After finishing up my first “no-budget” film with my group, they immediately wanted to do a sequel. (Because they are masochists.) As the writer/director/editor, I was subjected to my own special hell caused by the inconsistent sound and film quality, so I only agreed with the caveat that I’d have an actual budget to work with this time.

Probably the biggest issue we had was with wind noise killing our dialog, and although we had windscreens, they just weren’t heavy duty enough. In my research for a solution, I found that we should have been using a blimp style windscreen, like the Rode Blimp, or Marantz ZP-1. However, these giant gridded tubes are all over $100, and some are as much as $300.

After already spending $400 for a good used sound recorder, and another $100 for a better microphone, the crafter in me knew I could make something for much cheaper that would do the same job.

I chose bright orange for my furry cover (dead cat) because it would be easy to find in my sound bag, and easy to see if the boom dipped into the frame while filming. (Coz it’s gonna happen.) My shock mount isn’t as fancy, but it also weighs less than half as much as the 24″ inch equivalent. Even with the fur.