headphone jack splitting
 

I am going to be doing a small shoot and was wondering if this is possible?

I will have a boom operator with me, and I would like to split the audio coming out of the headphone jack to two pairs of headphones. Is this possible? or do I need somekind of a distribution amp?

You can get a splitter at Radio Shack that will work pretty well. You won't have separate gain control, obviously, and that can be a problem if the headphones are different - one could be much louder than the other ....

Make sure you get a stereo splitter ... they have mono ones also, and the difference is only in the small print.

Good luck.

I think all stereo splitters will have have two "rings" on the metal pin instead of one. Your instincts are correct to want to hear the sound, for both you and your boom guy.

However....

I have only been a boom operator a couple of times. One thing I noticed when I wore headphones and boomed is that I become more oblivious to off mike sounds because I hear the dialogue the loudest.

When the boom operator has no headphones on they become very aware of off camera sounds because all sounds are more "average" to their ears. The "average sounds" could be blocked out during the live take by the actors actual dialogue.

Boom operators in general work off of visual distance to the performers. As long as the camera person is monitoring, I think I'd prefer to have my boom guy hear the natural sound ambience of the room.

Can we hear from boom operators who boom for camera operators who are recording the sound on their camera and are also wearing headphones?