nrallen1

Having boomed thousands of reels of film I highly doubt that in the most demanding of times that a boom op can hold quietly and really cue for 30 minutes plus, but that is another discussion. The notion of full frequency audio from a boom is somewhat old school. Intitially we rip a ton of low end out of them (If we don't someone else will). Then almost all of the dialogue goes thru an auto-normalling process that is rarely hand tuned, moreover it is usually a preset that the last guy setup. Clothes rustle, what I call mechanical noise, and concealment are the last barriers for the lavalier. Tom Holman is creating a filtering scheme that simulates placement of microphones based on an intial setup and places in the optimum micing position virtually. This kind of theory already is in every Lectrosonic 400 digital link. There is no audio coming from the transmitter just error offsets so the DSP can create the sound based on a prediction. The ability to create warm sounding track from less than pristine source after the fact is upon us. With this knowledge, what is truly the job description? As for bucking the producers, AGAIN!!! I find that the post producers are more and more savvy about what the results are from the production side. Intelligibility is the key. Storytelling has nothing to do with shreiking high's and strident mids. I'm not trying to demean the position (or striving for sonic nirvana) I just feel that the over all performance of the team in aquiring the most USEABLE track is our job description. Technology has runaway with the definition of quality, operators must justify their usefulness in different ways and that can be very subjective (ie. does he play cool music, or is he the husband of our Post Supervisor). I always revert to; how is it furthering the story line and not distracting the audience (or other crew members), after that I can worry about the 8K tilt. Not no MOS, No Looping!

Philip P wrote: "Wireless mics are used all the time now too, since now productions are often shot with multiple cameras in ensemble and somewhat improvised acting situations, and producers have the hallucination that this will give them clean access to every line from every actor during editing." Phillip, have you read Mike Minklers interview in the C.A.S. quarterly? He's not a producer. I'm not sure how production mixer friendly he is, I have never had the pleasure. but he feels that Lav's are the answer. I'm not far behind. I've never boomed a whole reel of HD, but it must hurt! Nick Allen

I boomed a couple of shows in my day and in that whole time I only used gloves for warmth. I boomed entire scenes with a Schoepps on the end of a VDB with a 4' extension and you can feel when you are rumling. Overly moist hands will bump on fast pulls so some up pressure from the rear hand allows the pole to move in the forward hand quietly. Ham handed booming may benefit from gloves but there is no physics that support gloves reducing rumble telegraphed thru the pole. Long Poles Rule Nick Allen

Bummer! Purely out of habit I use my email prefix. I too have wondered about handles in communication and agree that the professional nature of this forum warrants real names. Until the internet I never interacted as much as this, or heard so many of my piers intelligent thoughts. Strength in numbers will keep us powerful. Please change my login to Nick Allen if you can Jeff. Really it is Nicholas but I gave up on that too. Bummer.

Good to have a fresh place to learn. Thanks Jeff. It seems to me that the distraction of the recorder is like all pop culture, what is new is in. Fast pace has pushed the cables right off of my sets. So the 'new cables', wireless, seem to be the top of my list. In my old booming days, protecting the Duplex from cars, horses and vicious A.C. drove my worries. This connection was my lifeline and now it is the wireless. Can't wait for Saturday. As for all the new recorders, I agree, it is only the A to D that matters, the rest just needs to burn the DVD faster! All The best Nick Allen