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Film & Television vocabulary · Sound and Music

Boom mic

Meaning in film & television, with examples

/ˈbuːm maɪk/nounCommon term

In film & television, boom mic means: A directional microphone fixed to the end of a long pole and held above or below the actors, just outside the frame, to record dialogue.

In Turkish: boom mikrofon, sırık mikrofon

How it is used

Held by the boom operator, who works with the production sound mixer. Crews talk about the boom pole and say the boom is in shot or watch your boom shadow. Lavalier mics (lavs), small clip-on microphones, are often used as well.

Example sentences

  1. The boom mic dipped into the frame at the end of the take.

  2. In the wind we had to use radio mics, because the boom mic picked up too much noise.

Common collocations

  • boom operator
  • boom pole
  • boom in shot
  • hold the boom mic
  • sound designThe creative work of creating, choosing and shaping all the sounds of a film so that they support the story and the atmosphere.
  • dialogueThe words that characters speak to each other in a film, series or play.
  • ADRAutomated dialogue replacement: re-recording an actor's lines in a studio after the shoot while they watch the scene, to replace bad or changed dialogue.
  • frameThe edges of the image that the camera records, and everything inside them. It also means one single still image of a film.

More terms: Sound and Music

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