Everything else in a video can be repaired after the shoot. Sound cannot.
A slightly dark image lifts. A slightly loose frame crops. A hesitant delivery cuts. A recording made in a room that echoes is finished the moment you stop filming, and no amount of editing puts the room back.
That is worth knowing before the equipment conversation starts, because the equipment conversation is almost always the wrong one.
The enemy is the room, not the microphone
A microphone does not record your voice. It records your voice plus everything your voice bounces off on the way, and in most homes here the bouncing is the problem.
Why Portuguese flats are difficult
Look around the room you were going to film in. Tiled or stone floor, plastered walls, large windows, high ceiling, and not much fabric anywhere.
Every one of those is a hard surface, and hard surfaces return sound. The result is that slightly hollow quality where the words are all present and the voice sounds like it is speaking from inside a box. Viewers do not identify it as reverb. They identify it as cheap, and they scroll.
Buying a better microphone makes this worse rather than better, because a more sensitive microphone captures the same room more accurately. You have not bought clarity, you have bought a more faithful recording of a bad room.
Distance beats equipment
The single most effective change is to halve the distance between your mouth and whatever is recording.
Sound falls away fast with distance, and the direct sound of your voice falls away at the same rate as the reflected sound. Get closer and the direct sound wins. A phone held at arm's length in a tiled kitchen sounds terrible. The same phone, same room, held near the chest and slightly off to one side, sounds acceptable.
That change costs nothing and it is bigger than any purchase you could make this year.
| Where you filmed | What it does to the sound | What to do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Tiled kitchen, phone at arm's length | Hollow, boxy, obviously a room | Halve the distance, or move rooms |
| Living room with hard floor | Slight echo, reads as cheap | Add a rug, close the curtains |
| Bedroom with wardrobe and bed | Almost nothing, this is the good room | Film here, even if it looks worse |
| Bathroom | Unusable, the worst room in the house | Never, for any reason |
| Outdoors, no wind | Dry and clean, often the best option | Watch for intermittent noise only |
The third row is the one creators resist. The best sounding room in a Portuguese flat is usually the least photogenic one, and the correct decision is to film in it and light it better rather than to film in the pretty room and hope.
The street, and why constant noise is fine
Old town flats have traffic, deliveries, neighbours and works, and creators treat all of it as equally fatal. It is not.
What actually ruins a take
Constant noise is far more acceptable than intermittent noise, and this surprises people every time.
A steady hum, distant traffic, a fridge, an air conditioner in another room: the ear filters those out within seconds and the viewer stops hearing them. A single scooter passing, a dog, a door, a car horn: those pull attention away from the sentence being spoken, and attention is the entire currency of the format.
So the practical rule is not silence. It is to avoid events. Film with a constant background if you must, and stop when something happens rather than pushing on and hoping the edit saves it.
Turn off what makes events. Notifications on every device in the room, including the one filming. The washing machine, which will change cycle at the worst moment. Anything that beeps when it finishes.
The five minute setup
Choose the smallest room with the most soft material in it. Close the windows if the street is eventful and open them if the room is echoing more than the street is intruding.
Put something soft where the sound would bounce. A bed, a sofa, hanging clothes, a rug, an open wardrobe: all of these absorb, and standing in front of an open wardrobe full of clothes is the closest thing to a recording booth most people own.
Then record ten seconds, listen back on headphones, and only then start the take. That habit costs a few seconds and it is the difference between finding out now and finding out when a brand asks for it again.
Keep reading
- Building a First Portfolio Before Anybody Hires You
- The Worst Two Hours to Film in Portugal
- In Portugal, Your Price Is Public
- When Not to Buy UGC
- The complete UGC guide for Portugal
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Frequently asked questions
Should I buy a small clip on microphone?
Only after fixing the room, and then yes, it helps. Bought first, it usually disappoints, because it solves the smaller half of the problem and people expect it to solve the larger one.
Can I record the sound separately?
Yes, and it is a good habit for anything scripted. Film normally, record the voice afterwards in the quiet room, and align them in the edit. It takes practice and it removes the room from the equation entirely.
What about background music?
It hides nothing. Music over a bad recording sounds like a bad recording with music, and it makes speech harder to follow rather than easier.
The brand asked for cleaner audio. What do I actually change?
Move rooms and get closer, in that order, before anything else. Those two changes solve most rejections, and neither requires you to tell the brand you bought anything.