Shoulder mount boom pole?

C

c3hammer

Well-known member
Does anyone make a shoulder mount for a boom pole? How about a DIY shoulder mount?

Was thinking if you could mount a pole on a backpack you'd be able to kill two birds with one stone. Use the mic for critical focus reference while filming and capturing high quality audio simultaneously.

Cheers,
Pete
 
c3hammer said:
Use the mic for critical focus reference while filming and capturing high quality audio simultaneously.

Cheers,
Pete
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Not really a great idea. Trying to boom AND shoot at the same time I couldn't ever see working for a thousand reasons.
Here is just one.
Not thinking left and right in frame but what happens with depth?
Someone deeper in frame talking with someone closer? Are you going to truck in and out? Not to mention if you're watching the mic for placement
where are you eyes watching the camera viewfinder?


As far as shoulder mount boom poles. None to my knowledge. There is one that is a few pieces that
has a vertical piece that goes into a waist type belt and then goes outwards but its purely to get strain off your arms weight wise.
You still need 2 hands to work the pole not to mention its really not a great solution because its so cumbersome.


- hire a separate sound person or
- wire the people up or
- use the camera mic and realize it is what it is.
 
ROCKMORE said:
What if he is shooting alone?
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I can't possibly imagine being able to point both a microphone and a camera at the same time, keeping the shot steady and well composed and the microphone out of the frame. I would predict really wildly shaky video as the first consequence of trying this kind of multitasking (which has both cognitive and physical components). It's like trying to read two books or listen to two pieces of music at the same time. (This would be a good case study for the Human Factors in Psychology course I took back in grad school!)

A fixed mic boom on a stand, a lavalier mic hidden as well as possible, or (subject permitting) an interview style handheld microphone would be my choices in this situation. I do a lot of handheld, one-man-band shooting but would never try to maneuver a boom and a camera by myself.

- Greg
 
c3hammer said:
Does anyone make a shoulder mount for a boom pole? How about a DIY shoulder mount?

Was thinking if you could mount a pole on a backpack you'd be able to kill two birds with one stone. Use the mic for critical focus reference while filming and capturing high quality audio simultaneously.

Cheers,
Pete
Click to expand...

That would be like trying to fly a helicopter and plane at the same time. There is a reason there are professional boom ops out there. Now, there are devices out there to help with booming, especially on shoots where the director never cuts. One is the EZ-Boom (which isn't officially out yet), there's the CueMaster Light, but those are things designed specifically for boom ops, not for someone to shoot video and boom at the same time.
 
Good advice going on here. My initial first thought was "If someone makes me shoulder-mount a boompole, I quit." I shudder to think of the handling noise issues that would occur.
 
Greg Smith said:
I can't possibly imagine being able to point both a microphone and a camera at the same time, keeping the shot steady and well composed and the microphone out of the frame. I would predict really wildly shaky video as the first consequence of trying this kind of multitasking (which has both cognitive and physical components). It's like trying to read two books or listen to two pieces of music at the same time. (This would be a good case study for the Human Factors in Psychology course I took back in grad school!)

A fixed mic boom on a stand, a lavalier mic hidden as well as possible, or (subject permitting) an interview style handheld microphone would be my choices in this situation. I do a lot of handheld, one-man-band shooting but would never try to maneuver a boom and a camera by myself.

- Greg
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As I agreed with Rippie, wire them.
 
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A mic needs just as precise aiming and handling as does the camera. Where has this idea come from that all one needs to do is get the mic pointed vaguely in the general direction of the talent from any random distance in the vicinity and the results will be usable? Will you get sound on the recording? ... probably. Will it make a positive contribution to the quality of the final production?... probably not. Most people wouldn't dream of saying out of focus, poorly framed, improperly exposed, off-coloured images are good enough, so why is it acceptable when the audio is equally amateurish?

Few people HAVE to work alone, they just don't put their foot down and refuse to work unless the job can be done properly, or if they're the one making the decisions, not going forward until they have the resources and the budget to do it properly. If the shot requires a boom operator, it requires a boom operator and allowing it to going forward without one is like trying to get the shot without bothering to bring someone to run a camera. After, camera operators are sooo expensive it would be great if we could get eliminate that expense from the budget. Wouldn't it be good enough if we could just put the camera on a tripod and let the cast improvise in front of it? (Oh wait ... I've seen videos on YouTube where they've done exactly that!)

rant mode off
 
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I hear you Steve. What's even funnier/sadder is when you actually hear the director say "Oh, yes, I believe that sound is half the film." But on set, I say that take was no good.....there was a plane, or the AC kicked in, or...whatever the reason. And the director says, "ahh, it's good enough, moving on....."

But have the camera guys say, "I just wasn't happy with that panning, I clipped one of his hairs off" or "The moon is not in the house of Virgo, and the stars were not aligned properly" or "My butt itched on that last shot", my God, reset the entire shot.
 
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I can't even imagine how physically painful it would be to try to carry a boom pole and camera at the same time, let alone all the issues with technique. One or the other is exhausting enough during the span of a day.
 
Rippie said:
Really the only reasonable solution here is to wire them.
Of course the OP didn't mention the particulars of what they want to shoot
but as a general statement. Wire.
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But then you will miss the cool extra content shot so the cameraman with a boom-pole strapped to him.
Now to make it complete you have to have the camera on a dolly and a couple of dolly grips and a focus puller. I mean after you pay for all that crew who anything left over for sound.
 
I know I'm in the minority here but I do many spec projects with no budget to find sponsors to eventually pay for production. In that case I work alone managing everything camera grip lighting audio. As many of you, I started in this industry with real budgets that have dwindled into nothing over the years.
I think constructive advice to wire the talent is the best option, but I wouldn't ridicule the OP for attempting to use a boom by himself. Perhaps suggesting to mount the boom on a stand and move it into the correct position between takes as long as the talent is relatively stationary. Many of the interviews I do are not moving or seated so the mounted boom scenario is better for me than wiring and hiding the lav.
 
But, you know, I remember seeing something like this a year or two ago. It was on the audition shows of either American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance. They pulled back a few times and showed the setup being used. There was a camera guy running around doing quick grab shots of comments as the kids came out into the hall after the auditions.

It was a shoulder mount camera with on-camera light. In addition, there was a mini-boompole attached to the camera some way that extended about three to four feet in front of the camera. The camera guy would stand about 5 feet away from the person, and this boom arm resulted in the microphone mounted on it being automatically placed just out of frame, about 1 foot above and 18 inches or so back from the person. It was exactly the kind of one-man-band setup I think the OP was asking about.

Seemed heavy, unwieldy, difficult to balance, and pretty goofy looking, but it was definitely being used for national TV.
 
ddixon said:
But, you know, I remember seeing something like this a year or two ago. It was on the audition shows of either American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance. They pulled back a few times and showed the setup being used. There was a camera guy running around doing quick grab shots of comments as the kids came out into the hall after the auditions.

It was a shoulder mount camera with on-camera light. In addition, there was a mini-boompole attached to the camera some way that extended about three to four feet in front of the camera. The camera guy would stand about 5 feet away from the person, and this boom arm resulted in the microphone mounted on it being automatically placed just out of frame, about 1 foot above and 18 inches or so back from the person. It was exactly the kind of one-man-band setup I think the OP was asking about.

Seemed heavy, unwieldy, difficult to balance, and pretty goofy looking, but it was definitely being used for national TV.
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I have a pretty strong hunch you mistook a regular boom for what you think you saw.
Both of those shows would have the budget for a separate sound guy.
In fact Idol at that stage of the season has many eng crews handling different responsibilities and
in the years I've watched it (yes I'm admitting I watch it) I've never seen such a thing.
 
ROCKMORE said:
I know I'm in the minority here but I do many spec projects with no budget to find sponsors to eventually pay for production. In that case I work alone managing everything camera grip lighting audio. As many of you, I started in this industry with real budgets that have dwindled into nothing over the years.
I think constructive advice to wire the talent is the best option, but I wouldn't ridicule the OP for attempting to use a boom by himself. Perhaps suggesting to mount the boom on a stand and move it into the correct position between takes as long as the talent is relatively stationary. Many of the interviews I do are not moving or seated so the mounted boom scenario is better for me than wiring and hiding the lav.
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I wasn't ridiculing him. I have a friend who is a photographer and was off doing all these in the street portraits and had me rig a post on a bicycle helmet so he could rig a flash and umbrella on it. Pretty much the same situation, except the light actually works pretty well and I have a hard time seeing a boom mounted in the suggested way of working well at all. But the point is you look like a lunatic. You can get some crazy looking promo shots out of that. My friend has no problem looking like lunatic so it works for him.

Now I was ridiculing the folks who never have any money for sound but seem to show up with a large crew for everything else. But there has been nothing to imply the OP is in that position.

Maybe the web smeared those together in a way that wasn't intended.

There are many things we do (film folks) that make us look like total fools. Those times make for some really good behind the scenes shots. I rode a camel once with full pack and a boom down close to it's feet to get some Camel walking, running etc. I wish I had some footage of when it just decided to break into a cantor. Camels don't run like horses. Camels are more like four pogo sticks attached to a spine. It started bouncing and everything started flying...

Then there was hanging off the end of a big rig to try and get some close up tire sounds.

The time we tried to record some splitting volleyball seams and pumped it up to 75 PSI or so and it exploded, dislocating four joints on two fingers. The recordist used my reaction as his ring tone for a few months till it went off in a not PC location.

Point is we do things that look stupid (some like the volleyball actually are) all the time. And they are all "Kodak moments".

I actually think your probably in the majority, or at least right there in the middle.

A fixed boom is something even a sound person will do in certain circumstances. On a doc some of the takes can be VERY long and it's near impossible to manually boom it if your not a serious bodybuilder. I remember booming this interview. The guy would talk for 20-30 minutes with out a pause. I was dying. They took a break and the cameraman/ director asked why I wasn't using a boom stand like all of their other sound people (it was an interview series all over the world). I hadn't realized it was going to be a sit down and I had never done a doc that had takes anywhere near as long as these were. I grabbed a boom stand and life was good again.

Only works though if your subject is stationary and your pickup is wide enough to keep them on axis.
 
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Thank you, Noiz2!!!!!!! You just made my night! I have tears in my eyes 'cause I laughed so hard! Not at your misfortune, but in understanding.
 
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