Yes, wireless is a necessity and an endless source of frustration. You may be able to hard wire the podium and musicians, but don't count on it.

The on-camera mic is necessary as well, but also suffers not only from distance but also from direction - the audio pans around as the camera does. Not at all what you want when someone's singing and you're going for audience shots.

Gary,

I think your idea of a separate mini disk recorder is a good one. You might want to use more than one of those, in case the vocalist has a backup music group. You could use one microphone for the group and a separate microphone for the soloist.

The previously mentioned clip-on radio mic for the groom seems like a necessity. You could put its receiver unit on your camcorder so that the wedding vows part of the ceremony go directly on the MiniDV tape. Don't forget to retrieve the clip-on unit after the ceremony is over, although if there is a reception, you could retrieve it there. There is usually a still camera session for the wedding party immediately after the guests leave, and that would be a good time to retrieve the clip-on equipment to minimize risk of damage to the unit.

The vocalist may have a microphone for the church/hall music system, and you could piggyback your mic on that. Two dynamic mics might be a bit much and the hall mic is hopefully dynamic, so you might want to record directly from it if you can. A condenser mic doesn't do justice for most vocalists.

You also might want to consider using more than one camcorder. One could be tripod mounted for overall coverage (and yet another sound pickup.) I was at one wedding where one unmanned tripod-mounted camcorder was mounted high behind the minister, capturing the wedding party and the entire auditorium with a wide-angle lens. Also, frequently one or more guests, like myself, have a camcorder and are taping. They might share some footage that you could cut to for a different angle. If it is a big wedding, you can't have too many camcorders going. Also, at the reception and the cake cutting ceremony, you want multi-camera coverage of that if possible. Frequently there is some cake-in-the-face action that you don't want to miss.

Covering the dance floor action can also benefit from multiple viewpoints and multiple camcorders. The last wedding reception I attended had a Canon XL-1 on a big tripod, and the tripod legs had swivelled wheels on them, so the whole rig was being pushed around the dance floor like a dolly. A second photographer with a 35mm camera outfitted with a high capacity film magazine and a strobe was rapid-fire snapping everybody. I was filming with my Sony from the sidelines most of the time, and feared that dancers might trip over one of the XL-1's tripod legs, but fortunately that didn't happen. Its operator sensed the danger and adjusted the legs closer together almost like a monopod. For some reason she didn't want to handhold the XL-1. I did get emboldened (perhaps it was the punch) and tried dancing and filming simultaneously, but that didn't work too well, although it did get me out onto the dance floor with my camcorder for some "different" footage.

As you already know, Vegas Video lets you edit together multiple tracks of video and sound, so the more mics and camcorders you have the use of, the better. Incidentally, there are books that cover the subject of wedding videography and they have a lot of good tips. Like always smile and enjoy what you are doing to put people at ease.

-- Burton --

This is a common fault for people to fall over, they think you just nned to point a camera in the general direction and all will be well. Being a good vidoegrapher means having knowledge of Lighing, sound, Frameing and editing quite a list of talents. I have used mini-disks in the past, but be aware they too can fail. I now use a radio mic and a minidsik to cover the readings, where required. you could mic everything up, but like everything in life there is a budget that people want to pay and so is not always possible to supply this service.

To see what equipment I use on a typicall wedding see my site www.svsweddings.co.uk and click on the equipment link.

Good Luck..

I believe it takes far more expertise to get a good sound track than it does to get a good video track. Not only does the audio track often suffer from poor mics, different volumes, fluctuations in volume from even a single person, but above all, most things that people say are absolute drivel.

I hope I don't sound too harsh? Perhaps because of movies or TV shows where professionals rave on in their trained, modulated voices, your average person comes across as pretty lame. And when you hear those lame comments (and you will, especially at weddings and even more so after the booze sets in) then you'll have a high "cringe" factor.

Much better IMHO to take a direct feed from the mixer desk of whatever music happens to be playing. In a wedding this will be going almost constantly.

Now that you've got your good sound track you can just mix in those very few comments that are worth committing to posterity. Perhaps carry a mike and hope that people will be able to come up with good one-liners. A few really good lines go way further than an hour of ordinary conversation.

I believe that freed from constant babble most people and events really do come off looking slicker, more attractive, more stylish and yes, even more memorable.

To go way off topic for a moment, in a rare visit from my sister (who lives about 5000 miles away) I suggested we go for a walk in the country to a secret waterfall where we used to go as kids. "Great" I said, "I'll take the video camera". "No", says she, "some things are best just to experience and remember".

Now I know that your business is to record events. But isn't it more than that ? Isn't it to catch the "memory" ? And how often does our memory gloss over the awkward bits and just present us with a delightful flow, free of errrs and umms ? Unfortunately the "record every gesture and sound" video dispells some of the mystique and can remind us just how "average and real" the whole thing really was.

I hope this doesn't sound too negative - it's not meant to. It's a rave about abandonning some of the obesession of recording detail and replacing it with something more akin to a happy memory.

best wishes on your venture,
Spirit

I've got a minidisc and have miked the minister for wedding videos. It works well, but here's some advice:

1) Consider your purchase wisely - Sharp and Sony units differ in their qualities. Sharp units like mine are generally better for recording (better preamp, etc.) but have fewer 'enthusiast' playback options than a Sony model.

2) Buy a really nice, compact minidisc case with a good strong velcro belt clip and adequate padding. It should be small enough to either slip into a pocket or be worn under a suit jacket. Make sure it's black to be inconspicuous.

3) You'll be dumping to your computer via an analogue cable, not digital (unless you go for the big bucks). Use a good sound card and cable to avoid degrading the signal.

4) If your unit records in MDLP modes, don't use them as they're just lowering the bitrate of the recording. Instead record in mono to double the possible record time to ~150 minutes per disc.

5) Buy a good lav mic to plug into the minidisc!

6) Because the minidisc has its own clock and your camera has its, you will likely find the audio and video drift over time. Vegas makes it easy to correct if you make careful use of event stretching on your audio track.

7) If you don't plan on turning off your minidisc for the entire ceremony, don't turn off your camcorder either! Otherwise you'll frustrate yourself trying to line up audio and video. Best to use one long take for both and then use Vegas to cut out the bad stuff after.

8) Turn off any recording options which pause recording during silence! Lots of recorders have this option so beware what it's set to when you hand it over to the minister or groom.

-Doug