Shotguns Can Be Dangerous…

Cinema’s Silent Era ended during the Hoover administration, but too many folks visited by TV news crews 90 years later seem to think a live piano performance will be added to footage shot at their home or workplace.

That is, they figure if they or the reporter aren’t speaking directly into a hand-held microphone (called “stick” mics) or one that’s been clipped onto their clothing (a “lavalier” mic) then the footage is being shot silently.

Not so.

Every news camera has, protruding out the front, near the lens, what’s called a “shotgun” microphone.

It’s easy to spot once you know where to look, and captures sound just as efficiently as the lens captures sights; the honking cars or chirping birds or conversations one might naturally overhear.

That’s right, conversations.

Often the frustration for a reporter is that employees at your store, for example, seeing no microphone around, begin chatting about how fun it will be to be on the news that night.

That’s a minor irritation for the news crew.

The bigger problem for you comes when those workers, again assuming they are not being “heard,” start complaining about the workplace or gossiping about confidential information, etc.

At that point, it’s up to the reporter and photographer/editor to decide whether what they’ve heard is fair game to use.

Their decision to could destroy the positive coverage you worked so hard to get - all those emails and phone calls to the news assignment desk.

Sometimes the boss himself or herself makes the mistake of wanting to chat about everything under the sun, within earshot of the photographer and their camera.

As a reporter, I steered my random conversation with the “boss” away from my photographer, so as not to ruin their “natural“ sound.

And I tried not to play “gotcha” with my story subjects - jumping on a joke or comment that might have been in questionable taste, told in private, and captured by that camera-mounted mic.

Understanding the technology of the news industry can be the difference between a positive story and one that goes off the rails.

Which is why being trained by someone who’s been there and done that for 40 years, matters.