Hello everyone,

I have absolutely no experience in location sound but I will need to work as a boom operator. Sorry if my question is dumb...
For our upcoming low budget short film (all filming will take place indoors), here's everything we've got for audio:

• Rode VideoMic NTG (unfortunately we will use this on-camera mic with 3.5mm output as a boom)
• Rode Wireless Pro (2 transmitters, one receiver)

The current plan involves connecting the NTG microphone to the wireless transmitter, sending audio to the camera, and having the camera operator monitor the sound through headphones. However, this setup leaves me without a means to monitor the audio as the boom operator.

Given my inexperience, I am seeking guidance on the following:

What adjustments or additions are needed for both the camera operator and me to monitor the audio at the same time?
The suggestion was made to get the sound from camera via splitter: splitting the signal to operator's headphones and boom operator's headphones. Is this viable? What are the pitfalls?

Any advice, tips, or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!

Is the boom mic going straight into the video camera or will the soundman be using some sort of mixer in between? If so, of course, he can monitor from his panel. If not, he will need to monitor off the camera (and if so, why does the project need a soundman?).

Are you planning on using the RF rig as a wireless boom feed?

For you, as the boom op, will need to monitor some how. A few thoughts. Another Rode wireless with the headphone output off the camera split to the mixer's hard-wired phones and also, the second Rode transmitter and the receiver set up to feed your phones would complete a wireless boom feed.

Any possibility of hard wiring to the camera with two long XLR cables?

Asking a lot from not very capable gear, alas.

Some more-pro gear would give you a better chance at doing a better job. Any budget for a local rental. Your reputation is at stake here.

I was a location soundman for 20 years. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to talk about specific possibilities. Where do you live?

D.

It is possible to boom without cans... Here in Europe, this was (or still is?) pretty common. We filmed a few short films and documentaries with a boom operator who didn’t use headphones. Only the sound recordist (me ) wore them...

It was much more important that the boom operator understood what was being shot—the lenses, camera angles, lighting—and to watch out for reflections and the shadows!! (You know what the boom operator's anthem is? "Shadow on the Wall" by Mike Oldfield ).

You should know how voice projects, what’s happening in the scene—you have to check the script to understand the movement, the dialogue, etc. Communicate with everyone—the sound recordist first, but also the DOP, director, director’s assistant, etc., if you need to clarify something quickly...

There are also rehearsals, and you can practice your boom choreography during those.

On a low-budget project with the gear you described, and mainly being indoors in a small location, I wouldn’t overcomplicate things. Check the sound during rehearsals, understand what’s going on, and learn how your movement and different mic positions affects the sound. In your case, you’ll have to coordinate with the cameraman—do a few passes with you using the headphones to get used to the space, or do test recordings and review them...

Anyway, knowing the capture characteristics of your mic well, along with everything else I mentioned, makes it possible to boom without headphones. For example, you know you have to aim from about 1.5 meters away, with the closest being half meter in closeup shots or soft spoken dialogue (for instance, you set the gain for this distance), and you know the positions to aim from and at.

Then, after knowing where the ideal sound capture happens, it’s only important to avoid being in the shot—whether it’s you, the boom (the cable, the pole, the mic), your shadow, or your reflection... Also, avoid aiming the boom at loud background noises, and try not to change positions too much during dialogue, so you don’t get drastically different background noises. If there’s static noise, that should be avoided anyway, if possible...

Good luck!

P.S. It would be much easier to borrow a separate recorder and maybe even some nicer mic - like MKH50 for indoor dialogue - and only send the feed to the camera for reference, you monitoring the recording yourself, being sound recordist and boom man at the same time...

Funny. As we all know, you can not teach someone how to boom by telling them. It's a "learn by practice" skill (that's why God invented short films) and I believe that boom operators are born and not trained. Just my $.02.

As for rehearsals, they just don't happen any more. With the allowance of multiple video cameras which cost the same to run, one or five, 30 second take or twenty minute take, and because of that, wireless mics on every actor all the time, directors now just shoot anything that moves. No skill, no forethought, no love for the craft. That's ahy I don't do that work anymore. Sad.

Oh, and rant over, BTW.

D.

How tall is your average soundman? Don't know. Never seen one stand up.

D.

Is it really so? I only witnessed two cameras at once for a very specific shoot, but most of the time it is still one camera, seems impractical to shoot multiple cameras because of the set, lighting, etc.

Maybe people are old school here, but DOPs and directors like to make nice frames, have good lighting... and how to move all the crew, light stands and the rest of movie set crap and then also other cameras (and all of those things' reflections and shadows) out of frame...

Seems very impractical and unneccessary (and as you say - artistically poor attitude).

I did record some longer one shot scenes, though, where we all ran behind the actor, all very rehearsed and choreographed, so everyone was out of the way, lights strategically placed, hidden mics, boom operator "contemporary" dancing ������

btw - the few times I was both sound recordist and boom operator at once, I dipped the mic in the frame way too often, because I was all too focused on ideal dialogue sound and didn't care about the video, heheheh. I am also glad those jobs are behind me. Didn't get mesmerized by it, refuse to work in those scenarios ever again. Way too stressful and annoying (and too much waiting, long hours, junk food, etc.)

I spent a long time in the motion picture business as a production mixer. I saw it change over the 15 or so years I spent. From one camera and one overhead mic (maybe two overhead) to, on my last episodic, up to five cameras on a scene and radio mics on all the actors (and all on iso tracks).

I had a long running argument with a post mixer on a show (Emmy winning) about his "need" to have all the RF mics working perfectly all the time (think about how you might listen to 6 RF mics in a complicated scene) and my reply that I and my two boom operators were giving him a really tight mix track that followed the action of every scene every day. It was a great show to work on overall but I never came to terms with post and left after two seasons confused and unhappy.

My last episodic was a five camera court-room drama. The boom operators wired actors and boomed clap sticks. All that skill put to waste.

I think that scenes and shots are still more considered on "Hollywood" narratives but a mentor of mine just finished a huge Hollywood picture where he was, mostly, unable to record usable dialog due to "visual" constraints, everyone saying that it would sound fine with replaced dialog. I guess he went home and counted his money but I know for a fact it wasn't a fun project.

Listen to the stuff coming out today. Too loud M&E. Can't hear the dialog. Turn on the subtitles. Then go back and listen to a picture like An Affair to Remember and think about what a well crafted picture sounds like.

Man, I sound like such an old geezer. Haha.

D.

No, you sound like en experienced pro not conforming to the stupidity of "progress" that is mostly (re)gress...

I have much lesser experience - I plunged into film sound 15 years ago and "retired" ca. 5 years later. I started with Zoom H4, later "pro", a Shure SM81 and a self-made boom from a dismantled mic stand with Rode shock mount, no blimp and dead cat, yet. Doing some documentaries and "corporate" videos that included interviews of staff and CEOs.

Later using real boom with MKH60 and 70, Sennheiser radio transmitters/receivers and mics, also a couple of Sanken COS11D lavaliers (very fine), a then brand new Roland R88 recorder (at the time, a very fine "budget friendly" 8 channel recorder - it was absolutely solid for me - and also good sound - no complaints) for some high budget TV drama of "feature film proportions" and a couple of advanced short films of bigger production complexity - mostly involving all real locations and only a little studio work. Mostly it was real world - anything from golf courses, abandoned football stadiums, homes - tiny apartments, villas, a castle hall, mountain lodges, corporate buildings, a graveyard, boats, restaurants, kitchens, cars, parks, streets, everything...
I slowly "faded out" of that scene, using SD Mixpre3 in the end, RODE NTG3 and MKH40 for some last few documentaries - the very last one being a very nice experience about orange wines. (good food, good wine, fun work)

At most complex I had a bag with 5 radio mics and two booms for some very crowded and complex scenes - but mostly it was one boom and two radio mics that we hoped won't be used instead of the boom... Production mix was only for the reference, not intended as the final production sound and there was little to none ADR - also because of budget constraints, actors not really being available and/or also not too skilled for that... so we had to make sure the recording was of decent enough quality - there were only a few locations and scenes where it was not possible to record dialogue well enough.

Anyway, good luck with the project to the OP and have fun! Don't complicate (is my motto).