How do you record audio?

[mavic911]

I see so many awesome cinematic drone films with waterfalls and beautiful vistas, and a nice touch with all of them is the environmental audio that brings ambience. For example, the sound of birds and waterfalls whilst touring the landscape of Iceland. What are your strategies in achieving this?

 

[thegeekunderground]

I believe operators use stock audio recordings or make their own and edit them into the video in post.

 

[BigAl07]

I believe operators use stock audio recordings or make their own and edit them into the video in post.

This is usually the case. Audio recorded from the aircraft is annoying and rarely has any usable data on it. It's the props and motors.

If you need the exact sound of the exact item you're shooting, use a dedicated audio recorder to capture sound before or after the drone flight (not during).

 

[jimlips]

As long as you are some distance away from the aircraft (so you can't hear the props), you can pull the audio off your local phone/ipad - as long as you have it set to record the audio locally ahead of time. I always have mine on. It allowed me to record a train that happened by and "paste" the audio in during post. It takes some patience to get the audio lined up, but it really does add to the effect.

Depending if you have an Apple product or an Android product will determine how to extract the locally saved video/audio file. It will typically be too large to email, so you will need to send it to the iCloud (if on an Apple product) or another web-service like Dropbox or Google Drive (if on Android). Then, download it to your local computer (or wherever you edit your video) and import it.

Here is a video I did near a passing train this way: Donner Pass

You have to be careful and not take or make comments, or else you will have to edit that out later.

 

[DanMan32]

Go 4 now let's you record audio to the cache video.

 

[bushie]

Depends on how close I can get to the subject but often I have set up a video camera on a tripod and had it continuously recording. Then just use that soundtrack with the drone footage. Helps if there is a "clap" on both near the start to sync the sound with the drone footage. Could do the same with a phone camera.