A Crew of One

If you’re really working on a shoestring, you might not have a crew of any kind, leaving yourself in the position of having to do everything while shooting. If you’re shooting a scene with actors, you can often get your performers to assume some of your crew duties, but if you’re shooting a low-budget documentary on your own, you’ll usually have access to only your own two hands.

Unfortunately, lack of personnel doesn’t mean you can scrimp on the issues and details presented here. However, you might want to adjust your gear if you’re shooting on your own.

Obviously, managing multiple recording devices is going to be more complicated than recording audio to your camera, so unless there’s some special reason for outboard audio recording, stick to recording directly into your camera.

Since you don’t have a boom operator, you’ll be forced to rely on lavaliers or a high-quality, on-camera shotgun mic. Lavaliers are the best option in this instance because they can deliver excellent quality with little work on your part. (Wireless lavs are even better for single-person shoots, as they save you the trouble of managing cables.) If you must use an on-camera mic, opt for a very directional microphone, so as to minimize the recording of extra background sounds, echoes, and room noises.

Because audio is so critical, when budgeting your project, you should prioritize the purchase or rental of a good mic and boom over just about anything else. Finally, hire, beg, cajole, bribe, blackmail—use whatever techniques you have to get someone to operate your boom for you so that you don’t have to face a single-person shoot.

As with any kind of audio recording, your most important task will be to monitor the audio recording through headphones while shooting. Because this can make things more difficult if you’re conducting an interview, you might opt to only periodically monitor your audio, but you should check in on it fairly regularly. Dead batteries, the unnoticed activation of an air

conditioner, power problems—all of these things can cause your audio to turn bad. Monitoring is the only way to ensure you’re recording the sounds you need.

Gear Checklist

Your audio equipment usually requires a big assortment of little items. Cables, adapters, batteries, stands, the microphones themselves—if you forget any of these things, you’ll be severely audio challenged when you get to your set. Before you walk out the door, set up all of your audio equipment and make sure it works. Then make a list of every item—even the smallest adapters and cables. If you want to be extra secure, get some tape and mark each item with a number, and code each item appropriately on your list. Then, when you’re in a hurry, you can simply make sure that you have the right number of items. If a number is missing, a quick glance at your list should tell you what you need to find.

We recommend taking the same approach to audio that you should take to video: record the cleanest, least-modified sound you can. Then, in postproduction, add whatever modifications, effects, grunge, and extra sound you want. In addition to more flexibility (if you decide you don’t want a particular sound, you’ll be able to move it), this approach will probably yield higher-quality results. We’ll cover sound editing in Chapter 15.