Two boom ops?

Shawn Philip Nelson

Shawn Philip Nelson

Veteran
I tried searching for any threads on using two boom ops and couldnt find any, it's a topic I'd like to see discussed by anyone who's done it.

On major Hollywood BTS features you can often see multiple ops. I hadn't had much need for it until yesterday's shoot. We had 5 actors sitting round-table, it was very difficult for the op to keep up. He was booming my MKH50 and since I had the CK93 (which sounds really close) in the bag, if I had simply had another boom pole I could have grabbed a free grip and gotten much better mic coverage of the scene.
 
Zone or man coverage?

Very common practice in movies with a proper budget. You really need to have the same mics so the amount of room doesn't change when you switch mics. Otherwise you would probably need to mix both tracks.

Cheers
 
Exactly, on shows with real budgets the standard is to hire three sound personnel: the mixer, a boom operator, and a utility/cable person, also known as the "third". Generally it's the third's responsibility to do all the leg work and much of the setup work for all the gear. Running cable, wrangling, wiring talent, rigging cars for sound, checking batteries, coordinating frequencies, managing comteks, etc. But he or she must also be ready to grab a second stick and jump in as an additional boom op anytime the mixer feels like he's not getting what he needs with just a single op.

Low-budgets rarely hire this third sound figure because of the additional day rate that they have to fork over. It's a great thing to have though, and makes the whole department run much smoother.
 
Hmmm, so then using a combo of an mkh50 and ck93 would sound too weird?

If I was able to get a second mkh50, would that work? Or do they have to come as a 'matched pair'?
 
Great to have

Great to have

Working on low budget stuff I often find myself working solo out of a bag. I do however carry a second boom setup and it is easy for me to accommodate a second boom/mic for the odd time I need one. This may sound hard to do solo but the main trick is to have the right gain setting. A second boom is great when there is a lot of movement in the scene, especially when that movement kills the lavs with noise.
I also use an overhead sometimes as a secondary mic especially where ambience and multi background chatter is present such as a market scene.

I know that is not done on a pro level, but it has come in handy with limited budget films. I am sometimes surprised at the results...a foley artist could not do better.

p.s. While everyone here raves about the Oktava MK012, (which I have but don't like) I will use the large diaphram MK102 for this purpose. It is an AMAZING microphone. I also use it for VO and I like it better than my $4,000. Neuman U87
You can hear it here: http://www.jbl4315.com/crispy.html (male off screen voice)
You can see it here: http://www.oktavacanada.com/microphone/mk102Single.html
 
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shawneous said:
Hmmm, so then using a combo of an mkh50 and ck93 would sound too weird?

If I was able to get a second mkh50, would that work? Or do they have to come as a 'matched pair'?
Click to expand...

No nothing like that. Think of trying to mix a MKH50 and 416 within the same scene. The amount of room will be drastically different between mics. Same sort of idea using different brands within a scene. Different polar pattern is gonna be different room presence. Depending on your room and mics it could be drastically noticable or not.

Cheers
 
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