Equipment Advice: Selecting Boompoles & Shotgun Mics

Why use a boom? Because of all of the techniques available to us, the simple boompole with shotgun mic allows us to get the most professional audio with the least amount of fuss. Let's briefly look at our options for acquiring dialogue.

Built-in camera mic. Okay for wide pickup of stereo sounds, such as music or choral. Not much front reach, and lots of side pickup. Horrible for dialogue or anything happening more than a couple feet in front of the camera.

Shotgun mic, mounted atop the camera. Success or failure using an (aftermarket) mic as a replacement for the built-in camera mic is really dependent on the QUALITY of the mic that you purchase. You get what you pay for!  If the mics are plastic or have mini connectors (as opposed to XLR 3-pin), RUN AWAY. On the other hand, cheap shotgun mics make good martini stirrers at cocktail parties.

In terms of what to expect from a mic mounted atop of the camera, it will have much greater reach than the default stereo built-in mic. Side pickup will be minimized (but do not expect miracles) and front reach will be optimized. Remember, though, that any sound emanating from behind the subject will be magnified similar to the way that background objects are "brought closer" to the subject when you use a telephoto lens. Indoor, sound from behind or to the side of the camera may bounce off of the walls and end up being reflected towards the camera (and mic), much to the chagrin of good dialogue.

Also bear in mind that the average camera to subject distance, even for a close-up interview, is seven to ten feet. Any closer than that and the subject feels like the lens is right in his/her face! Seven to ten feet is a lot of feet when it comes to microphone reach. Most shotgun mics do their best at around three to four feet (for soft spoken dialogue).

The best sound quality would be achieved by a combination of two things: reduce the distance and make the bad unwanted sound strike the shotgun from its least sensitive pickup angle. Doing that is easier than it sounds. Just use a boompole and mic the subject from overhead.

The boompole allows the mic to be positioned much closer (overhead) to the actors than the mic would be if still aboard the camera. Three to four feet above the actors is ideal for audio, yet still provides an awful lot of "headroom" for visual composition. A wide shot only needs to be wide from left to right, not from top to bottom! That's why tripod heads have a tilt mechanism.

Because the shotgun mic is suspended overhead, it will point downwards towards the faces of the actors. The most sensitive pickup area of a shotgun mic is on-axis. Surrounding noise will approach the shotgun mic from 360 degrees around it, perpendicular to the on-axis. In other words, the front of the mic will hear the most, and the sides of the mic will hear the least.

What about lavalier mics worn by the actors? In Hollywood, we only deploy lavs if we cannot boom the shot.

Lavaliers are fine if you only have one or two actors (or interview subjects). Rigging lavaliers takes some skill to properly use the mounting clips and hide the cables. And if there is no button down shirt or jacket lapel to attach the tieclips to… life gets very tricky or mics/cables look very ugly. Unless you want to deal with sexual harassment issues, I would not encourage young students to rig lavaliers under clothing!

Lavalier mics and wireless mics have a myriad of small parts (tieclips, mini windscreens, antennas, output cables, etc.) that are easy to lose. Make sure that you have a good system for checking equipment in/out or you will find yourself with a lot of downtime. I deal with a local high school (for nerds, no less!) that cannot keep track of production accessories and is constantly short of (working) inventory.

Let's go shopping for a good boompole and shotgun mic system.