Re: Video Production Tip

For you serious video folks, here are some tips for better audio at airshows:

One of the things I did at this Sac show was experiment with audio. Airshow speaker systems are usually fairly good, but I like to have a track without the speaker system blasting over the aircraft's sound. I placed an Azden 51XT on the end of a handheld mic(XLR) to transmit audio from the speakers. I used a small mic stand and placed it about 10 feet from a speaker. This was about 2 feet in front of the crowd barricade and aimed toward the runway. The mic gain had to be set mid level to keep distortion from the speakers "bass" response under control. The end result was actually very good with the aircraft sounds in a good balance with the db output from the speakers. This also picked up some great crowd reactions. I was far enough away from the speakers to have the camera's(JVC GY-DV5000U) other audio track 90% aircraft sound. Airshows are very challenging for both video and audio, but lousy audio ruins all the efforts put into great video! Allow plenty of time to "tweak" your audio setups. I moved the mic five times to get the balance I wanted. If in doubt, set your audio input levels a bit low to minimize unexpectedly high audio peaks.
When it comes to the edit, there is now an audio track of mostly aircraft- no speakers, to have a professional narration track added. This audio method will apply to many types of events. Of course you can try the line out of the event's mixer board but this is not easily done with people you don't know. (read: don't mess with my system!) Also, I find the line out feed to sound too "sterile" for events like this. Kinda like a NASCAR race without car/track audio.