Sound Is Half the Film: Recording Clean Audio on a Kid-Sized Budget

Young filmmakers spend most of their energy on the picture and treat sound as something to fix later. In practice, audiences — and jurors — will forgive a shaky shot far sooner than dialogue they can't understand.

Get the microphone close. The single biggest improvement is distance. A phone held just out of frame, or a cheap lavalier clipped to the actor, beats an expensive camera microphone three metres away.

Listen before you roll. Put on headphones during the take. Fridges, air conditioners and traffic are invisible until you listen for them, and they are very hard to remove afterwards.

Record a minute of room tone. Have everyone stay silent and record the empty space. Editors use it to fill gaps and smooth cuts, and it makes edits sound natural.

Treat music as a character. Keep it under the dialogue, start it a beat after a scene begins, and let silence do some of the work. Use only music you have permission to use — royalty-free libraries and original student compositions are both fine, and a festival will ask where it came from.