Now with larger camcorders that have XLR inputs I simply run the wireless into one channel and the second microphone into the other channel, but what about when you’re using a wireless that has a 3.5mm mini-jack output and you’re plugging into a camcorder with a 3.5mm mini-jack stereo input?

For this situation I took a Y headphone adapter cable I had laying around and rewired it so that I could run two separate mics into the 3.5mm stereo input, one routed to channel 1 (left) and the other to channel 2 (right). If you are not inclined to cut, solder, and heat-shrink your own concoction, you can purchase a ready made cable, for example, the Cables Unlimited AUD-3010 8-Inch 3.5mm Stereo M to Dual 3.5mm Mono F Splitter is available from Amazon.com.

For use with the wireless microphone as a second microphone in the vicinity of the camera, I purchased an inexpensive plug-in powered omnidirectional microphone from Giant Squid Audio Lab. They can provide you a microphone with custom cable lengths, the one I’m using is one foot long to avoid having to dress cables. Unfortunately a foam wind screen can’t be purchased along with the microphone, so I had to order a Pearstone 1/4″ foam wind screen from B&H photo video, it fits the microphone perfectly. I also use a Rycote Lavalier Windjammer on my lavaliers on windy days.

Below is is a video I put together quickly that demonstrates capturing the audio from both the wireless microphone and the small omnidirectional microphone attached to the wireless receiver cable on top of the camera.

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Some things to notice in this recording, there’s two parts, Demo 1 and Demo 2. For Demo 1 I cross faded between the wireless microphone and the wired microphone, note the difference in background sound between the two mics. For Demo 2 I mixed the wireless microphone and the wired microphone, the overall noise level is higher. Whenever you have two different microphones, you’re going to get different background ambient sound. In this case, the fact that the wireless is clipped onto the subject’s shirt provides a very different sound perspective than a wired onmi attached to the camera. The mic on the camera is getting reverberation from the hard walls all around. The wireless mic, given the placement on the subject’s body, is only recording reverberant sound from 1/2 of the room, the close proximity to the body and the soft shirt is really cutting down on the overall ambience, and, give the close proximity to the voice, it also has the gain at a lower setting, so you are getting more signal and less noise. You are also picking up the speaker with both the wireless and camera mic, so now you have two perspectives of that voice in Demo 2. Nonetheless, a second microphone close to a second sound source that you want to record will result in a better recording that simply depending on a single wireless microphone. Again, each mic was recorded to a discrete channel. This offers more versatility in post. The editing and audio mixing was done with Final Cut Pro.

An audio quality note: the video embedded in this page has been compressed to Flash with not the best audio compression settings, if you want to better hear the difference between the microphone positions and the ambient noise differences, go to the blip.tv page (UsingBothChannels859.m4v) to listen to the original QuickTime file that was uploaded to blip.tv.

This splitter cable is also handy if you’re running two wireless microphones into the camera and want to run one into channel 1 and the other into channel 2. In order to mount two Senneheiser Evolution G2 wireless receivers on a single cold shoe adapter, the Rycote Hot Shoe Extension comes in handy, I keep one in my sound kit.

Whenever possible, make full use of both audio channels! You will truly appreciate it when you’re editing your piece, and this is one of many techniques for making good use of of both channels.

If you wire your own adapter, the tip of the mini-connector corresponds to the left channel, the ring corresponds to the right channel, and the sleeve is ground. It’s always a good idea to double check your wiring with a continuity tester. If you’re cobbling an existing cable with molded plugs, usually the wires are color coded with white corresponding to the left channel, red to the right channel, and black to ground. But you never know, still a good idea to double check with a continuity tester.

Special thanks to Kyle Brock who graciously allowed me to videotape him for this and the original purpose of the video. Sennheiser Evolution G2 wireless microphone system generously provided by Professional and Continuing Education at MassArt.

 Play Video (7:53, Flash Video)

Note: if a video player does not appear in your browser when you click the play button, visit the blip.tv video page to see the video.

Archival Image Credits: Kinetoscope Parlor, Publicity or news photograph of San Francisco Kinetoscope parlor, ca. 1894–95, British Film Institute; Publicity photograph of man using Edison Kinetophone, ca. 1895; Serpentine Dance (1895), produced by the Edison Co., part of the Open Source Movies collection; Thomas Edison, half-length portrait, facing left and looking down into glass, experimenting in his laboratory, United States Library of Congress; The Edison Home Kinetoscope, 1914, Thomas A. Edison, Inc.; Advertising photo, Net#Work BBDO, South Africa, Graeme Jenner, Julian Watt (Creative Directors), photo by Brian Gibbs, 2007, copyright material used under industry best practices guidelines for fair use; iPod video en la palma de mi mano by Pedro Aznar, 2005, copyright material released under the terms of a creative commons license; Viewing iPod by Michael.M, copyright material released under the terms of a creative commons license; Half Nelson audience at IFFB, courtesy of Adam Roffman, Independent Film Festival of Boston, copyright material used with permission; Pixar Lobby by Elia Diodati, 2007, copyright material released under the terms of a creative commons license; Technicolor Camera, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Photographic History Collection.

 Play Video (19:01, Flash Video, note: if a video player does not appear in your browser, visit the blip.tv video page to see the video.

Special thanks to Steve Garfield for providing me with the video he shot with his Nokia N95. I had originally planned this to be an audio interview, but when Steve Garfield gave me his video of the discussion, it became a video. When I combined his video and my audio, I was impressed that the audio sync drifted less that a frame from start to end. Many of the little cameras drift a lot (like my Canon TX1). The N95 is an impressive little camera.

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In the video Slava mentions Mark Gill’s statement, “The Sky is Falling,” see the article Gill wrote, Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling, which appeared on June 22, 2008 in for IndieWIRE. At the Los Angeles Film Festival’s Financing Conference, Mark Gill, CEO of The Film Department (and former President of Miramax Films) declared provocatively, “Yes, The Sky Really Is Falling.” He detailed many challenges currently facing independent film. Here’s a quote from the article: “If you want to survive in this brutal climate, you’re going to have to work a lot harder, be a lot smarter, know a lot more, move a lot faster, sell a lot better, pay attention to the data, be a little nicer (ok, a lot nicer), trust your gut, read everything and never, ever give up. If you’re looking for a cool lifestyle, you’re in the wrong business. If you want work-life balance, go get a government job. But if you really want to make movies–even after all the unvarnished bad news I’ve dumped on you today–then by all means do it.”

Theme music by Colin Owens.

I spoke with Philip Hodgetts at the New Media Expo in Las Vegas and asked him about his new venture, the Open Television Network which I blogged about several weeks ago.

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Music by Colin Owens.

coBRANDit put together this widget of the videos they produced. Most of the videos were edited by Jessse Buckley and Owen Mack, I edited the “Intro” and “E85″ stories. The pieces are examples of minimalist run-and-gun production, but more importantly, they are examples how “tiny media” can cover an event from a different perspective.

Here’s a quick comparison I did of recording dialog with an MKH60 Shotgun Microphone mounted on a camera vs. mounted on a boom.

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The Smile Boston Project is a 20 minute documentary that I recently completed. The film will premiere at the 16th Woods Hole Film Festival on Saturday, August 4th at 5:00 P.M. (screens with Justice Louis D. Brandeis: The People’s Attorney). The film follows artist Bren Bataclan through the first three years of his Smile Boston Project in which he leaves paintings in public places for people to find with a note that says, 'this painting is yours to keep if you promise to smile at random people more often.'

Click to Play

Click To Play

Beth Kanter also blogged about, the meeting, and her post also includes a video she made.

If you’re interested in exploring this topic further and you live in the Boston area, I’m doing a session called “Champagne Production Values on a Beer Budget” at the 17th Annual Pro Video show on Saturday, March 10th at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. More info is available in my previous post about the show and the two sessions I’m doing there.

Colophon: I made this video from video fragments shot with a Canon PowerShot S410, digital photos shot with the Canon 10D, and audio recorded with an M-Audio Microtrack 24/96 and a pair of Conference Grabber boundary microphones. The video was edited in Final Cut Pro 5.1.x on a laptop on the train down to New York. I also grabbed some images from Flickr when I had a hole and no material to fill it. I recorded continuous audio, but only shot short video segments. In editing I had to sync up the video shot with the S410 with the audio track. Becuase the S410 records audio, it was easy to sync things up, using he S410’s audio as a reference. It’s a pain, but since the boundary microphones were closer to the speakers (one at each end of the table) and are also better mics than what the S410 offers, the better audio made it worthwhile to do what is called in the industry, “double system sound,” recording image and sound in separate devices.