Recording the car passing by

[-Tom-]

I'm doing a short piece and this one vehicle will be sort of the main star of the whole thing, so it's important that I get the audio right to make it believable, I'm trying to avoid that dime-a-dozen "footage + copyrighted music in the background" type of scene.

I have only 1 camera so the drive by scene will be made in 2 shots, one with the vehicle (front) coming towards the camera and the other scene car (back) moving away from it. But to make that scene believable, I need to get the sound right.

I tried standing by the road the other day and record cars passing by with my Zoom, but that thing picks up everything, and when I try to isolate the car/engine sound in Audition, it just doesn't sound right...

Also, if I have a scene where a vehicle is in a very long shot, barely visible on the screen, coming towards the camera, how do I record audio and make it sound realistic (distant)?

 

[Cryogenic Filmworks]

Download sound FX. Pan from left to right (for side shot) and use fade in and fade out to adjust for getting closer then moving out of range. Or find a desolote area to record your own canned audio.

 

[paulears]

If the sounds needs to be your car, then just record it somewhere else where it's quiet, and then record the sound at the real location and just blend them together. You can record in mono and pan, or record with a static pair of stereo mics and then widen or narrow it to suit.