The "booper" is back

[Philip Perkins]

This is for you baby-boomer sound folks who remember film docs back in the old days.  I've been working on a doc, being shot on a mini-digi "burrito cam".  After much discussion+tests, I was able to convince the filmmakers (who are cutting the film themselves) to go full double system for sound.  (They discovered that while the tinycam made pretty good pictures it badly sucked for sound, and the subject of the doc is a famous musician...).  So they got a decent sounding camera mic to mount on the camera, I roll 24/48 on my rig and we sync with....the booper.  We do LONG rolls (fewer sync points), and the shooter (old film guy, so knows the drill) shoots the booper whenever he rolls.  With the audio from his mic as a guide the sync is way fast.  And we have real 24 bit audio.  This beats any sort of wireless or cable link any day--I could concentrate on sound--not on the cable dance or worrying about the link. 

Philip Perkins

[old school]

Full circle Philip. I wonder if Bruce P has any bloop lites he wants to sell? What cameras are you all using?

CrewC

[ProSound]

As someone who is not a "Baby Boomer"  How does this system work? Looks like a easy solution.

[Philip Perkins]

As someone who is not a "Baby Boomer"  How does this system work? Looks like a easy solution.

Crew--I think it's one of the little Sonys, the last model will take tape we think (HDV).  It's about 6 mo old so it might not be avail anymore.

How it works: Cam mic on camera.  All my audio to my recorder.  The "booper" turns on a light, flashes the old-school numerical display, and makes a 400Hz (more or less) tone for as long as the button is pushed that comes in on a spare mixer input (is line level so can be a mix bus in etc--did this w/ a Shure FP33 years ago as well).  (This one also has a slate mic in it that I never used much.)  Audio beep is recorded on the recorder, camera sees flash, line them up in the NL edit system and voila: sync sound.  (With the added benefit of the camera mic's perspective as well.)  I keep track of what is going on on what audio file for Wave Agent later by writing a few notes as I go.  Long rolls--keep rolling, fewer sync points. 

I bought this booper @ ASC in 1982ish.  It was made (crudely) locally in LA--LSC had no info on it (or schematics).  I've repaired it countless times over the years and forgot I still had it until a couple of years ago when cameras started to get so small and so lofi audio wise that transmitting to them seemed a waste of time and a major hassle (and ridiculous: the audio link would buy nearly 4 of these cameras....).  I've always thought I could probably make one with a Canakit oscillator and a light bulb, but the numeric display would be impossible to replace now....

Philip Perkins

[Eric Toline]

As someone who is not a "Baby Boomer"  How does this system work? Looks like a easy solution.

In the beginning it was called a "bloop lite" that produced a flash and a number for the camera to see and a bloop tone that went to your nagra. It was kind of like a "sneaky slate". I have a feeling the unit shown is similar.

Eric

[André Boisvert]

I did a little bit of this in my early days, but never enough to get comfortable with the procedure. Bringing the boom to my mouth after/before blooping to camera to say: "this is/that was take 42", and then repositioning for the take was awkward. How do you do it? Do you mic yourself?

BTW, I still have my 4.2.

[Jeff Wexler]

I had the exact same bloop light in the picture --- used it many times on documentaries. It was one of many I had, a few I built myself, it was a good, simple solution. Kudelski built a companion accessory to the Nagra that was the most sophisticated tone based sync mark system ever (I owned one, I think it was called the QPPC) and it cost about what many recorders cost today.

-  JW

[Philip Perkins]

I did a little bit of this in my early days, but never enough to get comfortable with the procedure. Bringing the boom to my mouth after/before blooping to camera to say: "this is/that was take 42", and then repositioning for the take was awkward. How do you do it? Do you mic yourself?

BTW, I still have my 4.2.

In the film days it didn't really matter--they xferred and synced everything, and no matter how you slated in docs you had to "talk to the tape" to let the sound editor know what was going on--maybe later on in the roll when you had the chance.  This booper has a slate mic in it (I'd sometimes give it  to cam people, and they could talk to it).  I worked for some time in the 1980s with a director cameraman who would shoot a sequence, have me keep rolling and then describe what we had just shot so he'd remember it later.  With an NL recorder this isn't any kind of deal anymore--I just keep track of which file we are in, and we roll roll roll since tape and cards are cheap.  The major problem with this system in the old days was that there were a lot of takes and a lot of rolls so a lot of syncs.  Nowadays we digitise all and often only have a single sync point in a whole camera roll--maybe an hour or more.  One of the major selling points of the bloop light in the old days was that it was silent to everyone but the sound recordist--important when the film cam was rolling and cutting all the time to save film.  It's still cool that it is silent, but with longer rolls all around it's probably less important.

I never saw the Nagra bloop system, Jeff do you have a pic?  I made several boopers for use with the Nagra myself as well--ones with bigger brighter lights and no numbers that just triggered the Nagra's internal oscillator, and rewired this one so a cameraman could trigger it himself remotely.  I got this one originally so I could put its audio output on the 2nd track of a stereo Nagra so the beeps didn't interrupt the audio.  This one has two "pitches" of tone available on a switch that I used to have remoted to the outside--

you could "bloop" a two camera shoot with different pitched bloops to identify which camera was being synced.

Does anyone know who made this?  Even though I bought it new @ ASC they had no info about it even in 1982.

Philip Perkins

[fatfatjames]

i am interested to make or buy one of this... anyone care how to make it or where to buy it?

[André Boisvert]

The one I used was property of The National Film Board of Canada. I don't remember seeing a manufacturer's name on it. In fact, it looked home made. No numbers or slate mic, just a flashing light and tone sent to the recorder. They had paper pads printed with numbers 1-100, 101-200, etc. By the end of the day, the front pouch was full of these, as I peeled them off one at a time for each take.

I do remember that the cable had a "Y" on it, which allowed the slate and boom mic to use up only one input. Very useful when using a 2 input Nagra.

[Jeff Wexler]

I am totally incapable of remembering any details of the several Bloop lights I built, but I do remember it was very simple. All of the ones I used, commercially produced and home made, none used any mic input. The Nagra has available, at some connection point, 2 contacts that when either shorted or voltage applied, I can't remember which, tone is generated --- this is the audio part of the Bloop. In the box we would put some sort of light bulb (experimented with all sorts) and a battery to power it --- then a simple momentary switch would turn the light on and activate the tone.

-  JW

[Philip Perkins]

i am interested to make or buy one of this... anyone care how to make it or where to buy it?

Jeff and Crew and some of the older LA based guys might know about mine (which was sold by ASC in the early 1980s).  It wouldn't be that hard to make a simple box that made an audio beep and flashed a light. 

Here's a good, inexpensive oscillator kit that runs on 9vdc: http://www.canakit.com/sine-wave-signal-generator-kit-ck205-uk205.html

Then you'd need to find a bright LED or incandescent flashlight type bulb/holder etc, probably from Digikey or a local hardware or electronics store.  Also a simple momentary push button switch of your choice, and a means to hold and connect a 9v battery.  The idea is that a push of the button would trigger both the oscillator and the light for as long as the button was pushed.  The hardest part would be packaging the whole thing--mounting the circuit board etc so it would be compact and rugged, but not too much of a pain to change the battery.  This doesn't address the numeric display that some of the old boopers had--that might take some searching on old/surplus etc electronics sites to find--that and the 3-digit counter/switch that programmed the display.  There is probably an LCD equivalent, but how you program it and how you make it light-emitting is beyond my knowledge.  With all the boopers I built in the old days I basically got the parts and fooled around with alligator-clip leads until I got it to work.   Let us know if you make one.  I see these really tiny cameras getting used for all kinds of shoots nowadays, and I think double system audio for them is a way better way to go than wireless link.

If you are looking for a used version, make sure that it wasn't designed to simply switch on the oscillator in a Nagra 4-series recorder.

That was the most common sort of blooper, but it had no audio generating capacity of its own and won't help w/ current recorders etc.., although you could use it as the packaging for a mod with a new signal generator if the price was right.

Philip Perkins

[David Glasser]

I found this shot taken at the Philly zoo in 1969.  I was on a shoot for CFTO in Toronto and using their Nagra III with a "chocolate bar" crystal pilot generator.  The  Senn 804 microphone used a KAT cable into the line input via sockets on the pilot generator.  The momentary switch on the blooper shorted pins on the pilot input connector on the Nagra and generated a tone.  I used a black grease pencil to write numbers on the perspex frame which held the light bezel.

Just realised this was taken nearly 40 years ago !!!

Cheers,

David Glasser.

[Philip Perkins]

Way cool--definitely brought a smile to my face.  My Nagra III is one of the pieces of sound gear I regret selling these days, not because I'd still use it but because it looked so cool.  I had the Kudelski resolver for mine--looked like something out of a steam locomotive! 

Philip Perkins

[Jeff Wexler]

Just realised this was taken nearly 40 years ago !!!

Cheers,

David Glasser.

That's a beauty! I remember all that gear so well ... that's the way we did our work. 40 years ago? You got me beat.

-  Jeff Wexler

[old school]

Hey David, great picture. Thanks. In retrospect the job seemed so much easier then.

CrewC

[Guest jimg]

I built a simple bloop light for an all-interview job back in the day. I built a lamp into an XLR connector and a small box with the battery for the light, a push button, an internal switch to control pilotone interrupt or oscillator, an XLR connector and a 4 pin Tuschel pigtail. The light got taped to the boom, and a second mic cable ran up the pole.

It worked pretty swell, especially since we almost always ran an entire roll before cutting. The cameraman would tilt up when he rolled, I'd hit the button and he'd tilt down.

I sold the 4.2 years ago, but just got rid of the bloop light last fall.

Best regards,

Jim

[Philip Perkins]

In the late 80's, we carried the PSC Bloop Slate (DPS-4?), and previous version of it that carried the ASC logo were built in-house by Ron Meyer (before he created PSC on his own). I haven't seen either one in here in awhile. This is the one that activated the oscillator in the Nagra to provide the bloop. I seem to recall a version with XLR output (instead of the Teuchel) that operated on its own, but I'm not 100% sure. Maybe Ron Meyer has some more info on it.

In the LSC archives, I do have a schematic drawing for a "Bloop-Light" that is dated 1981, and created by OJC ENT (Enterprises? Entertainment?) in Canoga Park. No pictures, but I'll look through the archives a little more to see what I can find.

I remember the PSC blooper, that's not what this one is (Ron would never have sold anything this funky).  I bet it's an "OJC Enterprises" unit.  Love to see the schematic if you can upload.

Philip Perkins

[Bob Marts]

I dug around in my storage and found my blooplight which I haven't seen in nearly twenty-five years!

I used it a lot in documentary work up until timecode showed up around 1985. I'm pretty sure I got this from ASC. I put in new batteries and it still works fine.

[Philip Perkins]

I think that's the PSC model.  Does this unit have a signal generator in it?

Philip Perkins

[Bob Marts]

I think that's the PSC model.  Does this unit have a signal generator in it?

Philip Perkins

It does not have a signal generator in it - it sends current for the Nagra slate oscillator. It does, though, have a hole drilled in it just below the pushbutton which I think was for an optional slate mic - could that be right?

Bob

[Philip Perkins]

It does not have a signal generator in it - it sends current for the Nagra slate oscillator. It does, though, have a hole drilled in it just below the pushbutton which I think was for an optional slate mic - could that be right?

Bob

The Nagra oscillator trigger was just a switch closure--many of the boopers I made were just simple switches with a battery connected to a flashlight bulb.  Maybe Ron made a version with a signal generator in it too in the same box--lots of pins on that Tuchel--and I bet that would have had a slate mic.  I remember being jealous of how much brighter the numbers were in the model you have--editors liked them better.  There was another popular model made by someone in the East that only had a 2-number display but the numbers were MUCH bigger (and red).  I went looking for (and couldn't find) a truly goofy booper I bought used in the late '70s--it was made by Frezzolini and had two STROBE bulbs mounted on it.  It was VERY bright--distracting almost inside but way visible even in strong sunlight.  The problem was that the big caps it had to charge up the strobes took several seconds to recharge, so if the shooter missed your first bloop, you were dead--they had to wait 5-6 seconds for another flash.  This booper did not end up seeing much use.....

Philip Perkins

[Jeff Wexler]

I'm curious about this "booper"  is this just another term for the same thing?  I've always heard it referred to as a "bloop" light, this is the first I've ever heard of the "boop."

Curious,

RVD

Yes, we're all talking about the same thing --- BLOOP Lights. Somehow the initial topic here used the word "boop" (as in Betty?) and it stuck. Either a typo or just a mistake. No harm, no foul ... keeps us all awake.

-  JW

[Philip Perkins]

"Booper" is my term, mea culpa, sorry for confusion.  I didn't like "bloop" because in radio audio the term means an embarrassing mistake.  I also think the SOUND it makes sounds is more like "BOOOOOP"  than "BLOOOP".  A stupid consideration, but my own.

Philip Perkins

[Scott Smith]

Phil,

Hey Phil,

Very cool post! I actually reverted to the same approach for a music doc project I did in Brazil a few years back, where we weren't shooting with full timecode systems. I was sort of wondering if anyone else was still using them.

Back in the day, I did a fair amount of doc work, during which time I built a somewhat larger device that used discrete LED's for the display, which were easier to read at a distance and out of focus. I'll have to see if I can dig up some old production photos sometime.

Now, if you really want to date yourself, does anyone remember using the Arri BL's and Eclair NPR's with cable sync and the bloop light built into the gate?

(Still have my Nagra III as well-maybe in need of some new caps and re-bias by now!).

--Scott D. Smith C.A.S.