Part six: audio

Learn why we say that audio is often more important than video, and learn how to get the most out of your device.

Fast facts It is more important! Several studies have shown that if the audio quality is poor, no matter how good the picture is viewers are more likely to react negatively to the video content as a whole.

Audio is potentially the most important and the most over looked aspect of the video. The built-in microphones in smartphones are generally of a low quality and often in the wrong place resulting in poor and often unusable audio. When shooting video professionally, filmmakers often use an external recording device and sync the audio in the edit. However, separate audio recorders can be both impractical and expensive for amature video producers.

Your audio can be greatly improved by using an external microphone. There is a wide range of mobile microphones available and even the most inexpensive would result in some improvement in audio quality. If you don’t have a microphone stay as close to the audio source as possible.

Where possible, shoot your video indoors and in a quiet location, helping you to avoid excessive environmental noise and the wind.