EmailJoe Little is a reporter and video journalist for ABC 10News in San Diego, and a graduate of one of our bootcamps, and has taken to YouTube to enter into a depate that many reporters have: whether to use a stick mic or a lav.
If you need a refesher: a stick mic is a shotgun mic and is what you see a lot when there is a reporter in the field. You'll recognize them by the station logo flag they usually have. A lav mic, is a small microphone that you clip to your collar or shirt and can transmit wirelessly.
The debate is about which one to use when doing stand ups or in the fields. Traditionally, people use the stick, but more and more people, like Joe, are turning to the lav mic.
The main advantage to the mic is that because it is clipped in place the quality of the mic and sound will be consistant. With a stick mic, you have to worry about if the reporter is holding it close enough to their face, while you don't have to worry about that with the lav. Similarly, if the reporter turns their head to look at the scene or to try and talk to some people, they don't have to worry about losing the mic. Furthermore, if the reporter is interviewing someone, they can use the stick for the person, and keep the lav on themselves, rather than move the mic back and forth between the two as I'm sure you've seen countless times on local news.
So there you go, if you are shooting yourself, a reporter, or a character for your video, put a lav on them and save yourself the trouble of worrying about the sounds.
Joe Little asks one thing to fellow reporters out there:
I’m only asking you to try. The stick mic debate… still. Just try.
Featured Courses
Recent Posts
The Future of News is NOT TikTok, It’s Netflix
December 18, 2024
Character-driven journalism is not new to newspapers, though it once was. It was once called The New Journalism in the 1960s — see Truman Capote or Tom Wolfe. Today it is industry standard. Why not take the Sopranos or Breaking Bad formula and marry it to TV journalism? (How many interviews have you seen in The Sopranos? How many Man on the Street soundbites have you seen in Breaking Bad?)
Good News is actually Good News
October 14, 2024
In a recent study by The Reuters Institute, 40% of Americans no longer watch or read the news at all. They find it too depressing. All doom and gloom.
The Future of News: TikTok or Netflix
September 09, 2024
There is a great deal of concern, well placed, that few people under the age of 30 watch TV news. Viewership of TV news in general has fallen off, so naturally, TV executives across the boards are searching for a solution. How to appeal to a demographic that spends most of their time on social media?