Possible stupid question - Boom positioning

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pmk396

Well-known member
I have never really thought about this until I was asked about it the other day and I wasn't able to answer it but here it goes; Why is a boom positioned above the talent's mouth when recording dialog instead of under the talent's mouth?

I answered to the person asking this that there was a greater chance that the talent might bump or hit off the boom when acting but I thought that I was kinda bluffing. I was wondering if there was any great difference when positioning a boom this way, such as, is there any difference in the quality of the audio??
 
pmk396 said:
I have never really thought about this until I was asked about it the other day and I wasn't able to answer it but here it goes; Why is a boom positioned above the talent's mouth when recording dialog instead of under the talent's mouth?

I answered to the person asking this that there was a greater chance that the talent might bump or hit off the boom when acting but I thought that I was kinda bluffing. I was wondering if there was any great difference when positioning a boom this way, such as, is there any difference in the quality of the audio??
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A directional mic such as a shotgun or hypercardioid picks up best along its longitudinal axis. Extend the line from the mic to the talent's mouth on out behind the talent. Anything on this line will be picked up along with the voice. When the mic is below the camera-talent sight line, the pattern can easily include other sound sources behind the talent. When the mic is above the line, all that's in the pattern behind the talent is empty ground. Also, 'guns, and to a lesser extent hypers, have a rear lobe to contend with behind the mic. When the mic is low, that rear lobe is pointing at camera and crew. When the mic is above, the rear lobe is pointing at empty sky.
 
That, and the fact that booming from below is a pain. The pole gets in everyone's way if people are moving around. Sometimes you have to boom from below if the shot requires it, but when you do that, another thing to consider is that the mic is point up at the sky, which means it's picking up stuff you might not want, like extra birds or anything else that goes on up there. When the mic is pointing down from above, you pick up the dialogue as well as other useful production effects, like foley, that can sometimes be useable.
 
And there is a different sound. When you boom up your pointing into the speakers nose and sinuses and it will sound a bit more nasal and thin. When your booming down your shooting into the chest and it will be a bit deeper and fuller. It's not usually a huge difference, depends on the person, but booming down almost always make the voice sound better.
 
if there's a big shadow problem and the light department can't fix it in 3 minutes...boom from under... It sounds a little different. But at the end you can have saved time so you have time to record roomtones etc.. Otherwise they could say "there's no time for that because light had to rebuild for your shadow while you could easely boom from under".

They like it when you're surious about sound and ask to do one more take because of the airplane, but they also like you're more or less "colegical"
 
There are a lot of reasons to boom over just as there is to boom under.
Pretty much to sum it up for me is while I tend to boom "over" most of the time, if booming from underneath is going to get me closer
I'll do it (if I'm struggling to get in because of framing, shadows, etc).

If I'm doing a job outside with a lot of noise behind the talent I'll boom under and use
their body to help block a bit of the sound coming from behind them.
 
dre83 said:
if there's a big shadow problem and the light department can't fix it in 3 minutes...boom from under... It sounds a little different. But at the end you can have saved time so you have time to record roomtones etc.. Otherwise they could say "there's no time for that because light had to rebuild for your shadow while you could easely boom from under".

They like it when you're surious about sound and ask to do one more take because of the airplane, but they also like you're more or less "colegical"
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I'm trying to come up with an "invisible" pole for these shadow issues....

:)
 
I have tried painting my boom and mic chroma color green, and told them to take it out in post. My humor went over their heads...
 
I once showed a short piece of video to a friend of mine. I ask him "did you see something ?" he said "no"...

I showed it again... a few times...

Then I told him "there's a mic on top of the screen" (it was only half a second)

And now he knew it...it catched his attention

So...what we've learned: do come in image with mic...and just don't tell anyone :-p
 
Soundie76 said:
I have tried painting my boom and mic chroma color green, and told them to take it out in post. My humor went over their heads...
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HAHAHAHA! That's great! It's like when us audio guys are told "we'll fix it in post", but reversed. I like that. Maybe we should make our zeppelins and fuzzy's in that green and blue color.
 
"Saturday Night Fever" has the boom dip in two or three times in the scene on the bridge. I saw it but I never heard any complaints about it.
 
davefisk said:
HAHAHAHA! That's great! It's like when us audio guys are told "we'll fix it in post", but reversed. I like that. Maybe we should make our zeppelins and fuzzy's in that green and blue color.
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"Yeah, well...We'll fix it in post"

"ok..tell me how you would fix it ? How would you remove the hardcore techno trance dance music of 200dB out of it ?"

Funny :-p
 
Now the really ironic thing is that stuff like a boom shadow are relatively easy to remove in post. I've just done a little bit of VFX and I can fix most of that. It depends of course but the odd shadow on the wall is generally a breeze.
 
There are quite a few answers here but it's really simple with most boom mics. You can capture the same sound from above as you can from below. Think about this. Lav mics are under the person's nose and mouth as well. Part of your problem with holding the mic low when you're doing drama or comedy work is that you won't be able to move as easily in and out of the scene. It will be easier to have the mic propped over the scene (although it gets tiresome for most people anyway).

This is sometime key that I heard years ago and I wondered why until a couple of years ago. Someone told me to have boom mics pointed at the key subject's heart when it's one person. The reason why is that microphones are built with holes around the side. If you point it at the subject's mouth, depending on how far you are from that person, most of the sound would be directed at the tip. That's can be like recording from around a corner in some cases. If you are recording a two shot, have the mic pointed downward between the two. This works well especially if you are planning on recording a minimal amount of takes without changing your setup.

The same rules will apply from under as well. I just thought of another aesthetic which is kinda like crew wearing caps to keep actors aware of people that are out of their eyeline. A microphone either causes people around to be quiet or it causes them to be louder. Depends on whether they are being respectful or not. Tieuel Legacy! Motion
 
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