Beginner After Help – Please Help

[MeetYourMP]

Hello,

I am going to start an interview series.

I want the quality of video and audio to be professional enough, so no significant noise with decent enough audio / video. This is for a Youtube audience. I would like the camera to be set up to record the whole thing in one continuous shot with me and the interviewee in the frame, so something like this

I currently have no equipment but a budget of up to around $750-1500. I understand therefore that I will need two lavalier microphones and a camera which can work together as well as a tripod. My questions are

1) What else will I need (for example, is there anything I would need to get the microphones working together well through one camera?)

2) Can anyone tell me in layman’s terms how to set up two lavaliers to a camera and what specification the cameras/mic will need to work together (I have heard that some don’t have the relevant input jack for example)

3) Could you recommend me any products!

Thank you very much, any help at all you could offer would be great. Hopefully I will be posting more here as I develop 🙂

[JackWolcott]

1 & 2) You’ll need a small mic mixer and two hard-wired lavaliere mics. The two lavaliere mics plug into the mixer, the mixer plugs into your camera. I suggest a mixer that has four channels so you have room for additional mics or perhaps for a music playback device.
Audio-Technica, Rode and Shure all make reasonably priced wired lavaliere mics.
3) I recommend a mid-range consumer camera — something like the Sony HDR CX550 if you can find one, but there are lots of similar cameras on the market. Be sure it has input for a microphone or mixer. Chances are your camera will come with a remote, which will allow you to start and stop recording while you’re sitting talking with your talent.

[JackWolcott]

1 & 2) You’ll need a small mic mixer and two hard-wired lavaliere mics. The two lavaliere mics plug into the mixer, the mixer plugs into your camera. I suggest a mixer that has four channels so you have room for additional mics or perhaps for a music playback device.
Audio-Technica, Rode and Shure all make reasonably priced wired lavaliere mics.
3) I recommend a mid-range consumer camera — something like the Sony HDR CX550 if you can find one, but there are lots of similar cameras on the market. Be sure it has input for a microphone or mixer. Chances are your camera will come with a remote, which will allow you to start and stop recording while you’re sitting talking with your talent.

[JackWolcott]

1 & 2) You’ll need a small mic mixer and two hard-wired lavaliere mics. The two lavaliere mics plug into the mixer, the mixer plugs into your camera. I suggest a mixer that has four channels so you have room for additional mics or perhaps for a music playback device.
Audio-Technica, Rode and Shure all make reasonably priced wired lavaliere mics.
3) I recommend a mid-range consumer camera — something like the Sony HDR CX550 if you can find one, but there are lots of similar cameras on the market. Be sure it has input for a microphone or mixer. Chances are your camera will come with a remote, which will allow you to start and stop recording while you’re sitting talking with your talent.

[JackWolcott]

1 & 2) You’ll need a small mic mixer and two hard-wired lavaliere mics. The two lavaliere mics plug into the mixer, the mixer plugs into your camera. I suggest a mixer that has four channels so you have room for additional mics or perhaps for a music playback device.
Audio-Technica, Rode and Shure all make reasonably priced wired lavaliere mics.
3) I recommend a mid-range consumer camera — something like the Sony HDR CX550 if you can find one, but there are lots of similar cameras on the market. Be sure it has input for a microphone or mixer. Chances are your camera will come with a remote, which will allow you to start and stop recording while you’re sitting talking with your talent.

[JackWolcott]

1 & 2) You’ll need a small mic mixer and two hard-wired lavaliere mics. The two lavaliere mics plug into the mixer, the mixer plugs into your camera. I suggest a mixer that has four channels so you have room for additional mics or perhaps for a music playback device.
Audio-Technica, Rode and Shure all make reasonably priced wired lavaliere mics.
3) I recommend a mid-range consumer camera — something like the Sony HDR CX550 if you can find one, but there are lots of similar cameras on the market. Be sure it has input for a microphone or mixer. Chances are your camera will come with a remote, which will allow you to start and stop recording while you’re sitting talking with your talent.

[JackWolcott]

1 & 2) You’ll need a small mic mixer and two hard-wired lavaliere mics. The two lavaliere mics plug into the mixer, the mixer plugs into your camera. I suggest a mixer that has four channels so you have room for additional mics or perhaps for a music playback device.
Audio-Technica, Rode and Shure all make reasonably priced wired lavaliere mics.
3) I recommend a mid-range consumer camera — something like the Sony HDR CX550 if you can find one, but there are lots of similar cameras on the market. Be sure it has input for a microphone or mixer. Chances are your camera will come with a remote, which will allow you to start and stop recording while you’re sitting talking with your talent.

[JackWolcott]

1 & 2) You’ll need a small mic mixer and two hard-wired lavaliere mics. The two lavaliere mics plug into the mixer, the mixer plugs into your camera. I suggest a mixer that has four channels so you have room for additional mics or perhaps for a music playback device.
Audio-Technica, Rode and Shure all make reasonably priced wired lavaliere mics.
3) I recommend a mid-range consumer camera — something like the Sony HDR CX550 if you can find one, but there are lots of similar cameras on the market. Be sure it has input for a microphone or mixer. Chances are your camera will come with a remote, which will allow you to start and stop recording while you’re sitting talking with your talent.

[Space Racer]

I have been using Audio Technica AT3350s for the past two or three years and they’re good and cheap. Its not so much the brand of microphone you buy as how close you can get it to the person’s mouth that makes the difference; aim for the second button down from the top on the subject’s shirt.
The other thing that will make your interviews better is plenty of light, and using a three-point lighting setup. If you can only afford one light, get a backlight to separate your subjects from the background.
That said, video cameras do better with LOTS of light so if you can shoot outdoors under one of those white shade awnings or very close to big windows with sheer curtains, that would be ideal. Or you can be like Curtis Judd on YouTube and use a bunch of clamplights to shape everything. Don’t forget to custom white balance with a Kodak gray card.

I have no opinions on camcorders—you can do just as well with an iPhone6—they all seem to be fine nowadays, but look for one with two microphone inputs, or you can use a 2-into-1 headphone jack.
But don’t try to do it on your own using internet research: go to a real bricks and mortar store and have them put together a microphone-camcorder combination that they can demonstrate to you will work together. That’s what the salesmen are paid for—good advice. You’ll pay a little more, but trust me, you’ll save a lot of time doing it that way versus trying to figure it out yourself.

[Space Racer]

Oh yeah, and if you’re not planning to do any pan or tilts and whatnot, just get a $15 tripod from Craigslist or the Salvation Army store. Save your money for light stands and sandbags—and remember that each light stand MUST have a sandbag.

[Space Racer]

And finally, i just watched the interview you linked to and that’s a classic example where a backlight is crucial. Did you see how the center guy’s coat just blended into the background? And please don’t frame your shots like that. Look at the telly and watch how professionals frame interviews like that. They would be much closer and they would set up the shot so that the background would be uncluttered. You could definitely shoot this kind of thing with two iPhones or other newish mobile phones. One phone would be the wide shot and the other you could set up getting everyone in profile—switching between the two cameras would definitely elevate your production values.

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