco

[Rmb4hawk]

I recently read Robert Rodriguez's book 'Rebel Without A Crew' about the making of his first feature 'El Mariahchi' and he recorded the movie silent then used a radio shack microphone and tape recorder to record the sound then sync them up in the edit. Time consuming but cost effective. I was just wondering if anyone knows of a similiar solution.

[Ronnoco]

I recently read Robert Rodriguez's book 'Rebel Without A Crew' about the making of his first feature 'El Mariahchi' and he recorded the movie silent then used a radio shack microphone and tape recorder to record the sound then sync them up in the edit. Time consuming but cost effective. I was just wondering if anyone knows of a similiar solution.

Yes, but there are a lot of variables missing. Are we talking just music or commentary or trying to lip sync or match sound with actions? What quality are you talking about? A good highly directional microphone can cost close to $1,000. An acceptable one with far less strength and quality would be perhaps $100. Synching the sound up with the edit again depends on the equipment used and the resultant quality.

Bottom line is that there are all kinds of what we call mickey mouse approaches to doing things but equally there are all levels of poor and poorer quality results that match these approaches. A pro with a good eye for detail and good ear for sound quality will automatically be able to evaluate the quality of a video/film. So will anyone else who is in the business and deals with multi-media on a regular basis. If you want to produce short films and sell them, you have to match your quality with the standard and norms in your area and particular market.

Ronnoco