Sound is more important than visuals
I just spoke about sound in my “How to step up your video” at WordCamp Miami. “Sound” I said “is more important than visuals“–especially to us photographers. We want to make video look pretty, which means sound often come a distant second. Actually I believe the most important thing in video is story, because without a good story, you’ve got nothing, zip, nada, but I digress.
Listen to this
We often dismiss sound over sight, but sound adds richness to a movie. Do this experiment – watch a movie for 5 minutes on mute and the next 5 minutes with your eyes closed, but the sound playing. Which sense enabled you to follow the story line easier? In general I’d argue hearing. If you’ve been photographing for any length of time, you’ve got the visual part of video down anyway.
I love sound guys
Check out the article I wrote on Strictly Business, the blog of the American Society of Media Photographers, on audio for photographers called “Listen to this!” You’ll learn how come I absolutely love sound guys, why you should wash out your ears, why I record everything twice and what the biggest technical problem is when capturing audio with DSLRs.
More about audio for photographers and videographers
Check out this case study on sound with some cool actual audio recordings of doing it right (and not so right), while interviewing pilots in flight above Afghanistan and why the most important piece of equipment for video has nothing to do with video.