Real World Digital Video, Second Edition

Avoiding Nasty Surprises in Post

The purpose of capturing the cleanest possible dialogue on-set is to avoid nasty surprises in postproduction. Here are a few pointers to help you anticipate the challenges you'll face in dealing with audio post.

Consider Recording Separate Tracks

Remember that your primary objective in capturing audio on the set is to keep dialogue clean. Ideally, if there are ambient sound effects or even live music in the action, you'll want to segregate the dialogue on its own track. When there's any kind of extraneous noise, mic the actors closely, or use a highly focused mic that will reject off-axis noise. You can use a second mic set off at a distance and record it on a separate track, which you'll mix with the first in ...