Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/756621
21 often than not, our biggest prob- lem was the balance between the louder acoustic guitars and soft singing voices—often nudged by Don to give us a little more voice. Boom Philosophy There are two kinds of Boom Operators: 'hard cuers' and 'fl oaters.' Don Coufal and I are on opposite sides of these phi- losophies, but I had so much respect and trust of Don that I let him do what he does best. My regular boom operators are always aggressive and cue very hard while getting the mic as close to the frame line as pos- sible, while Don concentrates on listening very diligently to the background ambience and cueing to the voice, creating a smooth, consistent background. Don Coufal is probably the only boom operator I know whom I would trust to use his method. Don and I had some great conver- sations about microphones and technique, but when we talked about microphones, acoustics or the tone of a particular actor's voice, I could see the excitement in his eyes. I knew he was someone I could trust completely. A sound man needs to be excited about equipment, about learning and about ways to approach an actor with a sound problem in a way that will make the actor feel comfortable to accommodate that request. Don made a believer out of me. Boom Operators have to learn every line in the script and point the mic at the actor's sweet spot no matter what technique they use. There is a movie/TV difference; in general, a sound crew on a feature has more opportunities to quiet the set whereas a TV crew often doesn't have time to put out all the 'noise fi res.' When it comes down to it, the fl oating style cuts nicely with a bit more background noise, where a hard-cue technique has more proximity effect and less background noise but with a more inconsistent background ambience. All in all, the most important things about boom technique are listening and experience. Don Coufal excels in both of those. Cameron Crowe: Roadies was very special because of Cameron Crowe, and music is very special to him. There were times during a take that an AD would run over to me and say Cameron wants you to play one of these four songs between the lines or in that moment, at the end of the shot. We always had a playback speaker ready, several music apps and 150,000 of my own songs ready to go at all times. Cameron has his own playback/com- puter desk that Jeff built for him so he could play music and set the tone for an actor's performance or set a mood for the crew before a scene. Cameron uniquely communicated with music, he wasn't a very technical director but he did have an amazing way of tuning and changing a performance with his choice of music. The goal of Roadies was to move people with great music and sound. I was so happy to be a part of such a special show. Left: Rafe Spall, Ron White and Luke Wilson. Photo: Neal Preston/SHOWTIME. Above: Don Coufal, Boom Operator Supreme