Pat Heigham
This overview of Boom Operating has been written by Pat Heigham – variously a Boom Operator, Grams Op and Production Mixer
I first learned Boom Operating in Television, firstly on dolly booms like the Mole Richardsons, as used in the Film Industry of the day, then the TV Studio Fisher which had a reach of 20 plus feet, enough to allow pedestal mounted cameras to work in front. Working on live transmissions meant that any mistake was instantly seen by up to 13 million viewers! If it was an audience show, then to avoid colouration of the sound by pick-up of the PA system, the mike had to be worked extremely close to the artistes and a monitor was always positioned where the Boom could see it – either slung from the lighting rig or floor mounted. In later years, the booms were equipped with personal 9” monitors, which could be fed by the Sound Supervisor with a preview of the next wide shot, so the mike could be ‘skyed’ on cue.
This brings me to the requirements of a good, or rather, an expert, boom operator:
Knowledge of:
- The microphone’s polar pattern
- Lighting techniques
- Lens angles
- A Brilliant Memory
- Physical strength
- An appreciation of photographic composition
- Understanding what the Mixer strives to achieve
- Public Relations
The microphone’s polar pattern
Whichever mike is favoured by the Sound Mixer, the boom operator must be familiar as to its pick-up characteristics. Understanding its polar sensitivity is tantamount in favouring, since a good operator can balance between uneven voice deliveries to avoid the mixer having to ride the fader and affect the level of background sound.
Lighting techniques
A Boom Op should be able to stand in the artistes’ position on set, and see immediately what job each lamp is doing and which are liable to cause shadow problems – in other words, they should be able to understand the Director Of Photography’s (DoP) technique. Not only that, liaison with the gaffer spark is essential in obtaining co-operation in fixing flags to get rid of embarrassing shadows.
Lens angles
A Boom Op should know, instinctively, what is the field of view at the observed camera distance of any given lens, when told. There are myriad variations on this.
In Television, the fixed focal length turret mounted lenses on the cameras were named by the angle of view in degrees. In Film they are referred to by the focal length in millimetres, or sometimes, inches. Nowadays, zoom lenses are employed, both in TV and Film, making the Boom Op’s job even more difficult, unless rehearsal of the shot is adhered to! Here, however, this is where video assist in film shooting is invaluable – back to what was the norm in TV, in the 1960s!
When I first switched from TV to Feature Film, I was appalled at the fact that the only guy who could look through the viewfinder, seemed to be the operator (this was before video assist). I was used to viewing the shot myself. If I asked for a ‘top of frame’ limit, it was not unknown for the camera operator to crank up the tilt, say “You’re OK, there” and crank back down again! Not good enough.
Other aspects abound in film – is it full Academy frame (4:3), unusual now, or a variation of the widescreen formats? Not many films are now shot in Cinemascope 2.66:1 and variants (wonderful for getting the mike close to the actors!) More usual is the Academy widescreen (1.85:1). But beware – is the camera gate masked for that?, or is the full 4:3 frame actually photographed, therefore if the kindly camera operator lets the mike into the supposedly blanked-off area, but prints are released using the full frame, then there is a very obvious mike in shot (it happened to me!).
This does not happen with video and Hi-Def shoots as ‘what-you-see-is what-you-get’.
A Brilliant Memory
The Boom Operator needs to know the dialogue better than the artistes – this from a favouring need. On TV dolly booms, there is a clipboard for the script, at which the operator can glance. In film or location TV shoots with hand-held poles, this is not an option, therefore the ability of the Boom Op to know what the blazes comes next is essential. (I was often able to prompt the artiste who dried, with the next line, ahead of the script supervisor).
Physical strength
The beauty of using dolly booms, means that the whole weight of the boom and microphone rig is taken away from the operator, leaving them free to concentrate on correct placement. As various elements in current production tend to shy away from this – hire charges, transport etc. and dare one say this – the ability of today’s boom operators being conversant with dolly booms, most boom operating nowadays is performed by hand-held poles – not that light, and why do folks strap a radio transmitter at the mike end? They are obviously unaware of the physics law of moment.
An appreciation of photographic composition
It should come naturally to a good boom operator to automatically anticipate and visualise what the shot is going to look like and develop into, and position the mike accordingly. Therefore, they need to be as acute as the Camera Operator and the Director.
Understanding what the Mixer strives to achieve
It was always said that no matter how expert the mixer is, he/she is only as good as their Boom Operator. Today, most boom ops are provided with headphones fed with their pick-up, so potentially troublesome extraneous noises can be evened out and minimised from shot to shot by clever mike placement. Listening to what your mic is doing was standard practice in TV studios, but remarkably slow in being adopted by the film industry, now more usual!
Public Relations
The Boom Operator is the front-line representative of the Sound Crew. It is they who are most adjacent to the Camera and the Director – to keep track of the set-up and changes from rehearsed blocking, and, if on a short crew, are required to mike up artistes with radio mikes, need to have an excellent rapport with the performers, some of whom can be very difficult, and a perfect working relationship with the costume department, not to mention the physical problems of installing personal mikes to avoid rustles, muffling and restricted range through poor aerial placement.
Pat Heigham
I wrote the above ‘Engineering Monograph’(on Boom Operation) some while back for the Association of Motion Picture Sound, in order to provide an argument against producers who would not budget for a second boom operator, usually saying: “Anyone can ‘hold the pole’” (My cousin/nephew/ runner/ cleaning lady etc). No, they can’t!
Alan Taylor
That Monograph of yours is spot on. There are many qualities which are important for a good boom op and when choosing one to work with, I assume that all of the characteristics you have mentioned are already present. My final choice always came down to whether I thought I could live with that person for five or six days a week for ten weeks or so. It was the personality of that boom op which really mattered for me.
This was a particular issue when I worked in the Beeb at Kendal Avenue doing location drama. We had a number of known boom ops, but some of them were not people I would want to spent a few weeks with on location and in hotels. I ended up trying to expand to pool of boom ops by using one established boom op together with somebody promising who had never done it before, but seemed to have the right personality. I can recall several people who I tried out working with in that way and ended up using as my main boom op on subsequent shoots, and later as freelancers.
On one occasion I couldn’t find any suitable second boom op available for the entire duration of one particular drama apart from a couple of trainees who were on attachment for the summer. I phoned Dave Heddon at TVC to ask him if he knew of them and he assured me that they were both suitable, but advised using one of them in particular, so I booked her along with one of our established boom ops. At the end of the first week, the established boom op was taken sick and was going to be off for several weeks and the only person available to replace him was that other trainee, so I ended up doing the remaining nine weeks of the shoot with just those two trainees and they both proved to be truly excellent. One of them subsequently mentioned that after many years in the BBC, she never had been given as much responsibility or worked so hard as she did on that shoot with me, just six months into her career.
On another occasion I was asked to be the recordist on a somewhat challenging film of Fiona Shaw performing “The Waste Land”. I had been warned that some of the sequences would involve single takes of over ten minutes and that it would only just fit on a 400 foot roll of 16mm (during shooting, several takes were ruined when the film frustratingly ran out before the dialogue finished, even though there was no front clapper board and the performance started the instant that the camera was up to speed). The producer had stressed that we needed a totally reliable boom op who would get it right every time under challenging conditions. I told the producer that quality doesn’t come cheap and he would need to pay top dollar to get somebody who could deliver what he wanted, but it would be worth it. I immediately phoned Dave Sutton, who I felt would be perfect for that task and told him not to sell himself too cheaply. I subsequently discovered that Dave negotiated a slightly higher daily rate than I did as recordist! He certainly delivered the results under very difficult circumstances and I was thrilled when the producer sent me a clipping from “Variety”, where a critic had mentioned me by name and praised how great the sound recording was, under what were clearly difficult circumstances. It’s not unusual for critics to write vague comments about how something sounded good or looked great, but she had noted accurately the challenges we faced and that we had overcome them.
There was another drama where I was obliged to use the production associate”s son, who had been to film school and therefore knew it all and was keen to be a boom op for real. You can probably imagine where this one is going, but things didn’t work out too well on day one when he complained that he had never had to stand for an entire afternoon before and his feet were killing him. He was an absolute disaster and had to be replaced after a couple of days, but by then we had to get whoever was available right away, rather than with a known boom op that I would have selected in advance. As it happened, his replacement was a female boom op who has previously been an Olympic swimmer. She had phenomenal strength in her arms which would have put many muscly men to shame and was a good boom op in every other way too.
Pat Heigham
Here are some stories of Boom operation – and when things did not quite go to plan.
TV (BBC) years
“Tonight”
I used to operate the main boom on Cliff Michelmore’s desk – no personal mics then! We were depending on a Telecine insert to give time to track to the other end of the studio, for Robin Hall and Jimmy McGregor’s song.
From the gallery: “We don’t have the film – going to song…!”
So a mad swing from Cliff, and rack out, while my tracker bumped over camera cables to reach the appointed spot. No idea what it must have sounded like – but that’s live television for you!
Boom Shadows
A “three-day-play” had a change of lighting, right at the end. To my amazement, a key light right behind me was lit and the largest possible shadow, of mike, me and the dolly boom was highlighted on the back wall!
The Lighting Supervisor did come down to the floor and apologise to me that he had accidentally brought up the wrong light.
On a programme involving an audience of young people, any of whom could ask a question, I was going for the questioner on a pole. Unfortunately, the better questions were coming from the very back of the raked seating. Nevertheless, I went for it. Now the cameraman had placed a 2K keylight right behind the camera! Wrong, wrong, wrong.
He protested that my mike was causing a shadow. I informed him that it was the lamp, as it was badly positioned. I then realised that he knew little of how to do it. This produces the scenario that a good director would hear of the questions in advance and plonk the contributor in the front row, thus making it easier not only for sound but for the camera as well.
Yes, a certain amount of manipulation.
Film years
The useful boom
While on location for a European tour of a Country and Western Show for USA TV, I happened into Copenhagen, Denmark, and it was necessary to get establishing shots of the city. Obviously the Little Mermaid, which is actually quite tiny, was a must, but the weather was drizzly and when the cameraman framed up and looked, he said; “Oh, that won’t do, she’s dribbling from her nose!”
Indeed the rain was collecting on her visage, most inappropriate.
So, tying my hanky to the end of my microphone pole, I delicately wiped her nose!
Luckily no passing patrol car happened by, but if it had, I would have hoped that the officers would have understood that we wished to afford their city symbol, the best image on screen.
Framing Sound
Sandy and I (me Boom Op) worked on a picture directed by Polish Andrzej Wajda, who did not believe that the Brits could get usable sync sound. Both SM and I knew we could.
Sammies, who supplied the 35mm Arriflex, put in a viewfinder glass which gave the shaded limits of 1.85:1, I think, and so the operator let the mic into what was thought to be a safe area. Unfortunately, they had not hard masked the gate, though, and what was photographed, was the full frame 4:3. Our Polish visitor was apoplectic on viewing rushes, and said, no wonder we could get live sound if the mike’s in shot!
+++++++
This also happened on another occasion – I was booming for Tony Dawe, on a movie shot at Shepperton. The cinema release would be 1.85:1, but the photographed frame was 4:3.
Shown on TV, full frame, there was my 816 – wagging about! I was pleased, however, that I got the favouring right!
+++++++
On one film, the focus puller, very nice chap and pretty well built, said that I must be quite strong, as there was nothing to me and when I put the pole in, it never wavered. I invited him to ‘hold the pole’. He grabbed it halfway along – I made him hold it at the very end, as I did for the working position. I think he gave me even more respect after trying it!
+++++++
On “Firepower”, a Michael Winner film. I was booked by a production mixer whom I knew well and liked, to be third man (or Sound Camera Operator). The locations were to be Antigua, St. Lucia and Curacao. Lovely to visit the Caribbean on someone else’s money! Just before we were due to depart, Jim (Sound Mixer) rang me to say that his first choice Boom Op had defected to another movie, so would I take over the boom. I was really reticent about that, knowing Winner’s reputation, but Jim promised to back me up, whatever. The lure of the Caribbean was overriding, so off I went. Winner could be double-faced – he used to call all the crew ‘arseholes’ while fawning over his cast (“Oh, Sophia, it’s time for your close-up”).
Winner used to like a separate caterer for his lunches on location, this took place in an air-conditioned portacabin. One time, he had behaved appallingly during the morning to the very demure and quiet script supervisor (continuity girl). It happened that our two lead actors – James Coburn and O.J. Simpson (before the furore) were also invited to Winner’s private lunch. There were radio mikes on them, left on for the lunch period, and I could not resist listening in! They both castigated Winner for reducing the poor girl to tears, several times, and forcefully suggested that he should apologise. “Oh, do you think so, O.J?” As they were both bigger than him, I trust that he did so. As he had read Law at Cambridge, he was pretty astute and I was impressed with his foresight, when a rented house in Antigua was required to be set ablaze by Special Effects. Winner sent in the stills photographer, to render shots before and after.
He never called me names. Jim was a bit of a psychologist and said that Michael would never slag me off, as he didn’t know how I would react. Perhaps with a bunch of fives! However that would have got me sacked, not only me but probably the whole sound crew, maybe.
Later, on the Curacao location, he helpfully gave me a lecture on how to boom operate!
Situation was this: Sophia Loren had a line of necessary dialogue from the back of the set. The place was a real room in a real bungalow, with non-removable ceilings. I was standing on a pile of grip’s boxes in a corner and with the Panamic pole at full stretch. On one take, it whipped into shot, and the camera operator had to report this.
So Winner started on me. The grips said: “Pat, told you, you needed a taller box!” “Thanks, can I help myself from your truck?” Left the set, got another box, set it in place, climbed up and asked the operator for a new top limit.
Winner was still shouting at me, even though I had left the set! I then realised that he wanted the spotlight to be on him! I would have liked to offer him the pole, as he seemed to know so much about booming, and I would take over directing – who puts a dialogue artiste right at the back of the set, without closer cover?
For a Winner come-uppance, see here!
For an account of boom operation in material submitted to ADAPT, please see here.
