UP on a Ladder

While my version of achieving "upness" didn't come from climbing the rock wall, I did work on a film set for the last two weekends in which I was the sound mixer and primary boom operator - basically the person who manages audio recording and quality on set. This is my emphasis at Dodge College, one of the smallest emphases and also one of the more under-appreciated aspects of the filmmaking process.

This set was a difficult one in particular because we shot on a sound stage for both weekends, and the film itself was a comedy, which provides that most shots are completed in a wide. This makes my job particularly difficult when I operate the boom, because I always have to stay ABOVE the actor's heads, tracking them around the scene, in order to catch their dialogue and movements with the mic. When we were shooting over at Panther Productions, some of the shots were so wide that I had to sit at the top of a 25 foot ladder and maneuver from there.

Photographic Proof

Now I'm aware that 25 feet isn't nearly as tall as the rock wall, but the boom pole I was handling was also extended to 20 feet, which I had to hold for takes up to four minutes long. There was no tether, nothing holding me to the ladder, I was the fulcrum and had to focus heavily on maintaining balance while doing my job.

Associating audio mixing and sound design with the concept of UP has been an interesting journey for me, as I'm deviating from the concrete definitions of down and up, and delving more into the figuratives on how good audio has good levels, HIGH levels, while audio that is recorded too LOW can be muddled or impossible to work with. Especially when booming, the best quality audio comes from booming from above the actors, dangling the mic downwards towards their chest.

The struggle too comes from resisting gravity and keeping your arms up and steady enough to stay in a good position for the duration of the shot. Endurance is key, and the balance and focus that the job requires reminds me of the tactical skill necessary also for scaling a rock wall.