Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1351516
34 S P R I N G 2 0 2 1 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Return to the Golden Age of Booming b y L o r i D o v i C A S When I got the call with news that I'd been hired to production sound mix Season 2 of the CBS/Disney+ TV series Diary of a Future President, I didn't imagine for a second that the producers had taken my proposal to do a boom-only show seriously. There were a couple of reasons I felt this was the right way to go. The first and most obvious reason was COVID. Given the premise of this humorous show, a Cuban family in Miami that features many minors and adults, including 12-year-old Elena, who is destined to become the President of the United States some day, limiting the amount of bodily contact seemed the safest approach. I felt a moral responsibility to keep my department, the actors, and others as safe as possible. I had to weigh that there was a 50-50 chance of our show shutting down as we progressed into our shooting schedule. I did not want to contribute to that possibility as we had 2½ months to weather together. However, I also loved the idea of returning to the origins of capturing sound with booms and plant mics 100 percent of the time—and succeeding with a superior soundtrack. And for anyone who knows about production sound, the challenges of this kind of approach can be daunting at times. We wouldn't have the luxury of throwing a wireless lav on an actor because the shot seemed impossible, or because the boom operators were lit out, or due to intrusive background sounds, or for dozens of other reasons we have all experienced! We would need to think fast on our feet, come up with creative solutions consistently, and rely on the joint expertise and passion our department possessed to do it this way. I was also emboldened in my decision to create sound in such an unconventional current manner by remembering that the first noted use of a boom mic was accompanied by Booms as our "coat of arms." (L-R) John Sheridan, Lori Dovi CAS, and Alexandra Gallo