I shoot a TV show twice a month. It's a no-budget shoot so we don't have all the crew or equipment we could use. I'm trying to improve the sound capture without a boom operator (because we've never been able to recrute one that will work for free). Right now we hang a SM58 over the set just out of frame. The trouble is that the actors sometimes stand and sit in a single scene, so the actor to mic distance varies a lot.

I was wondering if I could put a boundry layer mic on the wall or celing (the actors make too much noise on the desks with their "business") and get a good level that wouldn't change as much as what I'm getting now. What are the good and bad points of boundry layer mics. What is the maximum distance from the speaker I should consider?

Thanks,

Rob:-]

What about individual lavs on the talent?

Lavs on the talent would be ideal. There are problems with that, however. We sometimes have as many as six people in a scene. We obviously can't run that many wired or wireless lavs.

I do have access to two wireless lavs and we use these sometimes. The problem with these is getting them onto the actors adds too much prep time to the shoot. (We shoot about 20 to 30 pages of script in six to eight hours.)

I guess we really need a dedicated sound mixer/boom operator. I was hoping the boundry layer mic might a shortcut to better sound.