samsound

Marc Wielage said: Note that many studios are now eliminating DVDs in favor of digital files, all heavily protected and posted on a private server. This is referred to as "desktop dailies," where the execs just go to a website, click a button, and watch each take on their laptops. DVD's,digital files for dailies - how sad! Actually seeing and hearing dailies on the big screen was always a great way for all crew members to learn and progress their own skills and gain some understanding of the craft of others. Dailies also gave the crew a feeling of real involvement in the production - especially when the Editor had a rough assembly of a scene or sequence. Nowdays,I rarely see dailies, they are never projected, and getting into the DVD loop is often like trying to get membership to an exclusive club. Who sees them? - some 'suits' in far off places, with little or no understanding of the movie-making process who then hand down 'opinions' and comments on technical matters of which they are completely ignorant. Meanwhile the majority of the crew are detached one further step,and removed from the learning experience of seeing and hearing their work in context before others get to change,enhance,or reject. It can be argued that I had heard my dailies when I recorded them - but there really was a kick in having sound and picture combined on the big screen. And there are stories to be told of having location dailies,and the fun we had trying to get decent sound reproduction - building makeshift projector booths,trying to get something respectable out of the amplifier/speaker systems etc. Not to mention the DoP going crazy over the erratic illumination from the projector and the 1st.AC tearing his hair at the fall-off of focus across an ill-located screen. Ah well,times change! Apologies for going off-topic Gentle rant over. Mutt n' Jeff

Not sure if this would be the same model,but the BBC Film Department were using Perfectone mixers for location recording - in conjunction with the Perfectone tape recorder (same footprint) in the early '60's. I remember using them around '63 Perhaps Roger Slater may recall better than I! Mutt n' Jeff

I have heard of the 'balloon method' being used at least twenty years ago,by UK Production Mixer Simon Kaye - can't remember on what movie or the location - so it might just be anecdotal. I also heard that he arranged for cork granules to be laid to replace gravel on a path,so that the footsteps wouldn't be a problem.Again,I was told by my then Boom Op,so it might just have been a 'wind-up'! Mutt n'Jeff

"If I'd known I was going to live this long,I'd have taken better care of myself!" Eubie Blake,Jazz Musician reputedly just after his hundredth birthday Good one for those of us who have survived this business! Mutt n' Jeff

I did this by buying a very cheap tape (Chinese) measure that has the spring steel belt clip on it!These are secured by an easily removeable central screw. You get a clip that solves your problem and a free tape measure! Mutt n' Jeff

Interesting thread..... In the UK I guess we do things a little differently - no surprise there! I have never seen anyone here,Mixer of Boomie,use a butt-plug direct onto the mic for the obvious reason of increasing the mass and the o/a size. Nor do we use a butt-plug at the foot of the boom - internally cabled booms are rare here indeed - the Panamic being the 'boom of choice' .So anything strapped or plugged at this end of the boom would be a problem a) because at rest it is near/on the ground and therefore vulnerable makes it awkward to 'park' the boom and c) the need for some sort of external coiled cable to permit changes in length of pole. I have worked with a couple of US boomies who had the (US) Tx on their belt but this is not good for us due to the lower output of our Tx's. They also always had the issue of unplugging and coiling back the cable before they had their hands free to do anything.At least with the Tx at the mic end the boom/mic/Tx becomes a single unit,can be instantly 'parked' and the Boomie is independant right away. With all components becoming lighter mounting at the head will be less of a 'balance' problem,but I have to say that I have had no complaints from my Boom Ops. Two things in favour of 'head-mounting'- height of the antenna and no body absorption. Mutt n' Jeff

Oops! sorry,guys,I got the image size wrong again! Mutt n' Jeff

Hi Matthias Have you been peeping?!! But I guess there are not that many ways to skin this particular cat. I knocked this together a couple of years ago to 'prove' if it would be practical.Since then I have never got around to making it properly! So it shows the signs of fairly heavy useage. I use the VDB phantom supply (clipped above the Tx) and with the Audio it does add some weight on a long pole with the Rycote. My boomie seems fairly happy with it,so I guess it isn't too much of a burden. I prefer the Tx up in the air,and not worn by the Boom Op.In the UK we are limited to 50 mW erp body-worn and 10 mW erp handheld,so this method helps a little ! Mutt n' Jeff

Try Googling "Rubber Walking Stick tips" and this may give a clue for what to look for http://www.rosshandling.co.uk/Ferrules-pads.asp I stopped using them years ago (on shoes,not on my walking stick!) as the rounded tip makes it a little difficult for the ladies to walk without twisting their ankles. Still have a selection of sizes in the goody box,tho' Mutt n' Jeff

Philip Perkins saidl Is this an old-fart discussion or what? Yeah! but it's great to wallow in a bit of nostalgia! This thread prompted me to go look through my limited 'archive' to see if there were any showing "The Way We Were" . Made me realise that back then we just didn't seem to take many pix - no digital cams or cellphones- and if photos were taken,by the time people had them processed the chances were you'd all have moved on and never got to see,let alone ask for,a print. I have a few from the early 70's and 80's where I can see a Perfectone mixer with a Nagra 3,or a Sela with a 4L/4.2 but I always seem to have been caught dozing!Must have been that gentle murmur through the cans (DT48's)of people prepping the shot - sets were a lot quieter then! With your indulgence I may post a couple,once I do a bit of judicial cropping. another 'Old Fart' Mutt n'Jeff

Hey! Rob! Great to see you here! Hope my comments were not out of place - anyway,we can talk off group!!! Jeff's photo prompted me to dig out that one of us on the roof of the Vancouver Hotel on "Russian Roulette" - 1975,I think. We all had 'big hair' in those days (eh,Jeff?!!) I can see this topic becoming " Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!" Mutt n' Jeff ( a.k.a. Brian)

Rob Young – I don’t believe he is a member of this group, but perhaps he will forgive me my recollections if he is! – was my Boom Op on two movies I did in Canada during the late 70’s.We have remained good friends and I have followed his illustrious career with an almost paternal interest! I believe he worked with Altman on “Buffalo Bill” and experienced first hand Jim Webb’s early ventures into multi-track recording. Rob much later did “Mission to Mars” and maybe here Ramsay can correct me, started by using the Deva 2 .He began to have problems, the Deva not booting or ‘freezing’ and eventually gave it up and went back to using DAT on the occasion that the Deva booted and remained in “Wait” at the inevitable ‘wrong moment’. Had he known then what some Deva users were to experience later that it was almost certainly caused by the hard-drive becoming disconnected from the connector on the inside of the enclosure, he may have remedied it and continued the movie with Deva. Rob eventually overcame his misgivings about the system and bought Billy Sarokins Deva 2! On another matter – the long developing shot, if we are talking ‘picture’, one that sticks in my memory from long before I got into the business and knew little or nothing of film-making technology was in a 1950’s Russian war movie “And Quiet Flows the Don” (I may have the wrong title, it was so long ago!) The hand-held CU shot is of a girl and starts in the interior of a crowded bus that is moving through crowds of people cheering-on marching ranks of soldiers off to the ‘Front’. She seeks her soldier boyfriend in the columns of men, moves to the back of the bus to see him as long as possible, the camera following her. The bus is slowed to a stop by the crowds, she sees her opportunity and moves to the front again to get off .The camera precedes her taking her from the interior to the exterior and rises to just above head height to follow her as she struggles through the throng, and then continues to rise until the bus, crowds and army are revealed, with the girl a gradually diminishing figure in the masses. The shot was probably achieved by the Operator getting off the bus and moving to the seat of a crane of the order of a Transatlantic. No dialogue, but at then it was, and remains, the first time I was aware of a fluid developing shot. As RVD put it – “ I agree that Jeff's site has become the new 'coffee shop' where we all can gather and share stories, or ask questions. It's one of the great examples of the internet bringing community together.” So I plead your tolerance! How about 'beer and pretzels'?! Mutt n’ Jeff

I should point out that David Stephenson C.A.S.,A.M.P.S. was the other Production Mixer on the series.I believe they mixed alternate episodes. A tough shoot for the sound crews,in fact for everyone! Shame that only one got the Emmy!

Just wishing that all of you in the fire area are OK, and that no-one has any bad repercussions from the damage. From where it rains more than it flames! Mutt n' Jeff

In Englandland,back in the seventies I used to work with an Assistant Cameraman who had been a Camera Mechanic in the BBC Film Department.He used to manufacture,in a small way, various camera accessories including a soft zipped heavily padded cover for use on Arriflex cameras. His name? Mick Barney. Now, I always thought that was where the name originated - but the postings here indicate there may be another source. Mutt n' Jeff

Jeff and Old School - I agree,and am happy to see an end to it. Vive la difference! Mutt n' Jeff

OK Jeff – firstly,you made your case eloquently, as always, in your earlier post, and my remark about adverse comments were not directed at you. You have always been open-minded and equable. You said “If by "negative comments" you mean other professionals questioning the use or non-use of headphones or expressing their opinions on this, that's what this thread is all about --- here and on r.a.m.p.s. in the past.” I absolutely agree -when it is a discussion, and not comments such as “Booming w/o headphones is just as stupid when done by an experienced award winner as it is when done by a beginner”. Together with the responses of some others implying that somehow wearing cans is the only, sensible way. The implication being that those that don’t are somehow lacking, oddball or even not truly professional. The point I was trying to make is that we are not dummies who are locked in some archaic methodology and need to be converted to the path of light – we do things in different ways, for many, and our own, reasons. You may be baffled, bemused and frankly gobsmacked that anyone may choose not to work as you do. I say again, diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks. “Booming w/o headphones is stupid. Yes, I know old Brit movies were done this way back in the day, and they also did a lot of ADR. “ What evidence Phillip do you have for this statement? Do our movies of, say, the sixties have lesser soundtracks than you were achieving at the time in Hollywood? Do you know how much original production sound was replaced? Are you saying that the ADR was because of the non-wearing of headphones? I do know that those trained by the BBC in their Film Department were producing soundtracks utilising a very high amount, even 100% useable original sound .This was necessitated by budgetary restrictions and the over-riding philosophy was “get it good, get it right, get it original” The reputation of British Sound was then, and I believe still is ,held in high regard by many of our international colleagues. Many of those BBC soundmen have gone on to have productive and successful careers in Features. They all started as Boom Operators who learned their craft without headphones. We have great Boom Operators and some not-so-great ones – but not wearing headphones isn’t the reason they are less than great! As Oleg has said, the great ones are perhaps “the natural born ones” I confess I am now baffled – how come in my more than forty years is it that we do so consistently well, and find no particular disadvantages in working without headphones? Have we misguidedly been ‘bumbling along’ in happy ignorance? It certainly isn’t because we have ‘always done it that way’ – we have been very quick to adopt, adapt to, and sometimes even introduce new technology and methods. We are not ‘Luddite’ and would, I’m sure, have taken to headphones if we had felt they provided advantages over our existing way of working. I’m sure that headphones are an increasing necessity, not so much so that the Boom Op can assess quality but for communication and trouble-shooting. Personally, I have no strong feelings either way – should I work with a Boom Op who wanted to wear cans I’d have no objections, neither would I require him to work without. What I would expect is that he is a first-class Boom Op, and there I have been very fortunate. The danger with this topic is that it can descend into a ‘them and us’ scenario, with nit-picking and point scoring. The bottom line is that some of us do things differently, what you do is fine by me, neither party is ‘right’, neither ‘wrong’. I have just stated how I, and many this side of the pond, work. Fraternal regards Mutt n’Jeff

Regards to all (and I think this thread may have run its course, again) Jeff Sorry, and with great respect Jeff,I do not think this thread has run its course – not while some posters make adverse comments about the highly successful methodology of fellow professionals. This thread is a perennial - I recall it running a number of years ago on RAMPS, and reading the same kind of negative comments then. If it doesn’t work for you, don’t do it. Not using cans is clearly a matter of choice, experience and just the way you may have learned or were taught. Roger Slater made some valid points with his ‘different strokes for different folks’ position. Booming is less about listening in a qualitative way, than in knowing how to position a mic. to achieve the best results given all the parameters on a set. I never did get the concept of the finding the“sweet spot” – any Boom Op worth his salt would know where the ‘sweet spot’ for any mic. should be, but rarely is he able to position it with the optimum placement. His, and her, responsibility is to get it to the best possible place given set, lighting, lenses,actors and camera moves, not to mention multi-cameras? I started many years ago in radio then progressing to TV where I was a boom op on many live-transmission dramas. I operated a variety of Fisher booms, I wore a headset, I worked with multi-cameras. Was I concerned with the sweetspot and how I could finesse the sound? Hell, no! I was flying that damn mic all over the place following script ,cast, dodging shadows, listening to Directors and Vision Mixers cueing and getting the occasional blast from the Sound Supervisor (Mixer) on my cans! However all the time I was trying to get that mic.in the best position I could, if rarely to the spec sheet optimum. My experience gained there put me in good stead when I moved over to film – I knew my lenses, framing, lighting etc. and being free of cans I could also be fully aware of what was going on around me on the set, picking up the snippets of information of changes in moves, where a line of dialogue might be re-positioned, if the DoP was quietly asking the Gaffer to bring in another lamp and so forth. Information I could then feed to the Mixer. I did my bit; he did his - including the qualitative listening. I’ve now been mixing for almost forty years – I guess that makes Jeff and I pretty close contemporaries – and had several great Boom Ops. Not one of them wanted to wear cans,and not one of them needed to. The only concession has been brought about by technological change in that IFB’s – we never utilised the double cable system for comms -now help dramatically with communication between Mixer and Boom, so for that a single earpiece is preferred. Sadly, modern filming techniques with the inevitable need for more and more wireless mics frequently do not allow the Boom Op to demonstrate his skills as in the past. On the increasingly rare occasions that ‘proper’ mic. techniques can be employed, a good Boom Op, proper rehearsals, time and actors who do not mumble bring great satisfaction and a sense of achievement that makes the methodology of ‘cans or not’ a side issue. So, to those of you in favour – I would never comment, criticise or demean your position; I respect you as professionals and your way of doing things. It obviously works for you, and why not? Why is it you find it so difficult to accept that not wearing headphones can be successful for many other Boom Ops too! Wearing cans does seem to be “the American Way” - with us Brits doing it our way. Well, what can I say, WE even drive on the ‘wrong’ side of the road! We may begin our journeys from different starting points, we may choose different means of transport, but if we all arrive successfully at our common destination, who cares if you use an ass and I a donkey?! Respect! Mutt n’Jeff

Before I am lambasted for using "Capture Cart" let me add that this was the term used in a number of postings in a recent thread (not here,I think) - and certainly not my normal choice of terminology. Its use with this photo was deliberate, having alliteration,and heck! there's a cart in the frame! Maybe I need to get out more!

Guys, I thought you would like to see me at work at my new Capture Cart!

This is one hoary old definition,and maybe appropriate to today! In the early days of Sound - think "Singing in the Rain" - mics would be hidden in vases of flowers or anywhere near the talent. Eventually needing some movement of the mic to accommodate talent moves,people of challenged stature would be employed to hide behind furniture and 'favour' the mic where possible. When the shot didn't require sound, the call went out from the AD - "Midgets Off Set""