Film is a visual medium; many who get their start bust in as photographers or visually-minded directors. For us, sometimes, audio quality becomes an afterthought.

Good sound sets the mood, and it has less to do with the cool sound effects and the cinematic score than you might think. Just like in photography, you want to capture the essence of the subject in its entirety.

If you can accomplish this, the possibilities in post-production become so much grander. Here are a few things to think about in anticipation of your next project.

1. Choose the Right Person for the Job

A man checking his audio levels with a boom mic

Unless you're literally a film crew of one, you should always choose a dedicated sound person for your shoot. The person operating the camera should, in a general sense, not also be the one wielding the mic (unless it's attached to the camera).

Sound acquisition should not be an afterthought. In some cases, you might just be able to toss a plant mic into the scene, but this will not always be ideal, especially if your subjects are moving around or speaking in varying volumes. You need somebody to ride the levels, listening closely as you shoot.

2. Use the Right Gear

A man brandishing several pieces of sound gear

There are so many different types of mics. The good news: microphones for filmmaking will generally fall into one of two categories, making things much simpler.

Shotgun Mics

With a shotgun mic, the area of contention is the length projecting outward immediately from the tip. A shotgun microphone is really good at capturing the ambient sound in its zone, with any atmosphere and disturbances outside of this area falling off.

In a stereotypical setting, you'll see shotgun mics suspended from long pieces of equipment called boom poles. Booming is one of the most common ways of recording sound on a film set.

For long shots and group scenes, you'll usually want to choose this type of microphone.

Related: Best Shotgun Mics for DSLR and Mirrorless Cameras

Lavalier Mics

These are your typical interview mics—the tiny devices clipped to the lapel of an interviewee as they give their spiel. It's an intimate sort of sound; a properly-placed lav will pick up every effort and breath.

Lavaliers are most useful for dialogue scenes, documentary work, and any type of sit-down-and-talk situation.

Related: Best Budget Lavalier Mics

Other Essential Audio Equipment

Aside from a boom and the microphone itself, you'll need a couple of other things:

  • An external audio recorder, such as a Tascam or a Zoom H5
  • An XLR cable or whatever you need to hook the mic up to your recording device
  • A decent pair of headphones
  • A slate

Yes, camera slating and audio slating are actually two marginally different things. What is audio slating, exactly?

3. Slate Your Audio Properly and Take Good Audio Notes

Three crew members slating before a shot

Unlike with video, you can't exactly scroll through your audio recorder and identify shots by thumbnail. If you fail to slate each clip, you'll be relying on file name, time and date of acquisition.

Instead of getting lost in the sauce like this, professional sound specialists slate each shot. After you start rolling, whisper the scene, shot, and take numbers into the microphone or some sort of talkback accommodation routed into the main feed. You can also maintain a written sound log.

The clapperboard comes into play as soon as both picture and sound are recording; it should be labeled with the exact same information that you've just slated your audio with. The "clap" of the clapperboard acts as a universal audio sync point: sharp, loud, and easily identified in post-production.

Slating, objectively, will be most important for whoever is editing the piece. Does the perfect sync enhance the quality of the final product? Without question.

4. Move the Microphone (and Yourself, Too)

If you've been assigned boom duty, your job is more than just hitting the button when the director calls for action.

Not only will you be following the sound as the actors brood and pace—but you also need to listen and adjust the audio levels, following the lead of your talent. If your recorder supports dual recording, you can capture the scene at two different levels at once, just in case things get unexpectedly loud or quiet.

It's also vital that boom operators avoid dipping the mic into the frame. Your DP should be turning to you frequently, any time that the shot changes, for a boom check.

5. Grab a Little Bit Extra

A black folding chair on a white cyc. A boom mic listens in

The acronym CYA is deeply cherished in the world of film. The polite way to say it: it always pays to cover your buns, just in case of an emergency.

Room Tone

Part of the secret of excellent sound is a seamless cut. You or your editor will no doubt be slicing and dicing it to within an inch of your footage's life when the time comes to edit. Healing each break in continuity is essential if you want to keep your audience locked in.

Room tone helps you bridge these gaps, giving you natural-feeling transitions between edit points.

Wild Lines

Even when you have multiple takes to choose from, there will be times where something will be wrong with all of them. A phone going off in the background? A flubbed line in an otherwise flawless performance? Without a backup plan, you might end up wrecking yourself out of a really moving moment.

"Wild" is a word used to describe any sound that does not have any picture to go along with it. Wild lines are nothing more than a recitation of the script with the mic listening in, sans the camera. You can splice these wild clips into your project, just like you can with native sync snatched from other shots.

Try to grab your actors right after shooting the scene, while they're still feeling it. If your actors are rehearsing on-set, you might even be able to record these sessions too. Sometimes, you'll be able to squeeze a really awesome take out of your talent, totally off-the-record.

ADR

Sometimes, even the best-laid wild lines just won't cut it. What to do then?

Automated Dialogue Replacement, which basically means bringing your actors in to dub over their lines after the fact, should be considered a last resort. It's better than nothing, but we always advise just giving your talent another take on the day of the shoot.

For short phrases and even individual words, a skilled editor can do a lot with ADR. Dubbing over entire lines and shots, however, can be extraordinarily difficult.

6. Post-Production Is Your Friend

An audio engineer editing a project on a laptop

Things like L-cuts and J-cuts displace the seam between two clips. When the "breaks" in both sound and picture occur simultaneously, your audience is much more likely to notice.

If you're an aspiring audio engineer, it's likely that you're already way too excited to start building the soundscape of the piece and adding sound effects (SFX). If you can see it on-screen, you should feel it in the final mix-down.

Equalization (EQ) is sort of like color correcting for sound. You can selectively adjust different frequencies, removing weird hums, buzzes, and tones that might have gone unnoticed on set. EQ can also be used to create the feeling of different effects, such as changing an actor's performance to sound like they're underwater.

Aside from EQ, there are also tons of other audio effects to utilize in this regard, such as reverb and panning.

Related: How to Cut Your First Assembly in Premiere

Solid Sound: All of the Drama, None of the Pain

Getting things done right on set doesn't have to feel like an endless chore. Once you fall into the groove of what a proper sound regime entails, these habits will become second nature. Keep these audio recording tips in mind for your next project.