THOMAS HUTCHINSO - Early Television Foundation

22 HERE IS TELEVISIONmicrophone constantly in such a position that the spoken linescan be heard readily but at no time should the mike appear in thepicture. This means constant coordination between the ''boomman," his sound engineer in the control room, the cameramen,and the director.Most of our present day microphones give best results whenthey are close to the speaker. This means that if the picture atany given moment is on a close up filling the television viewingscreen with the head of an artist the mike should be just abovethe head of the speaker. Now if the next shot is to be a longerone, such as a three quarter shot, or the area is to be widened totake in two or more people, the microphone must be elevated soas not to appear in the next picture. This is accomplished bytelephonic communication and practice. The boom man isthe cameramen areequipped with a pair of earphones, just asand he also receives his instructions from the control room. Practice with his equipment in rehearsal usually makes it fairly simplewhere his mike should be. Hefor the boom man to judge justquickly learns the approximate distance he must be above theheads of the actors through a knowledge of the field of the cameras from any given distance. If he should guess wrong, he willimmediately be told from the control room to raise or lower hismicrophone as it will appear on the preview monitor screen. It ishis responsibility to have the mike just above the actor or actresswho isspeaking at the moment. If an artist crosses from one partof the stage to another the mike must follow. If for any reason ascene is rehearsed with two actors seated at a distance from eachothertween them to get the best possible pick up. This is bad production technique. A scene staged in this fashion should be avoidedif possible although sometimes it is necessary. At all times theboom man is one of the busiest men in a television studio andone of the most important.the boom man must swing his mike back and forth beSound PerspectiveSound perspective has long been an objective in pictures, andtelevision will certainly iron out some of the phases in thisprocess. So far it has been impossible to accomplish much along