I just watched a short film today. The scenes inside cars had very inconsistent sound. Essentially, do you all have any tips for micing inside a car? For example: lav, very small boom mic (cmc641 or MKH 8050), etc..

Thanks very much!

I'm interested on this subject as well.

I have no idea what mic would be the best.

I'm interested on this subject as well.

I have no idea what mic would be the best.

This is an amateur speaking here.

I think it largely depends on the car. How well is the car isolated from engine and outside road bumps noise.

I used a short shotgun (at835st) at 1m from speaker and the results are impressive to my ear, I didn't expect that clean sound - sounded as if the car didn't move. I also used a small Sony ECM-719 but that picked a lot of ambient sound and less voice.

I would like to try a cardioid capsule see what it gives, since apparently the advice is to use cardioids and not shotguns whenever indoors (cars are indoors like I suppose).

A retired pro speaking here and when I have shot in cars it has always been a lavalier clipped to the sun visors in the front.

In the 80's this was a sony ecm-50 but any such mic will be fine. Also most of the shoots I have done the car has been on a low loader but the same technique will be fine for rolling shots.

When I do car stuff, mainly for factual stuff, the sound guys usually use lavs on the talent - mounted carefully to avoid rustles.

Doing some race car stuff at the moment and used some minicams fed from a lav mic mounted inside the helmet of the instructor (near the ear to pick up driver and intstructor) No sound guy on this shoot so rigged it myself.

Not feature-quality sound by any means, but fine for what we needed. take a look at
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/features/article3903385.ece

For info, the out of car stuff was recorded using a Sennheiser 416 for the PTC.

Hope this helps

I usually use a cub 1 in the headliner, and sometimes a cardiod on a clamp mount on the floor if I also need to pick up a passenger in the back seat.