Location recording of talent has all sorts of issues that come with it, from external noise out of your control, to not having a mic close enough to the talent and other obstacles that might get in your way, e.g. construction, traffic and weather. In order to get the recording you want to a high standard, that is broadcast ready; planning for all of these situations is a must.
One of the most common issues is picking up unwanted noise during recording and you might only have the opportunity for one take so it is vital to be prepared for this. To avoid this as best as possible, doing some research on the days leading up to the filming can prove priceless. Keep an eye out for things like, when is the traffic busiest? Are we under a flight path? Are there road works happening nearby? Is there much foot traffic? By doing your research on these points, you can plan the best time of day for the filming to be carried out with the least possible chance of the recording being ruined.
Another main factor is the recording technique and microphone used. If you have limited time for filming, you want to make sure you can hear everything your client is saying and as clearly as possible (especially without the boom falling into the picture). How is the best way to achieve this? Hire a professional that you know does quality work. The extra money you spend on a professional location engineer could save you a fortune down the track and a whole lot of embarrassment. If your recording doesn’t turn out the way you want it to because you’ve either recorded the sound yourself or had someone inexperienced to record, then you could be looking at costs of re-recording the talent in a studio, post-production audio enhancement to fix your audio and other costs involved in post-production audio. As well as this your deadline may not be met, you might have to lock in the client or talent for another day (more costs) and you are probably going to have a very unhappy client.
There is some work that can be done to try to restore poor quality audio in post-production, however again this is costly and does not yield perfect results. The best way is to be prepared, hire a professional and save yourself the time and hassle that could happen with poor location recordings.