I recently met a lady who a friend that does a speech about a drunk driving accident. She does these speeches at local high schools around prom season and such.

I came up with the idea to record a speech or two and interview the students after the speech. I normally use my Nikon to shoot stills, so I don't have the need for a mic. I have not been to any of these speeches, so I don't know what the set up is. I'm thinking of putting a mic on the stand she is in front of or on her person. Again, I don't even know if she stands in one spot or walks around. Heck, I don't even know how long her speech is.

So does any one have a good mic that I can borrow? The best one would probably be one that will attach to her so she can walk around. Of course it'll need to be wireless to my Nikon D7100. Which does have a mic input.

Any other advice appreciate.

Thank you,
KOT

Probably a wireless lavalier mic would be best (clip-on lapel mic to a transmitter pack, then receiver pack on camera with cable to mic input). You could go with a shotgun mic on the camera, but they tend to pick up a lot of background noise and can sometimes be a bit hollow.

Check also to see how long your camera will record. A youtube producer did some recordings at my church on Sunday and the cameras were all limited by the fact that they could not make files larger than, I think, 4 gig. I don't know other details, but they were limited to 12 minute long files. The only way to have a continuous production of the event was to record with several cameras, staggered, so that down time could be edited out by switching to a different camera.

I think the Nikon will record for 30 minutes.  Agreed that a wireless lav mic is the best approach.  Anyplace local you might be able to rent one?

I thought it was 20 minute record time, will double check. Should've asked how long her speech runs for anyways.

I could think of one place, that may rent some out.

Another thing I have to think about. Is a hosting site. From what I gathered, it maybe too graphic for YT. Apparently this lady shows pictures of the cars, the couple who died instantly(thankfully) and such. At the end of the entire speech, she closes it out with. "The couple who died in this horrific crash while the drunk man walks away... Were my parents, I was 35 when I lost them both at the same time." And she goes on from there asking a few students in the audience, "Can you ID your own parents in the morge?"

KOT

Is it graphic or mature in a serious, educational, documentary way?

Then you'll probably be fine on YT. Put a warning card up before the video stating what is contained, and if people complain it will be reviewed by YT staff and possibly have a "mature" flag set, which you cannot proactively do yourself. They don't typically like to censor videos with obvious educational merit. So unless it's clearly gratuitous or porn, I don't think they'll have a problem.

And if you do, worry about that then... maybe Vimeo can help.