PhilDent

I have a camera man friend who has a couple of personal apple boxes. After having to rescue them a few times from the bowels of the grip truck, he painted one with zebra stripes and the other with cheetah spots. It hasn't happened since.

I built an apple box out of a scrap of 3/4" plywood that was too good to throw away, but I had no good place to store it in my garage. I constantly had to move it out of the way when I wanted to work on any project. It became a consistent source of aggravation. When it transitioned from always being in the way to silently taunting me I knew it was time to bust out the table saw and compound mitre saw. After cutting the pieces to size, I joined the pieces using glue and biscuits to avoid any visible nail holes. Since then I've built a second one using a piece of plywood from a pallet my brother in law was trying to discard. That one I joined with a combination of pocket screws and glue and biscuits. Both are of standard apple box dimensions and have a structural rib in the center. I rounded all the edges with a 1/4" router bit, and I made one sound friendly modification. Instead of standard cut outs for the handles, I made one side bone shaped to accommodate two boom poles. This design is quite functional and it is much more comfortable to sit on than your typical apple box. I'm still deciding how to finish the second one.

I use Sanken cos-11 mics. As for the rubber mount, I forget the name of the manufacturer, but it looks like a miniature rm-11. See below.

I've had good luck with using soft rubber mounts that I wrap in top stick and then tape them just below the collar in the T-shirt with transpore or blendtherm. This works when they strap on the vest and start taking body shots. One challenge is keeping the mic pack from getting crushed by the straps of the vest if I have the transmitter on their waist band. Nothing is perfect and failures are bound to happen. I had one trainer want the pack on his waistband in the front. I obliged not knowing he was going to do body work with the fighter. When he put on the vest the pack was directly behind it and the boxer unknowingly punched right where the pack was and shut it off. It wasn't a good day for the trainer or the transmitter.

I've had more than one client ask me to invoice my day rate and gear as "Gear Rental".

I do lots of boxing. The typical MO for me is to never wire the boxer during training except on runs. I'll mic the trainer/s especially during mitts and sometimes a plant mic in the corner if there is sound there I want to capture. Good Luck.

On more than one occasion a camera op has inadvertently unplugged the mini connector out of the M2R. Now I use a piece of gaff tape to prevent this - not elegant but effective. Also, I've had ground loop issues with the wooden camera A-box and the M2R. A hum occurred on both channels when I powered the M2R from the 2 pin Lemo on the Alexa Mini. The issue resolved when I powered the M2R with AA batteries. I'm curious if anyone else has run into this issue or found a solution for it.