How To Get Cinematic Sound for Your Film

On this video, we're talking about ways to get better sound for your films. And that starts right now. Hey guys, Ryan here. Thank you so much for joining me today. This channel is all about learning and growing as a filmmaker. So if you would please like, share, and subscribe if you haven't already, and let's become better filmmakers together. The importance of sound or audio in your films cannot be overstated. Bad audio can ruin a film no matter how good it looks. Great audio should go largely unnoticed in your film. It should feel natural, but bad audio will stick out like a sore thumb every time. Always take time to capture the best audio files you can when you're filming, and be sure to spend a lot of time on it in post-production. Today, I'm gonna go over a few tips that'll help you achieve better audio for your films. My first step, which is pretty obvious if you're looking to improve the audio quality in your films, is to invest in good audio equipment. To capture more professional-sounding audio, you're going to need to upgrade your gear. That means investing in gear like an external audio recorder and a professional microphone. For an external audio recorder, I am currently using the Tascam DR-70D. A device like this is going to allow you to capture several different audio sources at once, and it allows you to monitor the sound with a pair of headphones if you want to. I can't stress enough what a good investment a device like this is. Running a microphone straight into your camera is not going to give you the best results. A lot of times, the audio that comes straight from a camera is very noisy, and it's really hard to monitor it and get really good quality with it. It will work for something like vlogs or videos like this, where you might not be quite as concerned about the sound, but when you're trying to put together an audio-visual feast like a film, you wanna be able to get the best sounds that you possibly can. You may also want to get an audio bag to carry this device in. That way, whoever is operating sound on your set can just put this device in their bag, throw it over their neck, and they have everything they need right there with them to capture and monitor the audio. I just used an old luggage bag and turned it into a makeshift audio bag for when I'm filming. That is assuming that you have someone else working with you dedicated to get audio, but we'll get to that later. But like I said, in my experience, capturing audio straight to your camera, a lot of times, it just ends up being way too noisy, and unless you're using a camcorder or a professional-grade camcorder that has the XLR inputs for microphones built in, chances are you're not gonna get very good sound. Next, you're going to want to invest in a good boom microphone or a shotgun microphone with a stand. If you wanna go for the best quality, you're gonna wanna get a microphone that uses an XLR cable, but a lot of good quality microphones out there use a stereo input as well, like the Rode VideoMic Pro, which I'm shooting this on right now. These microphones will work fine, like the Deity and the Rode models that go on top of your camera. They work really great, but if you really wanna take it to the next level and get you something that uses an XLR cable, like the Rode NTG-2, it's a really nice shotgun mic that works with an XLR connection. If you do a lot of sit-down interviews or talking head segments, even stuff like this, you may want to invest in a good wireless lavalier system. Now, it doesn't have to be wireless, but in my experience, using a wired lav system is pretty much a pain in the butt. Like I said, these mics are great for interviews, talking heads, stuff like that, if you're doing a lot of documentary work. These are microphones that you just pin to your talent right here on their shirt or inside their shirt, kind of hidden away the best you can, and you get a really good sound out of these microphones. You can also use these mics on film sets in certain situations. If for some reason you're not able to get a boom microphone over top of your talent in the shot, you can pin one of these mics on them, try to hide it the best you can and get sound that way. And before we go on, I will post a link to all of this gear in the description below, so you can go and find it for yourself. Go get yourself some good equipment, learn how to use it, and you'll be really happy with the results. Trust me. Now that we've got all the equipment stuff out of the way, let's move on to some other tips that we can use to improve our audio. First up is to use sound effects in your films. Anytime you're making a film, while you're in the location, you should always try to capture sound effects or foley while you're on set. And also be sure to capture 30 seconds of room tone in every environment that you're gonna be shooting in. Just have everyone be quiet, turn your microphone on, and be sure to mark that you're getting 30 seconds of room tone. That way you can use it in post-production to patch in some areas, fill in some silence. Nothing is ever 100% quiet. And if you have some mismatching audio in there, you need to use an overdubbed line from one of your actors, it's nice to have that room tone to put in behind it in post-production to kind of mask that quietness, if that makes sense. Anytime you're on set, you should be trying to capture things like footsteps on any of the surfaces your actors are walking on, doors opening and closing. If someone's running water, capture that sound. Just get as much foley sound effects as you can while you're on set. That way you have stuff to play around with later on in post-production. And just to reiterate, getting all this stuff really just gives you a lot more flexibility in post-production and allows you to do more things with the audio in your film. You should never feel ashamed if you're having to use a sound effect in your film. Everyone does it, and everyone all the way up the chain in Hollywood is using sound effects throughout the entirety of all their films. Sound effects are a great way to add layers and add life and just make everything feel more alive and natural in your films. Just be sure that you're taking the time to mix everything properly in post. You don't wanna have someone walking really far away and have their footsteps be really loud in the audio mix. Just make sure everything feels natural and sounds like it's coming from where it should be in relationship to the camera placement. There are tons of royalty-free sound effect libraries online that are targeted to video creators and filmmakers, and there are a few of them that are actually free. Just be sure to properly credit everything that you use. Or if you want a bigger, more high-quality selection of sounds, you can use something like epidemicsound.com, which is what I've been using lately. They have an incredible library of sound effects. There's a link down below. Go sign up, search for what you need. I guarantee you, you'll be happy at the selection these guys have. Another tip is to capture audio from the proper perspective. I kinda touched on this earlier with the sound effects, but if you're gonna have an actor that's really far away from the camera having a conversation with somebody on the other side that's really far away, be sure to capture the audio from the point of view of the camera. It would be really disjointing to your audience to have someone really far away from the camera and have their audio really close up and loud in the mix. It's just gonna be really disjointing to the audience. And on that same note, if you're filming an actor close up, of course, you wanna have the microphone close to the actor and get that sound as close as you can. In some instances, for quality purposes, you might wanna have the microphone close up to your actor while you're shooting and in post-production, maybe turn it down a little bit, give it some reverb, make it sound like it's coming from far away. That way, you make sure you're getting a high-quality audio sample and then you can adjust it with the flexibility that you've allowed yourself in post-production. Another tip is to always capture clean audio of your actors when they're in a scene by themselves. If you have a scene where two or more characters are talking, but only one character is gonna be in the frame during that scene or the dialogue shot, be sure to get those scenes individually with no overlapping sounds. That way, you can mix them properly in post. You don't wanna have any overlapping audio unless the scene calls for it. Another tip is if a room or environment that you're filming in has too much echo or reverb in it and it sounds really noisy and you're not going for that sound, you can try laying some blankets and pillows outside of the camera, around in the room, or the area to help absorb some of that sound. This usually works best in an indoor environment, of course. When monitoring your audio levels, be sure that the audio you're recording is not peaking. That means that the flashing red light on your external audio recorder is not popping up constantly. If that's happening, that means that you are getting distortion in your audio files and you do not want that. It's really hard to clean up in post and it's gonna make your audio sound really noisy and really unprofessional. So take time when you're setting up your audio to make sure you're capturing that audio just before it's hitting that peak so you have a loud enough audio signal, but it's not distorting. And one more tip before we go that I think will help you capture much better audio on set is to have someone on set helping you that is dedicated to capturing and monitoring audio levels. I know a lot of us try to shoot things by ourselves and we can't always have a big crew to help us out, but if you have a friend or someone that's interested in helping you make a film, hand them the microphone arm, the boom pole, and have them get to work. Teach them how to use your equipment. Show them what everything means. In my experience, people that are interested in music production are usually really good at this task. Teach them how to monitor the audio levels. Teach them how to listen for distortions and other things like that that could ruin your audio and put them to work. It is a big help to have one person on set that is completely focused on the audio of your film. You want them focused on how it's being captured and what else needs to be captured. If they're wearing those headphones, they may hear something in the audio mix that you're not hearing just looking into the camera lens. Nothing is worse than filming a great scene that your actor just absolutely nails, and then you get back and you're looking at the files in post-production and matching things up, and the audio is just completely trash. It will absolutely destroy you and drive you insane. And that's all the audio tips I have for you today, guys. Thank you so much for your feedback and helping me put together these videos this week and last week. Be keeping an eye out on the community tab on the YouTube channel. I'll have a poll going up asking you guys what you'd like my next video to be. You guys voted in the poll last week and decided on the suspense video, which I posted last week. I got a really great response out of that. So I'll have a new poll for you guys next. We've knocked out suspense and now audio, and I'll see what you guys want to learn and talk about next. If you think I missed something really important to audio and sound design and film, and you would like to share it with us, please let us know in the comments below, and we'll all discuss it. As always, I hope this video has been very beneficial to you. If it has, please give it a like, please share it, and please subscribe if you haven't already. Thanks for coming along on this filmmaking journey with me. I am Ryan, and I will see you on the next video. Bye-bye. ♪♪♪