Posted by Watcher Pump shotgun cocking - hell yes that would scare the bejesus out of me Banjos in the woods - I'm from the Ozarks, and I live in Louisiana now. That's probably me playing the banjo.

funny one for you... ages ago, some friends of mine and I were at the range here in town skeet shooting. If you've never done it, it's both frustrating and satisfying all at once. Anyways, chosen weapon for said activity is a shotgun, 12-gauge. So, this was during halloween. I had the empty shotty in my backseat (no ammo) and was heading to a friends' house for movies and popcorn (this wasaaaaay before the internet isolated us all) and just as I am about to make the turn on to his street, my car (a rather beat-to-shit 1980 Mercury Zephyr Z7 coupe) gets egged... Honestly, any egg on the car was an improvement on it's looks. I don't even have any pics of the car it was such a hoopty. So i lock the brakes up, jump out of the car and grab Mr. Shotgun from the backseat. Keep in mind it was empty and there was no ammo for it before any of you go freaking out. I yell out, "You little fuckers!" and cock Mr. Shotgun. All I hear from the bushes is "HOLY FUCK! HE'S GONNA SHOOT US!!!" And then all you hear is a group of kids tear-assing up the bank towards the top of mountain...

I got a chuckle out of it... even now, it makes me smile some thirty plus years later.

The sound of a water saturated sock being slapped against the wall of a drain with full force is rather terrifying.

Posted by Samurai So i lock the brakes up, jump out of the car and grab Mr. Shotgun from the backseat. Keep in mind it was empty and there was no ammo for it before any of you go freaking out. I yell out, "You little fuckers!" and cock Mr. Shotgun. All I hear from the bushes is "HOLY FUCK! HE'S GONNA SHOOT US!!!" And then all you hear is a group of kids tear-assing up the bank towards the top of mountain... I got a chuckle out of it... even now, it makes me smile some thirty plus years later.

LMFAO

Yep they STILL talking about this one to this day I bet Sam lol

Posted by leafloving4x4gal LMFAO Yep they STILL talking about this one to this day I bet Sam lol

sometimes, i wonder... this was October 1992.

Posted by Samurai funny one for you... ages ago, some friends of mine and I were at the range here in town skeet shooting. If you've never done it, it's both frustrating and satisfying all at once. Anyways, chosen weapon for said activity is a shotgun, 12-gauge. So, this was during halloween. I had the empty shotty in my backseat (no ammo) and was heading to a friends' house for movies and popcorn (this wasaaaaay before the internet isolated us all) and just as I am about to make the turn on to his street, my car (a rather beat-to-shit 1980 Mercury Zephyr Z7 coupe) gets egged... Honestly, any egg on the car was an improvement on it's looks. I don't even have any pics of the car it was such a hoopty. So i lock the brakes up, jump out of the car and grab Mr. Shotgun from the backseat. Keep in mind it was empty and there was no ammo for it before any of you go freaking out. I yell out, "You little fuckers!" and cock Mr. Shotgun. All I hear from the bushes is "HOLY FUCK! HE'S GONNA SHOOT US!!!" And then all you hear is a group of kids tear-assing up the bank towards the top of mountain... I got a chuckle out of it... even now, it makes me smile some thirty plus years later.

LOL. Mr. Shotgun is great for the intimidation value alone. And your aim doesn't have to be very precise when using it.

Posted by Thecurious What equipment are you using for audio recording?

I used a cheap dynamic mic designed for smartphones, mounted on the tripod that comes with it. For the metallic sounds like slamming doors from far down a hallway, my phone's mic was fine. Those sounds don't require much low-end. I thought of getting a Zoom or Tascam recorder, but I'm still on a tight budget. If you take video with a phone and you want your video footage to have good sound quality, you may want to consider a mic mixer. With it you can also use your phone as the field recorder instead of a separate recording device like a Zoom H1. The mics on the mic mixer is often detachable for packing ease, and this means you can add aux extension cables for a wider stereo effect, potentially giving sounds like footsteps a more realistic vibe.

Posted by Thecurious This is pretty helpful actually to me. Me and a few buddies are working on a project where we document abandoned buildings using photographs and audio recordings. This is in connection with a book that we plan to present at UW Madison. But the catch is I obviously don't want to reveal the identity of any locations in the process and also not seem like a criminal, but the connection to the book is just too perfect with the themes we're using. We plan to use more ambient sounds, instead of your friend telling you there's a cop, but still may use things like footsteps. What equipment are you using for audio recording? I do photography, but one of my friends is the planned audio guy and we were trying to research something that's affordable but also good for recording ambient sounds.

It all depends on your budget. I bought a Deity V-Mic D4 Duo. The neat thing about this little mic is that it actually has forward and reward facing microphones, with a switch to choose front only or both. That would be super handy for you since you could isolate something like footsteps, or turn both mics on and capture more ambient sound. You can also use it if you want to narrate while you are filming. You can get sound from where the camera is pointed, but you also get clear audio from the rear. It's less that $100.

I sometimes use my camera to do "voice overs" so it sounds the same as the audio on the other video tracks. I hook up the mic, leave the lens cap on, and hit record. I pull the video into my editor and delete the video track. Then remove all the "uhhhs" and "ahhhs" from the audio recording and I'm good to go.

Although I don't do it on my videos, a bit of sound design can help a video. Recordings of wind blowing though building, a distant door slamming, footsteps through water, and the like can be added in post to add interest to your videos.

Abby

Posted by Abby Normal It all depends on your budget. I bought a Deity V-Mic D4 Duo. The neat thing about this little mic is that it actually has forward and reward facing microphones, with a switch to choose front only or both. That would be super handy for you since you could isolate something like footsteps, or turn both mics on and capture more ambient sound. You can also use it if you want to narrate while you are filming. You can get sound from where the camera is pointed, but you also get clear audio from the rear. It's less that $100. I sometimes use my camera to do "voice overs" so it sounds the same as the audio on the other video tracks. I hook up the mic, leave the lens cap on, and hit record. I pull the video into my editor and delete the video track. Then remove all the "uhhhs" and "ahhhs" from the audio recording and I'm good to go. Although I don't do it on my videos, a bit of sound design can help a video. Recordings of wind blowing though building, a distant door slamming, footsteps through water, and the like can be added in post to add interest to your videos. Abby

Thanks a lot for the recommendation. Since the project is going to be presented in a month, we decided to abandon the use of audio and just stick to photos and history as we simply won't have time. I'll make sure to keep that mic in mind though in case we ever decide to try to make something interesting and creative out of our explorations. I'll let him know about this, thanks again!