Video production seems pretty straightforward.  It is about recording video.  Using the best camera should give you best image and therefore the best video.

Unfortunately, you can have great images and the video still be a failure.  Why?  Video is only one component of a successful video and it isn't even the most important one.

An audience will forgive a lesser grade of images.  What it will not forgive is poor sound quality.  You see people talking but cannot clearly understand them?  Or they sound like they are talking in a box?  Or background noises make it difficult to hear?  These are all common mistakes which are totally unacceptable to the audience.

The problem is that we hear people talk every day.  We know what they should sound like.  What we doin't realize is our brain filters the sound.  In a noisy environment, we filter out background noises and hear the voices fine.  In a small room with lots of reverberation off the walls, we filter it out and still hear them ok.  But put it on a screen in front of us and we are immediately aware that it doesn't not fit our version of reality.

Visually we often see a distorted world.  We drive to work through a dirty or wet windshield.  The sun gets in our eyes.  We look through a window.  It is dark at night.  These can all be visually challenging.  But we accept it as natural.  Talk to someone in the dark and we still hear them clearly.

It is easy to think that a camera's built-in microphone will record the sound we need.  Or that the short shotgun mic perched on top of the camera will do the job.  Sadly, it records too much of what we don't want to hear.  It could be whirring noise from the camera's motor driving the lens.  It could be environmental sounds.  The subject could turn their head away from the mic.  The volume isn't loud enough so the audio amplifier is turned up and injects its own noise.

Unless you understand how to record sound, that may become the weakest part of the video production.  With many years as a recording engineer, Rich understands what it takes to get great sound for your video production.  Before the camera is ever turned on, he will be concerned about the type and placement of the microphones.