In my world, the boom operator does the lav-ing. As a female lav-er, women are always appreciative that I’m also a female, especially when I’m placing my lav between their breast. Yes. Breast do hold my invisi-lavs securely with the double sided guey goo I put on the silicone.

There have been times when I’ve looked at the tight, bare mid-drift outfit, an actress is poured into and wondered how I would hide the black chord of the wireless transmitter, much less the transmitter itself.

Usually the actress has been lav-ed so many times she has a suggestion to help. As we work together to bandaid, surgically tape, and goo on the components to hidden crevices on her body, then thread the wire up through inconspicuous folds and seems in her outfit, often I hear how grateful she is that I didn’t use gaff tape.

Well, sometimes I have to pull out the gaff tape too. One time the outfit was transparent white, so I used white gaff tape to obscure the black transmitter and chord.

Men with hairy chests have it much worse if they are not wearing a button shirt or a tie. I’ll gladly bury my lav in between buttons or in the knot of a tie. I’ve found surgical tape and bandaids to be less painful on chest hair than the goo.

Sweating turns out to be a saving grace for a man with a hairy chest because my lav just slides off no matter how much sticky I have applied. In that case I just keep re-lav-ing and hoping for the best.

With either sex, I always feel a bit funny saying, “I need to lav you”, or “let me turn you on”, or “do you get lav-ed in this scene?”

As a boom operator and mixer, I wear the headphones to the mixer so if I have them on, I can hear the laved talent talking. Sometimes, they send me funny messages and develop quite a repore with me. So, in my quiet world I stand in the corner chuckling at the jokes coming my way.

Oh, and when I’m standing there with my boom, waiting for camera to finish the final touches on lighting etc. I feel as though my boom could be a Gandalf staff, or maybe if I dressed up like death for Halloween I could use my boom to look like Death.