Okay, here is some sound equipment that we recently ordered in. First up is the SMX-10 Microphone. This is a shotgun mic that should localise sound from a specific direction (hence the reason it is also known as a directional mic). The bottom picture has a windscreen, which is used to... err, well, screen wind noise. Relatively speaking, they were pretty cheap mics (compared to the usual ten million pounds needed to buy anything decent), but I've tested them out and they do the job just fine. We also have some even cheaper Hama Mono Directional RMZ-1 Zoom mics. I'll let you know if these are any good once they've arrived.
We also ordered five digital voice recorders (Olympus VN-711PC) to plug the mics in. This allows for medium and long shots to be taken without the massive degradation of sound quality that you usually find when using the Sony Bloggies... the only thing you need to avoid is placing the mic and recorder too closely to the subject so that they are in the camera shot (duh!).
Of course it would not be a professional set up without the boom! Ideally you would have an operator holding a boom pole to ensure the mic is in the perfect position to pick up the sound, but practically speaking, the stand means you have one less person to draft into your production.
And no, the clapper boards below are not just to make the whole production shebang look a little snazzy. They have a very practical function. Of course, when you are using sound equipment separate to the video capture equipment, you have the issue of matching the timing between the two during the editing process (it can be a serious headache doing this). The clapper board, however, will leave a spike in the audio display which should make it easier to match up with the actual visual of the clapper board shutting.
