Mic for on-location video shoot?

I am working on a project to help children enjoy reading aloud by recording their spoken word performances and then compressing, equalizing, and adding harmonic excitation to their recordings.  I am hopeful that engineering a child's voice will give her or him more incentive to read aloud.

Would the RODE shotgun microphone be a good one for this project?  Any suggestions for a preamp?

I believe a shotgun mic will be better suited for performers without mic skills and who may be shy.

Thanks!

Certainly the whole point of a shotgun is that you use it farther away from the subject making it (depending on your rig) potentially less intrusive.  Indeed, if you get too close to a shotgun you'll find it's prone to wind noise, plosives and, if you're really close, the proximity effect skews the frequency response towards the lows.

However, the downside of your plan will be that you will inevitably pick up more room presence than you would with close miking.  Unless you have a very dead acoustic, your recordings will sound more hollow and "echoey".

As for pre-amps, there are tons...the choice will depend somewhat on your setup and what you're recording on, since you have a choice of a specialist pre-amp running into a conventional audio card, or perhaps an "all in one" that works as a preamp and feeds your PC via USB or Firewire.

Bob

Here is a little more about the project for recording children reading aloud short stories and poems...

The ultimate goal is to persuade libraries and communities to offer their patrons sound recording booths in which they may record their spoken word performances of children's stories and poems.  Partnerships between libraries, schools, and technology companies may help make this possible.  But what microphones should libraries choose so that children are successful?  Acoustically treated spaces may not be available.

I will be meeting with families over the next few weeks who wish me to record their readings and to improve the recordings with some EQ, compression, and harmonic excitation.

I am not an audio engineer, but I am learning as quickly as I can.  It seems that a shotgun microphone placed nine inches from the speaker and both above and to the side of the speaker's mouth may be a good starting point.  I will place a stuffed animal, such as a tiger, on the shotgun microphone, to make it less obtrusive.

Any other recommendations?