HI John, I work on sitcoms here in Vancouver BC. and have done so for the past 5 years. Don't think I will ever go back to hand booming or mixing again. The first time I sat on a Fisher Boom I fell in love with it right away, yes it is very intimating at first learning to operate the controls but over time you don't even think about it, it just happens. We shoot with four cameras all the time and have a live studio audience on Friday nights. Our page count is about 20 pages of script a day and scenes can run 5 or 6 pages but on average about 2 or 3. We run 2 Fisher 7 Booms with 26 FT. arms, quite often the other operator an I will do hand offs in the middle of a scene so the other boom can get to the far side of a set to get a different actor, it is magic to see two Fisher Booms at work with four cameras. The biggest problem with people I have trained is depth perception, especially when the mic is 26 ft. away from you. I ride the mic 2 or 3 inches above the top of frame of the wide shot. We will do 7 or 8 takes or more of every scene and after every take I ask myself "how can I improve that" Very important to have good people skills with the camera coordinator and director so you can dip into the wide shots as they should know when they need the wide shot. On the Fisher, I have a full size script 8x10 and I highlight every actor in a different color, I'm always a line or two ahead in the script so I know my moves before hand, I have lots of room on the script to make notes, "head turn" "Loud, give head room" etc. Also on the Fisher is a monitor tray which holds my LCD high def. monitor. This give me a "quad" display, all four cameras in high def. on one screen and I look at it a lot to get my top of frame in the blocking and rehearsals and only a quick glance now and again when we are rolling and to help the other boom with dipping into the shot and shadows . We also have com on board so we can talk to each other or the mixer who is in a room in the back of the studio. I hope this information has been helpful to you. I will add a video I shot of a Fisher 7 at work from 2 years ago, I only had the go-pro for 2 days and there wasn't enough time to change setups and get enough footage to complete the video so it comes to a sudden end, but you will see one in action
Good luck John
Phil "VE7KJR"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueoTsrKm424