Hey guys -

Aside from the mic one is using, the acoustics of a room can have a great influence on how an audio recording is going to sound. You could take a mic from one room to another, and it would sound completely different. A microphone such as a shotgun mic is one that you do not have to wear, and it helps eliminate a lot of the ambient sound in the room as well as reduce echo. You could certainly use a boom mic, but it would probably slow your production, require a stand (or boom pole), and your camera operator would have to double as a boom operator (talk about coordination!) A lavalier mic or typical hand mic would work, but then you would have visible wires shown.

You can mount a shotgun mic on a camera, or you can put it on a boom pole.

As for software, I unfortunately cannot recommend affordable home software for video editing. The only software I have used for video editing has been Adobe Premiere, and that runs about $800. Wow. I just checked Adobe's site, and apparently Pro CS4 was used when editing the movie Avatar. I will say this - The software is awesome! I have no idea what CS4 is like. The most recent work I did was several years (and a few versions) ago.

Some people have recommended Final Cut Pro, but it is mac-based.

I do recommend having a high powered machine if you render HD video. I am pretty sure Premiere can make full use of threading across a Quad Core processor. You honestly need to have a Ferrari of a computer (more so than a gamer!) to render and compress video. Aside from the processor potentially slowing you down, you need a lot of RAM, a lot of hard disk space (Both for storing your video and especially for "scratch space"), and a fast hard drive at that.