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I Got Drunk And Painted Out A Boom and here is the video.


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Now, let's see you paint it out when it's handheld and the camera is moving through a room. With a static frame, it's not that hard -- this is pretty elementary in any editing or compositing program.

I just worked on a 1970s home video project (which I shouldn't name) where the production was so sloppy, there were booms coming in all the time, even at the bottom of the frame. It was that way in the theater during its original run, so since this is part of the outrageous "charm" of the piece, the home video company opted to let that go. I was very sorely tempted to paint it out, though... 

BTW, before somebody tries to correct me, we did have the negative correctly framed for 1.85 and we were not seeing the additional full-ap information in the film. There are frequently boom mics and stuff on the outer edge of frame in the cutoff, but -- if the post crew does their job -- nobody will ever see this on screen. But when the mic dips below the actor's head, c'mon... it's in the damned frame.

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For someone with even the slightest bit of skill, booms or shadows or reflections can be removed for about $600 retail. Less if it's a bundle. That includes tracking shots. It only gets complicated if the element behind the boom is moving itself (like trees or clouds or fire, etc.). In most cases, painting a boom is cheaper than the time it would take to run shots separately, and also cheaper than ADR. Most boom removal is included in the VFX budget, particularly on movies with a lot of VFX background replacement or supplement, or in the grading budget if they plan to add a lot of shadow grading in post. I have had my boom op come in on take two or three on "wide and tight" and have told DP and director that I will gladly pay to paint out the boom if they use the shot with the boom in. They usually think it's a bit funny, and quite enjoy that I offer. I have never had to pay.

The good news is that it has become so common, that nobody really questions it if you are confident with your assertion that it's an easy paint out.

It's an exciting time.

 

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haha, fun video and a good INTRO into the concepts of boom removal.  Since removing booms from shots is my day job, I'll add a few things to consider:

-- When creating a "clean" plate to hide your boom behind, it's always best to use VIDEO instead of a still frame.  Why?  If you're using a still frame, the film or video grain is frozen in time and could potential stand out (especially in darker, grainy scenes).  If a clean video plate wasn't shot on the day, you may have to "build" one yourself - build a "clean" plate video that loops for the duration of the shot.

-- In 99.9% of the boom removals I do, almost all of them require both the clean plate and edited footage to be "pinned-down".  Meaning, ALL motion needs to be removed from the two plates.  Something as simple as a camera operator's heartbeat can have your camera image bouncing around on a sub-pixel (or greater) level.  If one of your two plates is unstable and moving around for whatever reason, you'll spot it pretty easily, as if there's an invisible fault line thru your image as the two images move independently of each other.

And of course all this only counts for video that is locked off on a tripod.

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