Rode Videomic in rear of auditorium for clogging competitions

M

MScrip

Member
I shoot video at clogging competitions. I am thinking of getting a Rode VideoMic for my Panasonic GS200. I'm usually at the rear of the auditorium. The competitions have huge sound systems and the cloggers' taps are pretty loud. How good would the VideoMic be for this application? Would it pick up the music and the feet well? Anything is better than the on-camera mic on my GS200.

Here is an example of what I shoot:

http://www.michaelscrip.com/circus/circus1.html

As you can see, I'm pretty far from the stage. I wanna get all of the sound from the speakers and the dancers, but eliminate a lot of the crowd noise and side-camera yelling. Is a directional mic such as the VideoMic the way to go?

Thanks,

Michael

P.S. I'm the Ringmaster in that video :)

P.P.S Here's some more clips from other clogging competitions - http://clog.michaelscrip.com/
 
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This may not be what you want to hear, but you are not going to get what you want with a mic in the back of the room. The camera you have does not have any level meters or the right kind of inputs for the mics. You would be better off getting something like a beachtek adapter to let you accept XLR audio and a small sound mixing console so that you could accept a feed of the music from the PA system clean and run a mic down front to record the clogging (a boundry mic on stage could work for that. That way you could mix the two together in post (one recorded on the left channel and one recorded on the right). That could introduce phase problems with the stero music you will be recording on one track, but that will be the least of your worries. Another way to go would be do get an Alesis firewire mixer and boomrecorder software with your laptop. If you don't have to record into the camera, that would help (other than that, use the same setup, mic down front and feed from the PA). Last option would be to mic the PA close on one channel and mic the clogging close on the other...not ideal.
 
MScrip said:
II wanna get all of the sound from the speakers and the dancers, but eliminate a lot of the crowd noise and side-camera yelling. Is a directional mic such as the VideoMic the way to go?
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A shotgun mic like the Rode doesn't work like a telephoto lens where it "reaches out" and capture the sound you want. It's all about distance. If you're close to the source of the sound and the crowds are behind or to the side then it would help reduce their input somewhat. But when you're at the back of the room a shotgun doesn't do jack.
 
MScrip said:
II wanna get all of the sound from the speakers and the dancers, but eliminate a lot of the crowd noise and side-camera yelling. Is a directional mic such as the VideoMic the way to go?
Click to expand...

A shotgun mic like the Rode doesn't work like a telephoto lens where it "reaches out" and capture the sound you want. It's all about distance. If you're close to the source of the sound and the crowds are behind or to the side then it would help reduce their input somewhat. But when you're at the back of the room a shotgun doesn't do jack.

Best and cheapest option would be to just get an XLR to mini-jack cable adapter and ask for a feed from the soundboard like Mike suggests. This way you'll get only the sound coming from the onstage mics and eliminate a lot of the audience sound.
 
Nice performances - I agree with Mike, that anything you do from the back of the house is going to be ineffective and you've either got to get a feed from the sound system or mic the speakers themselves, plus getting a mic on the dancers from up close to the stage to gain much improvement. There's an interesting phenomenon evident in your videos, bty the way, if you look really close. You'll see the sound of the taps doesn't really synchronize with the visual - that's because sound is delayed about 1 millisecond per foot of distance it has to travel - if the mic is thirty feet from the stage the sound will arrive 1 frame later than picture and so on. The Videomic is a decent consumer mc and would be an improvement over the in-camera mic where mic quality is the issue but your immediate problem here is more due to the position of the mic with respect to the performance than anything related to the quality of the mic itself.
 
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Thanks for the advice! If I was shooting the entire competition I would definitely use a better camera, and try to get access to the sound board, etc. But for now, I'm just shooting a couple dozen dances for the studio I dance for. It's more of a service to our parents... they get to watch their kids dance, instead of fumbling with their camera. And they can buy a DVD from me.

Would a VideoMic still be better than my on-camera mic? I realize the back of the auditorium is not a great place to be... but it's the same place everyone else is shooting from.

At the big jazz dance competitions they hire companies to come in with 2 cameras mixed live, stage mics and audio straight from the board. But clogging competitions are more laid back and people can use their own camcorders. I'm just trying to get a little better audio for my DVDs.

Thanks!
 
saneproductions said:
for the same money you spend on that, you could get this mixer/interface and record onto your laptop.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/341021-REG/Alesis_MULTIMIX_8USB_MULTIMIX_8_USB.html

Just sync it up in post!
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Thanks... but I just stand in the back with my camcorder... I don't use a laptop or anything. I just run-n-gun. I tape my teams as they come on stage, then I hand the camcorder to someone or use a tripod when I dance.

I was just looking for a microphone that sounds better than my onboard mic. The VideoMic would seem like an improvement.

Thanks for all your help.
 
If the song they are dancing to is pre-recorded, you can mix that in later, and use the videomic primarily to record the crowd reaction, which is also important. You don't have to stand at the back, you can stand at the side of the auditorium, with a speaker facing your microphone and the crowd off-axis.
 
MScrip said:
...
Would a VideoMic still be better than my on-camera mic? I realize the back of the auditorium is not a great place to be... but it's the same place everyone else is shooting from.

....
Thanks!
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From the back of the house the Videomic (or a $2250 Schoeps CMIT shotgun, for that matter) will probably not make much difference. You know that saying - garbage in, garbage out. Well, the sound is already pretty much futzed by the time it gets back there and there's no mic on the planet that will make it any better. You may get a little less crowd noise but even there, most of the audience is in front of you, located well within the mic's most sensitive pickup zone. Shotgun mics are not like a spotlight, only picking up inside a narrow beam. They still pickup from all directions, just somewhat less from the sides and rear than from straight ahead. They don't magnify sound in any way. And that zone of maximum sensitivity is actually a diffuse cone extending 30 degrees or so on either side of where the mic is aimed, falling off as you get outside that range. Even if the audience was quiet, your recording would still sound echo'y and distorted, like the stage was in a tunnel, because of the room reflections. You can't fool Mother Nature and the physics of acoustics are just not on your side.
 
Steve House said:
From the back of the house the Videomic (or a $2250 Schoeps CMIT shotgun, for that matter) will probably not make much difference. You know that saying - garbage in, garbage out. Well, the sound is already pretty much futzed by the time it gets back there and there's no mic on the planet that will make it any better. You may get a little less crowd noise but even there, most of the audience is in front of you, located well within the mic's most sensitive pickup zone. Shotgun mics are not like a spotlight, only picking up inside a narrow beam. They still pickup from all directions, just somewhat less from the sides and rear than from straight ahead. They don't magnify sound in any way. And that zone of maximum sensitivity is actually a diffuse cone extending 30 degrees or so on either side of where the mic is aimed, falling off as you get outside that range. Even if the audience was quiet, your recording would still sound echo'y and distorted, like the stage was in a tunnel, because of the room reflections. You can't fool Mother Nature and the physics of acoustics are just not on your side.
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Ditto!!!
 
Since no has suggested it, I would use a PZM or other type of boundary mic for this application and forget about the shotgun and on-cam mic, except as background. They are extremely low profile (sets on the stage front edge), and are very good for off-axis rejection. Now this would entail running a cable or setting it up for wireless use, but this is how I would go about this. Here is a link for one: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/179606-REG/Crown_Audio_PZM185_PZM185_Boundary_Mic.html

Cool, my degree in audio engineering was actually useful, for once.
 
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One of my pet peeves about event videography is that videographers are always
pointed to the back of the room, front is seldom an option. My solution (to be out of the audiences way) is to offer to shoot from the front row sitting down, by adjusting the tripod lower. This gives the double advantage of better sound regardless of mic, and much better video due to not being fully zoomed in all the time and less shakiness. The only disadvantage is it's tougher to get a wide shot, but some cameras (like the DVX and HVX) have a wide lens anyway. For me, it's worked very well.
 
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