Recently I lended a hand upon a film set for a short, with some colleges of mine. It was the the 20th or so time that I have "Boom Opped" in the wide world of audio, and I must say I find myself digging it quite a bit. I never really have found much an attraction to holding a stick with a wad of cotton balls up in the air for prolong periods of time rather appealing, until lately.
There is some joy in that all of your equipment is strapped on to you and that everything is right there in reach, not having to run around to trouble shoot something is a huge plus for me. Having control over every (or almost every) aspect in the audio product while being the sound guy in this particular instance is quite unique, that is holding the microphone and listening to it in a manner more attentively than I might have for a TV or studio application. The ability to react as a actor moves about, not having to reply on their microphone technique just makes doing this work so much more enjoyable. as they turn to move their head, walk and talk on a windy, (and in my case, a snowy day) jump in and out of a car, all treats, an engineer never gets to play with while in a studio.
My favorite part, recording room tone. Room tone, being what the space that you are shooting in sounds like when no one is speaking. Sound captured to be used as filler durring the editing process. When you make everyone stop everything that they are doing, breathe in a slow and steady manner, and listen. Listen ever so intensely. Doing so makes me smirk a little. To be able to hear that silence among a large group of people, even more so, being as young as me living in the city, silence, actual real silence, in the middle of everything, is a blessing.
~Chris
There is some joy in that all of your equipment is strapped on to you and that everything is right there in reach, not having to run around to trouble shoot something is a huge plus for me. Having control over every (or almost every) aspect in the audio product while being the sound guy in this particular instance is quite unique, that is holding the microphone and listening to it in a manner more attentively than I might have for a TV or studio application. The ability to react as a actor moves about, not having to reply on their microphone technique just makes doing this work so much more enjoyable. as they turn to move their head, walk and talk on a windy, (and in my case, a snowy day) jump in and out of a car, all treats, an engineer never gets to play with while in a studio.
My favorite part, recording room tone. Room tone, being what the space that you are shooting in sounds like when no one is speaking. Sound captured to be used as filler durring the editing process. When you make everyone stop everything that they are doing, breathe in a slow and steady manner, and listen. Listen ever so intensely. Doing so makes me smirk a little. To be able to hear that silence among a large group of people, even more so, being as young as me living in the city, silence, actual real silence, in the middle of everything, is a blessing.
