WASHINGTON, 18 NOVEMBER 2010 — I can’t tell you how many of my backpack journalism students lose critical visual and audio information because they are not connected to their characters with headphones. Once your character is out of sight and you are not listening to him/her over the wireless microphone, you’ve cut yourself off not only from what’s happening right now but also from what’s going to happen in the immediate future. You can’t anticipate what you’re going to shoot if you don’t know what your character is going to do. Go out and buy a $12 pair of headphones that you insert into your ears. With these, as opposed to the large ear-covering headphones, you can stay connected with what your character is doing and you can retain peripheral hearing as well. These tiny ear plugs don’t get in your way. They don’t cut you off from your immediate surroundings. You can use them underneath a helmet. And they don’t make you look like Mickey Mouse.
So stick them in your ears and keep them there during the entire shoot. (Photo by Bill Gentile)