As some of you might know King Kong production videos are hosted on http://www.kongisking.net

They are all fascinating and the latest (Day 115) is on sound recording.

In the scene they shoot they have miked everone up with lavaliers as well as having a boom in there. They mention that the boom usually gives the best sound.

Are they doing this just to have alot of options or are there other reasons for using multiple mikes.

As a related and more practical question: I am planning to shoot a low budget short film later this year. Given that I still want good clean audio could I get away with just using lavalier mikes plugged into to an iRiver to remove the need for a boom operator or would this compromise sound a lot?

Cheers
Mark

I don't have much audio knowledge/experience, but if I look at it
from a logical point: the lavaliers are usually covered up by some
kind of clothing (especially on film, where you do NOT want to see
the lavs!) which will change the way everything sounds.

A mike hanging from a boom has nothing in front it to record the
cleanest audio possible. I would assume that the bigger mics may
be of a higher quality as well.