Hear There and Everywhere
- Alex Haralson
- 7 minutes ago
- 6 min read
The mighty lavalier. Or “lavaliere”. Or, simply, “lav”. It’s found on pretty much every news desk, corporate interview, reality show, motion picture set… anywhere dialog for picture is to be recorded. It’s inescapable.
I have a love/hate relationship with the lav, a sound mixer sentiment I know is not unique to me. It can be a helpful tool, but it can be a hindrance. The lav goes wherever the talent goes, and stays parked in the same place along the journey. It doesn’t come with muscle fatigue from holding it aloft on a long pole. It is, if nothing else, consistent.
In the narrative world, a visible mic removes the viewer from the story, so the lav always has to be hidden. This is the source of many a headache on set. Lavs are susceptible to thick or noisy fabrics, hairy chests, and sweat. There are plenty of tools available now to aid in mitigating these issues, though noisy fabric will always be noisy fabric (if I can hear it in the boom mic, I can definitely hear it in the lav).
Let’s back up for a moment, though. The earliest films with sync sound relied on stationary plant mics, literally “planted” behind set pieces, just off camera, or in actual plants. This prevented actors from moving freely during dialog.
In 1929, director Dorothy Arzner came up with the idea of suspending the mic from a pole that could move with the actors. She had been working with a silent film star who had trouble keeping on-axis with the mic, and she realized that there was a better way. The world of sync sound was forever changed, and the boom was the primary tool for decades to come.
The earliest lavs were hard-wired, cabled directly to the mixer. They were also quite sizable by today’s standards. Julius Sumner Miller, a physicist, hosted educational programming starting in 1959 and wore one such lav, something like the ElectroVoice 647 or Shure Model 560, hung on a necklace. It was comically large, and the cable running down to the floor could pose a hazard of tangling up and tripping the talent.
Lavs have come a long way since then, and modern offerings are much smaller. This makes it easier to bury the microphones in wardrobe, which is necessary in both narrative and reality situations.
As for wireless radio mic systems, hobby kits and experimental systems were around in the mid-1940s, the mid-1950s saw development of systems from Shure Brothers Sennheiser. It was in 1961 that the first patent appeared for a wireless system, and in 1964 that a wireless microphone was implemented in a film production, with sound mixer George Groves incorporating a system for “My Fair Lady”. Still, these were the exceptions and not the rule. A radio mic can get in where a subject is simply too distant, or a frame too wide, for a boom to reach effectively. Early systems, though, could be limited by short range and susceptible to radio interference. Additionally, they were bulky.
Fast-forward a few decades. More complex, multichannel mixers began appearing on sets, even when sound was still recorded to a 1- or 2-channel Nagra reel-to-reel, or later to a DAT recorder. Advancements in radio mic design made it more practical to use these systems more frequently with greater range and stability and more compact designs. And then, multitrack recording arrived on sound carts and in sound bags. No longer was it so impractical to wire all the talent by default, and to implement radio mics in the mix for everyday recording. The lav was here to stay.
That brings us to present day, where every principal speaking role on set is wired almost all the time. The once-humble lav now has some offerings that can sound remarkably good. Wireless systems sound better and are much more stable than they once were. Whether or not the lav is used in the mix, it is recorded and available in the post edit if needed. In all this progress, however, something has been lost. Lavs are often now the first tool in the mix, not the second.
I should note that there are use cases where the lav is much more practical as a first choice. Take reality programming and cooking competitions, for example. These programs have too much camera coverage to make boom work accessible in most cases. For these programs, lavs and radiomic (wireless) systems are the rule. This article, however, focuses on narrative work.
I do love a good lav in use. They're versatile, and they expand coverage outside the reach of the boom. In the narrative world, there are times where the camera's frame may be so wide that the boom simply cannot get close enough to be of use, so the lavs and wireless transmitters take on the work there. The boom will come back in for coverage later. Modern wireless systems and modern lavs do, honestly, sound pretty darn good. Sometimes, they even sound great.
Despite all the advancements, one thing still holds true about the lav: it will almost always sound like a lav. Its placement puts it very close to the source of the sound (the talent’s mouth). It will pick up more chest resonance. The actor’s torso, and thicker layers of wardrobe, will absorb ambient sound and the acoustics of the space, giving a very dry result. This is the other ingredient in the “hate” part of that love/hate relationship I mentioned: lavs can be dull and lifeless. We’ve lost our embrace of acoustics.
So many films and television/streaming shows these days have leaned into the lavs, leaving the boom as a backup. While this can be a practical approach, especially for shows with fast turnarounds and coverage that makes boom work too challenging, it takes its toll on the sound. This ignores everything that goes on around the actors. It leaves the mix sounding, well, like it was recorded with lavs. Low-budget indie films can be some of the worst offenders.
The room matters. Traditional knowledge tells us that the perspective of the boom follows the perspective of the camera, so a wider shot results in a higher boom, which results in more of the room’s acoustics in the mix. A tight shot results in a closer mic, bringing the same intimacy to the dialog that the picture presents. The acoustics of the space allow the dialog to exist in the world of the film no matter the frame.
There’s more to the boom, though, than just opening up the room. The sound department captures not just the dialog, but the entire performance. Every breath, every sigh, every movement, provide subtle cues to the character’s emotions and intentions. The way the character interacts with the set is also very much part of what we hear. These subtle sounds also interact with the room’s acoustics, and that’s something else the lav cannot deliver. Why do movies sound like movies? It starts with the boom.
When I start into a new narrative project, preproduction conversations include what kind of sound we’re going for in the end. There is no one-size-fits-all application here, and everything is contextual. There are projects for which I rely on the boom as the dominant source in the mix, for a more classic film sound. There are also situations where the lavs provide the body of the dialog, and the boom comes in slightly behind to fill out the mix. I take the same approach when I’m mising dialog in post. Either way, I try to embrace room's acoustics wherever possible.
In short, the lav allows us to hear everywhere the talent may go, but the boom remains the lifeblood of the mix.
By the way, considering the etymology of the name, it’s much more historically accurate to call it a “lah-vol-YAY” rather than “lah-vuh-LEER”. But that’s a conversation for another day.
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