Outdoor run & gun interviews: should I swap my cardoid for a boom?

Allen Ellis

Allen Ellis

Well-known member
Hi all,

I'm doing man-on-the-street style interviews that we're publishing to the web. Right now my interviewer is holding a simple cardoid microphone while sitting near them, holding the microphone 2-3 feet from them. I'd like to improve the audio quality, and wondering whether you think the NTG-1 + accessories is a good idea.

Here's a photo from last weekend:
interviews.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/allenellis/6860933887/in/photostream/

You can listen to the audio here:
https://vimeo.com/36644335

This sounds surprisingly good to me given how far we are holding it away. But we're definitely noticing:
1) Handling noise is sometimes bothersome
2) Background noise (birds)
3) Wind noise was a big problem, even with a foam ball. Although it was an unusually windy day (20-30mph gusts. The breeze was no problem). Maybe I just avoid windy days?
4) The clarity and volume are lower than ideal (which I expected)

I'm trying to decide whether upgrading to a shotgun would help these points. Breaking it down:
1) Handling noise would probably get worse unless I bought a pistol grip. What do you think of something like this?
2) Background noise -- I have no idea. Would the shotgun be better or worse in this situation? Birds, nearby fountains, joggers nearby, etc. This is probably my biggest question.
3) Wind noise -- I don't know much about this. I've heard of blimps and dead cats but don't know whether I need one. If I only plan to work in under 15-20mph gusts, would a basic wind screen like this be sufficient?
4) I assume that booms are designed to be held around this distance away, so I'm hopeful the clarity and intensity would improve significantly?

Obviously the best thing to do would be to get the microphone closer. I'm hesitant to do that because of the nature of our interviews... we're approaching strangers asking them about their spirituality, which can be pretty personal so we'd feel awkward sitting much closer. And I feel as though this is a reasonable distance to get good sound if we were using the right equipment.

For what it's worth, I also have a wireless lapel that I've attached to my interviewer for his questions. I don't really want to be wiring up (potentially homeless) people with a $500 wireless lav kit. We thought about attaching it to the clipboard but that didn't sound very good at all.

Budget: A few hundred dollars. This particular project is a freebie but I might freelance again so I see value in making good investments.

I've got my eye on the NTG-1 because it's popular and seems to fit the bill. I like that it's shorter than the NTG-2, becuase that seems like it would be more comfortable to hold and look less intimidating. We're plugged into a Zoom H4N or my HMC-150 so phantom power is readily available.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
"Boom" is not a type of microphone. You are mistaking it for a shotgun microphone. What model microphone are you using now? From what I can tell, I don't think it's designed for handheld or field use, based on the handling and wind noise. You would be better off with a mic like the RE50, an industry standard in the ENG field. For man on the street interviews like this, pointing a handheld mic in the person's face is standard practice, so get used to doing it.

If you have the crew, a boom operator with a microphone boom, a shotgun mic, and headphones all tethered to your camera will give you the best sound. I hesitate to recommend a shotgun mic for this type of thing without a boom operator. Handholding a shotgun mic won't give you great sound unless you have a really good technique. Your cardioid mic has a heart-shaped pickup pattern (cardio-, get it?) A shotgun mic has a hypercardioid pattern, meaning it's more directional. If you are aiming it wrong, you will end up with very bad audio.

Either way, you need better wind protection. For a handheld, Windtech makes some nice foam screens. They also make foam shotgun screens, but I've never used them. For a shotgun or handheld, Rycote makes the best, however I've never tested the Røde you linked to.
 
You already know the root problem: that's the distance.

Your picture: swapping out your current handheld mic with a shotgun mic like NTG-1 can hardly improve the overall audio quality, but may make the audio recording more acceptable to you. It will surely pick less certain sounds from the side, thereby making the recorded voice stand out better, while it emphasizes the low frequency part of any sound it picks from the side and the back, thereby likely making the recorded voice mix with "stranger" noises. Since a shotgun mic typically has a (much) better reach than a cardioid mic, it may make your audio have less audible distractions. But even with a shotgun mic hand held in your hands, your pictured distance is still too much.

The sure way to improve the quality of the voice recording, without making things more complicated, is to cut the distance. There are at least 3 ways: either

1) use a handheld mic (not necessarily a "standard" ENG mic) in a "normal" way (i.e., letting it visible in the video), or
2) use a hidden lav (as you don't seem to like to let your audience see the mic), or
3) use a shotgun mic pointing to the talent in a short distance (no more than ~18 inch), from outside of the video frame along a direction that it picks least background noise.

There is nothing wrong in hand holding a shotgun mic (imagine replacing a short boom pole with your arm, tho your arm is really short compared to any boom pole), and use it like a handheld mic. You'd just have to always use a shock mount to avoid (reduce) operating noises. Additionally, unlike a cardioid mic, a shotgun is very susceptible to wind noise, so something up to as big as a blimp is almost always a must when using a shotgun mic outside, thereby making it typically more intrusive than an ENG mic (let alone a tiny lav).

BTW, the pickup pattern of a shotgun mic is typically not called hypercardioid. A hypercardioid mic does not emphasize low-frequency sound as a shotgun mic does, and has a slightly less reach than a shotgun mic.
 
The ElectroVoice RE-50 is a great interview mic, and I own a couple of them. Unless you get it really close to the interviewee, like lick the lollypop close, it is a really bad mic at +24". Recording to a weak pre-amp recorder like a Zoom will just make this worse. If I intend to record the RE-50 to a pocket recorder, in my case a DR-100, it will break bad unless a mixer is used to boost the gain. Remember, a RE-50 is a dynamic mic which has low output compared to most condensor mics. It will really isolate the interviewee which is good, but needs to be used properly used to do so.

Grant
 
1) Use a microphone that is less susceptible to handling noise. Some are much better than others. And some (like Electrovoice RE-50) are double-cased and are DESIGNED for hand-held use.
2) Use a better windscreen. A simple foam ball is NEVER sufficient outdoors with any wind. That is why we have furry covers. Look at products from WindTech. THey make foam and fur wind protection (and lots of other microphone accessories) at sensible prices.
3) The best, most expensive microphone known on the planet won't work in that environment at that DISTANCE. Your approach is completely unrealistic. If the interviewer can't get the mic at minimum 12 inches from the subject's mouth don't even bother going out and turning on the camera.
4) And SOMEBODY (the interviewer, the camera operator, the director/producer, etc.) should be MONITORING the audio so you can hear if there are problems before you WASTE good interview opportunities and everyone's time.
 
An Audio Technica 875R in a rode PG2 (pistol grip) with a W/S6 (wind shield) is what I use and it would give good performance used in the situation you have there, monitoring the audio is a must and your interviewer or boom op/recordist would be best doing this as they can then place the mic in the best position.

The AT 875R is a good gen purpose short shotgun and it gives a good focussed natural sound with reasonable back noise rejection for the money, it also has good gain structure and I have used mine for all sorts of interviews and drama recordings, here are a couple of examples and the mic is further away than your set-up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH8mVouKkhg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbvCcjrAueI

and all the dialogue on this student film was shot with one AT875R on a boom straight into the camera, a panasonic HPX371 set to auto!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C5zy1l4c_U
 
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Thanks for your help everyone. Since I want to avoid the habit of spending my way out of problems (especially since this is not a paid project) I'll try the obvious answer first: getting closer. I hear unanimous opinions that a shotgun won't magically fix that, and I suppose I knew that at some level anyway. The clarity helps.

I'm definitely going to get my interviewer a way to monitor the audio. When it was a whim / test project I wasn't as concerned about it, but as we all invest more time I want to make sure we're doing it efficiently like you say.

A spin-off question if anyone would like to bite:
As I consider the possibility of replacing it with either a shotgun or a better handheld like the EV-RE50, I'm also considering future shoot needs. Man-on-the street is rare for me, mostly I've shot interviews indoors. Once I didn't have time to put the lav on the stream of people flowing through so I tried putting this handheld on a boom pole out of frame - and it was usable but not great: low volume, plenty of background noise. Here's a screen grab:

interview-studio.jpg

[ Here is a link to this video if you want to hear it ]

I understand that often those shooting controlled interviews use a lav plus a shotgun on a boom pole, or in some cases, depend on the shotgun entirely. Since my shoots tend to be in more controlled environments, I'd like to consider using a shotgun for these kinds of interviews because I seem to hear of others doing so. So I imagine I'll get much more use from a shotgun than if I only bought another handheld-type microphone.

Or, maybe the answer to this is just like my first... that even an expensive microphone wouldn't help the pictured situation because people murmuring to each other 20 feet away can only really be solved by doing it ENG-style and shoving the microphone in their face? Inverse Square Law wins out as always?

Thanks again.
 
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You could quite possibly solve ALL the problems for free. Borrow an earbud from somebody's iPod and have the interviewer listen to the audio. That will allow him to hear both the handling noise, and the effect of the inappropriate distance.

And avoid shooting where there is any wind. Or get a furry cover for the foam gag. You could make your own from $2 worth of synthetic fake foam from the fabric shop.

A shotgun may not be the best solution for indoors, either. A search of this forum will reveal repeated discussion about using hypercardioid mics indoors vs shotguns outside.
 
Besides the good advice above also bare in mind:

- don't interview next to a trainstation

- don't interview next to an airplane ready for take off....

- or just in general: don't interview next to noisy places (a highway is a noisy place)

With a handheld mic used at 10 inches from the mouth or less (so in screen) you can do more "noisy environment" stuff. Like they do in dancings etc...

And yes, get used to: handheld = in frame, boom = out of frame (depending also, I did a ENG thing where the boom had to be IN frame....)
 
Hello Allen,

First you need a little mic holder help. Get a pistol grip with suspension mount.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/263721-REG/Rycote_033702_Medium_Hole_Softie_Lyre.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/577183-REG/Rode_PG_2_PG2_Pistol_Grip.html

A Rycote softee will help with wind problems.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=rycote+softee&N=0&InitialSearch=yes

note that there are three different lengths available.

Then get a more directional mic. A shotgun can work at the distance you first show, but be aware that if you are in a space that has reflective surfaces, e.g. hard streets, walls, windows, or off axis traffic or other noise, that a shotgun probably won't be the best choice. The Sanken CS-3e is a good compromise. It looks like an interference tube shotgun mic, but unlike them, the capsule is placed at the tip of the tube instead of the bottom. Among other things, that means the diaphragm is a good six inches closer to the talent. I sometimes use a Schoeps CMC641 on a pistol grip with a Rode Dead Cat pulled over the Schoeps B5D foam filter. Both filters together do a very good job of eliminating wind noise unless it's really windy. If it's that windy, you can usually see it in the shot and the viewer accepts it.

When you set up your shot, realize that the mic may be pointing toward the talent, but if there are noise sources PAST the talent and in line with the direction the mic is pointing, it'll pick that noise up as well.

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
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