Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1152338
25 Ken Strain: I'm six feet, five inches tall so, I tend to hold my arms over my head less than shorter boom ops, as I favor keeping the boom at shoulder level and resting my elbow on my hips for long takes. On this new comedy however, there are many resets and pickups of alt lines, and we get into very long takes. I often find myself having to hold the boom overhead for 15 to 30 minutes, in order to get around practical lights and reflections. So I jumped at the chance to give this vest a try to see if it would help. This vest was not made for our industry. It is designed for the automotive industry where the line workers raise and lower their arms with tools thousands of times per day, and wear the vest all day long. It's built for that type of intense daily usage, with very strong joints and bearings. The autoworkers work in their own stations, with clear space all around them, so the elbows (link assemblies) that stick out in the back are not an issue like they are for us on cramped film sets. The vest can be set up for various body types, and I'm sharing it with my Second Boom, Corey Woods, who is around five feet, eight inches tall. He tends to hold his arms overhead more often than I do, and he has shoulder issues, which makes it more difficult for him to boom. I do my best to keep him off the stick, but we are an ensemble comedy, so he has to work on many slots. The vest has four spring options, and we are using the strongest spring, labeled "4," which gives about fifteen pounds of upward assistance once your elbow reaches a horizontal height. When at rest with arms by your side, the system is not engaged. The buckles and straps that attach around the bicep part of the body are comfortable and easy to use. The angle of assistance can be tweaked as well, to provide the max assistance at a higher engagement point if you happen to reach higher normally. Ours is set up neutral, so its "shelf" of support is right at shoulder level. I only engage the spring in the leading arm, and keep the trailing arm turned off, so that my arm and the vest itself acts as the counterweight, and it works great this way. It is very easy to lean against the back of the vest, with your arms overhead holding and guiding the boom pole. It looks like work, but instead of the forces going into the shoulders, they are routed down to the hip belt. So all you do is guide the pole, and the nasty heaviness of it is painlessly transferred to your hips. It's a great feeling when the situation is right. I tried it on several different types of shots, the first was a crane shot that was just wildly shooting around the room. That was just to get the feel of it, as it wasn't a major dialog scene. This is where I figured out the max length of boom pole extension before it overwhelms the spring. For my particular setup, that was an 18 foot K-Tek boom pole with internal coiled cable and a CMIT mic on a PSC mount, extended one half section short of full extension. My setup is already well balanced, if you are using a plug-on transmitter on the mic end, you'll have less extension for