The under-appreciated boom operator

C

combatentropy

Veteran
[Warning: This is a philosophic post. It has no technical information.]

I've been reading Producing Great Sound for Digital Video, by Jay Rose. Great book. I bought it years ago but have been slow to open it. Partly because I'm taking a long break from filmmaking (read my Profile). But also sound recording never attracted me like camerawork. I think that's true of most people of this forum. Nothing wrong with that. Different strokes for different folks. Some people like audio. Some people like camera. Some people like gardening.

As I read the part of Jay's book about boom miking, it struck me that I've been underappreciating the role. My goal in sound recording has been simply that the dialog be "clear" --- good enough that (A) people can understand the words (B) no distracting echoes or noise. To an audio professional, that's a low standard. But again, my aptitude and passion never have been for sound. The couple of times when a pro audio engineer listened to my videos --- ones that I thought sounded pretty good --- I was struck that they immediately offered advice to make it better. Better? I didn't hear anything wrong. I just don't have the ear.

If it weren't for sound, I could be the whole crew. I can write, direct, produce, light, work camera, and edit. I just need some friends to be actors. I can boom mic too, but I can't do that and camera at the same time. Of course, I'm not saying how well I do any of these jobs. The fact that I was content to get friends to be actors tells you how well I judge acting, but that's another post. My point is, sound has always annoyed me. It's easy to do all the other crew work myself, because it means I also get to direct, which is fun. And it's easy to find people to be actors, because acting is fun. But who's going to volunteer to hold the boom? I just thew it at whichever "actor" was not being filmed. I always felt sorry for him.

The turnaround in my thinking started before I read Jay's book. For a visual person with stunted social skills, it took some time to dawn on me that words are important. For example, the scripts of Shakespeare, "the greatest English dramatist," are 99% dialog. So are many movies, like the Maltese Falcon. Directing Actors, by Judith Weston, advises the actor to cross out just about all the text of the script except the dialog (not forever, just one part of script analysis). I was 9 when I saw Top Gun, so it struck me as a movie bookended by a couple cool jet scenes, interrupted in the middle by lots of boring dialog. When I grew up, my interests changed. The relational interplay became more interesting to me than the jets. People were wrestling and kickboxing and shooting at each other throughout the movie --- with their words. Before, when I was young and stupid, I didn't see it. My favorite TV show recently has been 24, and it's for the relational interplay, trust, and betrayal, as much as the karate kicks, car chases, and gunfights. It plays out in real life, too. A punch in the gut can sting for a while, but something somebody says can bother you for years.

So when I was reading the part in Jay's book about the boom operator's job, it suddenly hit me that this guy has one of the most important jobs on the set. The DP may be capturing Jack Nicholson's face, but the boom operator is capturing his voice, his words. It's up to him to record the principle interplay between the characters, the stuff that makes up most of the drama of the movie.

It's not only important, it's also a tough skill. You can't replace the boom operator with a C stand. As Colin Hart wrote, the boom operator has to be a ninja.
 
Last edited:
I wrote this for another thread.

unclebob6958 said:
A great boom-op has a very high skill set. S/he can keep the mic properly and accurately pointed at the talent, even when changing from one actor to another line by line, while not making any noise, keeping the mic out of the shot, not creating shadows, and not tripping over things on the floor or bumping into lights stands, reflectors, and everything else that can be found on an active set.
Click to expand...

We won't even go into the post process...:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

Your film will only look as good as it sounds. Audiences will forgive mediocre visuals as long as there is great sound. The reverse is NOT true; the audience won't care how beautiful your visuals are if the sound is poor.



The Lucas/Speilberg mantra: "Sound is half of the experience."

This means that 98% of all indie filmmakers ignore half of what makes a great film.
 
combatentropy said:
[Warning: This is a philosophic post. It has no technical information.]

It's not only important, it's also a tough skill. You can't replace the boom operator with a C stand. As Colin Hart wrote, the boom operator has to be a ninja.
Click to expand...

I like to think that when it's done well, it's also an art. I like booming -- the challenge of doing it well and hearing an actor's dialogue clearly in my headphones.

This guy, a boom op in Spain, is an artist, in my opinion. Watch this YouTube video of him booming a 3+ minute take as the camera dollies back and forth, even into a different room and he captures dialogue from lots of actors. It's art and skill ( oh, and muscles like I'll never have !).

Damasonico - Long Take

Cheers,

Stephen H
 
Maybe preaching for the choir, but booming is a very crucial part of the location sound that, for some reason, most people not primarily doing audio seems to think pretty low of - "just let anybody hold the pole and it will be fine". A boom op needs to be constantly aware of the actors and the cameras movement, while minimizing their own sounds and the surroundings by technique and mic placement. Good boom ops can also handle dynamics in the scene by changing the distances from the sound source. All this while listening to make sure the dialogue comes through well, and that there are no other disrupting sounds.

If I'm responsible for the location audio on a project, and it's a team of two in which the other person isn't experienced at booming, then I take the boom and let that person mix and write the report (but to be fair, on the type of things that I do we don't really mix as much as monitor the individual channels).

About that video, I agree that he's very good, but what really amazes me is that what he's doing isn't much more then what's expected by professional boom ops (at least from what can be judged without actually hearing the result).
 
I just watched the video (well, I have seen it before) and I try to learn some technics from it.

A thing I find funny is that almost everyone knows how to handle a camera, light, but once you give someone a soundmixer or recorder they're like "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!!"

Also if you have 100 people, about 99 are wanting to do camera, and 1 is wanting to do sound. In one other way sound is seen as something "heavy, not cool to do".
 
Jema said:
Maybe preaching for the choir, but booming is a very crucial part of the location sound that, for some reason, most people not primarily doing audio seems to think pretty low of - "just let anybody hold the pole and it will be fine". A boom op needs to be constantly aware of the actors and the cameras movement, while minimizing their own sounds and the surroundings by technique and mic placement. Good boom ops can also handle dynamics in the scene by changing the distances from the sound source. All this while listening to make sure the dialogue comes through well, and that there are no other disrupting sounds.

If I'm responsible for the location audio on a project, and it's a team of two in which the other person isn't experienced at booming, then I take the boom and let that person mix and write the report (but to be fair, on the type of things that I do we don't really mix as much as monitor the individual channels).

About that video, I agree that he's very good, but what really amazes me is that what he's doing isn't much more then what's expected by professional boom ops (at least from what can be judged without actually hearing the result).
Click to expand...

In Belgium it's mostly a "experienced set mixer" with "an experience boomoperator" and then a trainee as 2nd boomoperator.

In Holland it's mostly a "experienced boom operator" with a "trainee or low payed" set mixer.

But anyway everyone has to learn.

And of course there are the "no budget" and "low budget" projects to learn.
 
Great thread. During the early days of TV here the ABC here ran an on air study which timed an audience adjusting their TV sets when 1) the picture was bad and
2) when the sound was bad.

The results were, folk would put up with a snowy picture and good sound, but rarely the other way around. Within 2 minutes they were at their sets,
trying to get better sound.

I remember that from my TV production course at the Nth. Sydney Tech College.

Next March 4 is the 50th anniversary of Channel 3 in Newcastle, 100 miles north of Sydney and I was the first audio production wallah and set up the audio dept.

I came from Radio 2UE in Sydney and was (jokingly) accused of thinking 'TV was radio with pictures'. That is until our first on air audio screw up, and we had a few in the early days. Then we got some more set up time and the video folk listened to us. No pun.

In the very early days of sound in Hollywood, the boom operator was the highest paid guy on the set. I'd say they learned that real quick.

After 50yrs in sound I'm still fond of saying, sound is 70% of what you see. Thanks for your time.

Cheers.
 
As there are different types of lenses 9mm, 18mm, 24, 50, 80, 100 and other numbers, there are different types of microphones.

So if you (or a another DOP) is like: "mmmhh, I want to see the 50 again...mhh, no maybe the 80....or no maybe the 24....or wait maybe the 50.... Well it's the same for sound
who says "mmh, I'd like to hear the cardio, or no maybe the hyper, or no maybe the shotgun".

The problem is that a DOP can spent 510546464434734534643434343434 lightyears on choosing lenses, but if a soundguy needs to switch on a wireless because he was waiting those lightyears untill
image was ready it's like "WE'RE LOOSING TIME WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!"
 
Awesome video and all good points about the under appreciated boom op. Couple interesting things to note about Damaso's excellent work... The pole seems to be at full extension with the wireless transmitter on the end of the pole (quite the physical feat). From what I've heard the tx on the mic end of the pole is common place overseas, less so in the states where boom ops will use butt plugs on the end of poles or transmitters on their belt (true?). Commendable too that he was able to memorize the scene with all of the characters, action, changes in framing, dialogue, etc. So much more to it than most people think, this is such a great example of that.

Also - seems to me that he's booming more so for "air" than for primary audio, which I would think could be mainly lavs. He's operating the boom (CMC641) at sometimes 3 feet (even more with the child coming in), sometimes at an even greater distance, in a rather reverberant space. Would love to hear the finished product on this.

Great video. I go back to it often.
 
I wear lots of hats often, and I can direct and do just about any job on set at the same time, but not boom op. It seems to take a lot more concentration. After a long day it's the job that makes me the most tired! Sometimes when I am mixing and have a new boom op I do pity them a little because I'll be giving them direction after every take. I just have to wonder about film schools when someone told me their instructor said to, "just hold it there". Grrrr. One thing I want to add to the good analogy of picking lenses vs picking mics is that it takes a while, and also working in post, to know what that mic will sound like in a theater vs what it sounds like in your headphones.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top