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Broom poles, again


Jim Feeley

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Oh wow, this entire video was painful to watch. So so so much wrong with it. Would take a response video ten times longer than the video itself to fully explain *everything* wrong with it!

But then again almost the entire point of this youtube channel is "oh hey DIY gear you can make yourself instead of spending money!"


And I think waaaay back when Indy Mogul started (pre DSLR revolution days!), then going the DIY route made a lot of sense as you had many fewer options. You couldn't pick up a carbon fibre 3m chinese boom pole for sub US$100, which for very very little money is massively hugely better for booming with than a broom pole. 

Thus now in 2019, unless you're a broke high school student (and even then, I wouldn't recommend it! Plenty of high schoolers scrape together the money for a DSLR, if you care about sound, you can do the same for sound gear!) then for the love of god and all that is holy, DO NOT DO THIS!

 

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Why the angst? Video clearly not meant for operators on this forum. There are people out there who have less money (or spend less money) making moving pictures with sound than you do, so what? A modern boom pole is very nice thing if that's what you need - but they did start out as broom poles and fishing rods. The advantage of being a OMB shooter/director/editor is if the boom pole doesn't collapse or extend enough to make the shot work the shot gets changed because there is no one else to shout at or fire - we need fancy carbon boom poles partly because we don't have that kind of autonomy.

 

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I'm fine with indie and hobbyist filmmakers using whatever they have access to. But comparison videos like this that imply don't bother with specialized kit? I don't know. 

 

In music, it's totally cool to say, "You don't need a $3,000 Paul Reed Smith guitar or Akai MPC3000 to make music. Just get a used Slick or Squier for $100...or a couple apps and go!" I remember when I was a kid reading an interview with Jeff "Skunk" Baxter saying he liked plenty of cheap guitars and even felt an obligation to play those on tours so the young guitarists in the audience would (hopefully) get over their desire for expensive Guitars Of The Stars and start to realize that chops and creativity matter more than gear. But you know, Baxter and tons of other musicians carried a proven authority that I'm not feeling in these YouTube videos.

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Hear hear.

I once had the pleasure to sit in a Q&A with Robby Müller. (If you don't know him, look him up,)


Question from the audience: "Mr. Müller, on movie X you used stock Y, why did you make that decision?"

- Well, that was what the producers wife had found on leftovers under her bed.

 

"Mr. Müller, why did you use cam X with lens Y on movie Z?"

-That was what was on the set when I arrived. It's not that I was consulted...

 

Being able to work with what was available (Including the headlights of a car when noting else available) made him one of the greatest.

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Bouke said:

Hear hear.

I once had the pleasure to sit in a Q&A with Robby Müller. (If you don't know him, look him up,)


Question from the audience: "Mr. Müller, on movie X you used stock Y, why did you make that decision?"

- Well, that was what the producers wife had found on leftovers under her bed.

 

"Mr. Müller, why did you use cam X with lens Y on movie Z?"

-That was what was on the set when I arrived. It's not that I was consulted...

 

Being able to work with what was available (Including the headlights of a car when noting else available) made him one of the greatest.

 

 

 

+1

Although as a 'tonewood', a mahogany broom pole will probably sound better (or worse :)

 

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12 minutes ago, daniel said:

mahogany broom pole

Eeh dude! Hickory of course! (Unfinished, or if you must, Tung oil, diluted with turpentine, never with termpentine!)

Geez, I thought the Pro's hung out here!

 

Jokes aside, I do totally agree that making an appearance is important, and having the right gear sure helps in being taken seriously.
That was one of the reasons (long time ago) I bought a digibeta A500. Renting when needed was definitely cheaper, but owning it made me 'the man'.

 

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5 hours ago, Bouke said:

 

I once had the pleasure to sit in a Q&A with Robby Müller. (If you don't know him, look him up,)

 

 

I wish I'd been at that one, sounds entertaining. One example of his work is the Bogdanovich film of Paul Theroux's "Saint Jack", a cast and crew who's who, including producer Roger Corman and exec producer Hugh Hefner. There was some real quality stock under that wife's bed.

 

Jez

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