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Tips & Tricks to estimate field of view of different lenses for ideal boom (operator) position


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Dear soundies,

 

I wanted to ask if you use any tricks to estimate the field of view of respective lenses in order to quickly estimate how close the boom & the body of the operator can come to the frame? I assume it comes intuitively with years of experience but I was wondering if anyone has any tips.

 

I've been booming for about a year and a half now and getting better at estimating how close I can get but still need a lot of practise to become more precise & quick at it. I'm doing mostly TV and doco work in which the framing is rarely pre-determined and in which sound dept is only 1 person.

 

On that note : does it ever happen in doco's that the boom operator uses a (small) camera monitor mounted on the bag?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

koen

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Hej Koen,

 

Assuming everyone has a style and technique for booming. The most important is communication, during the rehearsal - be a more "aggresive" and if the boom will be "in"; pretty sure you will tell you. Either from camera dept. (eg. focus puller) or your sound mixer (if has a monitor). 24mm is wide, 35mm can be either wide or medium or close up, 135mm is close up; this is the most case in my experience. For documentary is a different story. With time and practise you will learn it and remember each DoP / Director has each own style. Again, communication with other dept. is key and with your own sound mixer.

 

Regarding booming & watching frame simultaneously: For me, it never worked. One second off to go down to watch the frame and the world has been changed. I prefer to have open eyes, particulary one in my marks (eg. on walls, horizon) and the other watching other things (eg. camera movement, camera pan etc). It takes time to learn this.

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The rule of thumb I learned was to divide the lens length by 6, and that gives you the distance from the lens in feet where a subject is in a comfortable medium portrait shot (based on full-frame 35mm film).  Then you have to adjust for sensor size, aspect ratio and potentially resolution.

For TV and doc where framing isn't predetermined or rehearsed, it's definitely a dance, and it definitely comes with experience.  Knowing lens length helps a little bit, but not as much as you would hope, because framing decisions tend to be made based on the action that is happening, and headroom is nearly always based on the subject being framed, not as much on the lens that is being used.  This is particularly true for doc where they may just be shooting with whatever lens they have on the camera at the time, or they may be using a zoom.

I've never worked with my own monitor.  I would find it distracting I think, but I do like to make sure I position myself where I can glance at the camera monitor if there is one.  But, even more than that, learning to read the body language of the camera operator and being familiar with the kind of framing they like to shoot is probably the biggest tell.  It also helps to anticipate the action ... you can often guess when the camera is about to pull out or tilt up based on what's being said or done.  I find the camera angle and position tells me a lot about what's being framed and how much headroom I have.  Wider shots will point the lens more towards the centre of the subject and less towards the face, but even in a full shot, most operators won't leave much more than 50cm of headroom.  Ceilings don't tend to be nice to look at!  Generally, headroom will be sane unless there is an obvious scenic reason to frame higher ... if they are trying to frame a building or cityscape in the background for example, you may need to back off.

I'm not sure how much more I can say without descending into generalities.  As you guessed, it comes with experience, and every situation is unique, so it's more about learning to read your specific situation and the people you are shooting with than trying to memorize rule of thumb based on lens length (though, that too comes with experience).

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just wing it. 

 

I mean that for what you're asking about - it's more substance to get the voice and ambience. Documentaries, right? It isn't about getting into the safety of frame, for the most part. It's about capturing the essence of the moment; ambience.

 

I used to get fanatical about where the tip of my boom needed to be placed to get the best sound. Sometimes that's not the objective. You'll get it even if you're way off frame, if you have the right equipment and technique. "Nats" have body and sound. 

 

post can work it, too.

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You kind of have to wing it no matter if you have monis or not.  I've always preferred to swivel my look between the mic, the talent and ( on a doc) the cameraperson.   On docs you kind of have to guess about how the camera op is covering the scene.  On drama with multiple cameras you can't boom and watch 3 or 4 monitors at once so it's up to the mixer (watching monis) to talk you through it.  Cam ops of today don't feel like they have to communicate with sound at all, and get exercised very quickly if they see a mic, they expect that the sound dept can see all the shots.  (Stupid.) 

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Keep in mind, a particular focal length produces different results in different cameras, or better sensor sizes and whatever cropping the camera is configured to. Let alone anamorphic lenses. It is always good to get a feeling for the very setup on the current production. So if the lens changes from e.g. 32 to 24mm after rehearsal, you know you'll have to adapt. Getting a bit off topic, but be very careful to trust your glance on the focus pullers monitor. Their picture may be cropped / "zoomed in".

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2 hours ago, DanieldH said:

Keep in mind, a particular focal length produces different results in different cameras, or better sensor sizes and whatever cropping the camera is configured to. Let alone anamorphic lenses. It is always good to get a feeling for the very setup on the current production. So if the lens changes from e.g. 32 to 24mm after rehearsal, you know you'll have to adapt. Getting a bit off topic, but be very careful to trust your glance on the focus pullers monitor. Their picture may be cropped / "zoomed in".

This.  It used to be that a "25" was a "25" no matter what film camera it was on, so you could develop a feel what what the "cone" of various lenses were.  Not so true today.  This and no rehearsals means that if you want to try and boom a dramatic scene you need someone with eyes on the picture guiding you.

 

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I learned this from a camera Assistant back in the 80s. Film days using Panavision camera. A 50 mm lens, 5 feet away, will produce a choker close up. If it’s 10 feet away double that. 100 mm, 10 feet away, also a choker. And so on.
 

And don’t forget to ask the operator “what are you wearing”? If he’s young, he’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. If he’s old-school, you’ll get a chuckle out of him.

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With training you just get a sense of everything, and nowadays whenever I see a camera or lens I just instinctively try to imagine what the camera is seeing and steer clear of that field of view. Every time I see someone taking a selfie.. yeah so eventually in movies you try to assess what the DP wants and sort of framing. Knowing your lenses is crucial! I try to imagine like an invisible cone coming out of the lens, to help me. Maybe a weird way to think of it, but it’s helped me a lot of times. 

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