old movie pictures

[Jeff Wexler]

I found some old movie pictures, some scanned from a book by Leonard Maltin on cinematography, and a few of them show some very old microphones and booms. The one from "Medium Cool" shows the huge blimp my father had built to keep his Eclair CM3 camera quiet (sort of) and Chris Newman's boom operator using a rather long Sennheiser 805 microphone.

-  Jeff Wexler

[old school]

Love the old photos. My favorite is the western,, followed by medium cool pic,, then the Capra movie pic. Thanks.

CrewC

[t.elder]

Out of curiosity, when did the Sennheiser 815 / 816 start being used in favor of the 805?  What were the key differences between the two microphones?

Tim

[Jeff Wexler]

Out of curiosity, when did the Sennheiser 815 / 816 start being used in favor of the 805?  What were the key differences between the two microphones?

Tim

I would have to do some research to answer this accurately, since I do not remember all the dates (also, although I am have been doing this sort of work a long time I wasn't really aware of some of the oldest models). The first of the "8 series" microphones may have been the 801 or maybe it was the 805, I don't know. It then progressed through the 815 (in use for many, many years) and then the 816 (last of the typical 8 series models). Each of the changes to the 8 series microphones, which were all the long variety, was accompanied by a change to the 4 series microphones (shorter, less directional, like the 415, then 416). I am not sure about the -05 (405, 406) which were basic cardioid, less directional microphones.

-  Jeff Wexler

[chrisnewton]

Interesting pictures, Jeff. That windscreen in the last photo (the movie "Dirigible") sure looks a lot like that new DPA contraption.

Chris Newton