Boom Operator term- 'pop into safety'?

R

RichT

Member
I looking through some adverts and saw one for a boom operator which said '..not afraid to pop into safety'

does anyone know what this means? (google search didn't bring up anything)

In other news I did my first boom op job this week... for 16 hours in one day (and shot very fast). Was a really interesting and challenging experience and I learned quite a lot about how shoots work. I think my shoulders are pretty much back to normal now and it hasn't put me off
 
im guesing it has something to do with keeping the mic out of the shot, but possibly visible to the camera op, knowing he is in the safety zone of the frame, or actually outside of it, but in the part that is likely to get cropped in final output. just a guess.
 
Most directors I know say that if they don't see the boom fall into the frame once in a while, it's means the boom op isn't trying hard enough to stay on the talent. I suspect this person is saying he wants to see the boom fall into the safety area (typically a framed off, or grayed off area of the viewfinder). This means the boom op is working hard to get tight on the talent. I can't count the times I've been on set (for other reasons), and watched a boom op flying his fuzzy 4 feet above the actor's head, when given the framing, the mic could have been less than 12 inches from the actor's mouth.

Typically, when we are first setting up a shot, just before we're ready to roll, I'll ask the camera op (or DP is they are the one at the camera) to give me my reference. I'll boom in slowly, and they'll say "out, out, out, in" Now I know where my safety is. Takes less than 10 seconds for each framing. After two or three setups, me and camera op will just look at each other, I'll boom in slowly, and when I hit the frame, he'll say "in" Done. If when rolling, I think I may have fallen into frame, I'll as the camera op if they saw it. It's about 50/50 that they say yes.

Glad to hear your shoulders are back to normal. A 16 hour day is pretty long. Anything more than 12 where I'm booming and wearing my full bag get pretty tiring, but then, at that time I'm in the golden hours so I don't complain. I provided location sound mixing/recording and booming for a feature which was shot in 20 days in December. We were averaging 10 hour days with some going a long as 14, and since it was 2 hour drive from the set back to my home, I was living on 3-4 hours of sleep, and then napping between set-ups, or during location changes. This business can often be feast or famine, so you make the bucks when you can, and sleep when things are slow.
 
In the video/film frame there is an area which gets recorded on the medium but is framed out by either by the TV sets or the film gate in the projector and the black velvet frames aroud the screen in the theatre. The camera operator sees it, but the final viewers do not. If the mic dips inside this area nobody is going to see it, exept the camera operator.

Now with internet videos this is not true anymore, as everything that is shot is also shown, there is no safety area. On TV there still is, but if net videos made from the same material are not reframed to TV safety margins, net will show about 10% more, maybe also the mic which used to be hidden in the old days.
 
RichT said:
I looking through some adverts and saw one for a boom operator which said '..not afraid to pop into safety'

does anyone know what this means? (google search didn't bring up anything)

In other news I did my first boom op job this week... for 16 hours in one day (and shot very fast). Was a really interesting and challenging experience and I learned quite a lot about how shoots work. I think my shoulders are pretty much back to normal now and it hasn't put me off
Click to expand...

As you work with various crews it should get easier and the stress levels lighten up and there'll be a period where you drift into a no boom mans land with a few mistakes till you return to safe levels.

A tip you may already know .. indoors and somtimes outdoors, once the position of the boom mic is eastablished, pick a spot on the wall and take an eyeline from the mic to it so for subsequent takes you can reposition the mic exactly where it started for the first take. Plus stay in shape, weekly massage included. HTH

Cheers.
 
Thanks for the replies, some good advice there too about finding a reference against the background and lowering the boom to get the edge of the frame. I actually found I was doing that with my mixer as well as the camera operator when the camera was set up and they could see the viewfinder.

Another bit of advice I was given is to boom the slate (a lot of people miss this, me included) before/after the shot
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top