Sync sound
Encyclopedia
Sync sound refers to sound recorded at the time of the film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

ing of movies, and has been widely used in movies since the birth of sound movies
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...

.

History

Even in the silent film era, films were shown with sounds, often with musical accompaniment by a pianist keeping time with the screen action. The first synchronization was a turning recording device marked with a white spot. As the white spot rotated, the cameraman hand cranked the camera to keep it in sync with the recording. The method was then repeated for playback, but with the projectionist hand cranking the film projector.

"Single-system" sound recorded sound optically to part of the original camera film, or magnetically to a stripe of magnetic coating along the film edge.

"Double-system
Double-system recording
Double-system recording is a form of sound recording used in motion picture production whereby the sound for a scene is recorded on a machine that is separate from the camera or picture-recording apparatus....

" sound used independent cameras and sound recorders. The first sync sound standard used recorders and cameras both powered by AC (alternating current) motors - essentially clock motors.

Later the 50Hz or 60Hz sine wave, called a "Pilotone," was recorded on a second parallel track of an audio recorder.

In double-system filming, speed variations of camera and recorder, as well as the elasticity of the magnetic recording tape, requires some positive means of keying the dialogue to its appropriate film frame.

The inclusion on the sound recorder of a second, parallel, sync or "Pilotone" track, is the most common method in use today.

If a location camera is driven by a DC motor, with some sort of governor control to hold it fairly accurate at 24 f.p.s., a sync pulse generator geared to the movement or motor shaft could be employed to provide the sync pulse output. A cable conducts the sync pulse from camera to sound recorder. The sync pulse is typically a sine wave of 50 or 60 Hz with an RMS amplitude of approximately 1 volt.

This double-system audio recording could then be transferred or "resolved" to sprocketed magnetic film, with sprocket holes that match one to one with the original camera film. These two sprocketed media could be run through a "Moviola
Moviola
A Moviola is a device that allows a film editor to view film while editing. It was the first machine for motion picture editing when it was invented by Iwan Serrurier in 1924.-History:...

" or flat-bed editing table such as the Steenbeck
Steenbeck
Steenbeck is a brand name that has become synonymous with a type of flatbed film editing suite which is usable with both 16 mm and 35 mm optical sound and magnetic sound film.The Steenbeck company was founded in 1931 by Wilhelm Steenbeck in Hamburg, Germany...

 for synchronous sound editing.

With the introduction of the Bulova
Bulova
Bulova is a corporation making luxury watches and clocks. It has its headquarters in Woodside, Queens, New York City.Bulova was founded and incorporated as the J. Bulova Company in 1875 by Joseph Bulova , an immigrant from Bohemia...

 "Accutron" watch that used a tuning fork as a time reference (watches later used an oscillating electronic crystal), the camera no longer needed to be connected to the sound recorder with a cable. The camera speed was controlled by one oscillator, and a second oscillator in the recorder generated the Pilotone.

This method was developed in the 1960s by pioneering filmmaker Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock
Richard Leacock was a British-born documentary film director and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité.-Early life and career:...

. It was called Direct Cinema
Direct Cinema
Direct Cinema is a documentary genre that originated between 1958 and 1962 in North America, principally in the Canadian province of Quebec and the United States...

 and was the basis for a "New Wave" of Cinéma Vérité
Cinéma Vérité
Cinéma Vérité is the first album by an alternative rock group Dramarama, released in November 1985. Although Dramarama was an American group, specifically from New Jersey, the album was originally released by New Rose Records of France, and in America on Question Mark Records...

 films, especially in Europe, made by filmmakers who abandoned the studio and went out on location to film, often with hand-held cameras.

In 1972 Bell & Howell brought out a consumer version of a double-system Super-8 sound filmmaking system called "Filmosound." A Compact Cassette
Compact Cassette
The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...

 recorder was attached to the camera with a cable that transmitted a single pulse to the recorder every time a new frame of film was exposed in the camera. On playback, the cassette recorder pulse was used to control the projector speed.

At that time a professor in the MIT Architecture department Film Section, Ricky Leacock developed a Super-8 film production system with a crystal-controlled camera, a crystal-generated Pilotone cassette recorder, a sprocketed magnetic film recorder, a flatbed editing table, and a projector. The MIT/Leacock System was funded with a $300,000 grant from Polaroid
Polaroid Corporation
Polaroid Corporation is an American-based international consumer electronics and eyewear company, originally founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. It is most famous for its instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's flagship product line until the February...

 founder Edwin Land.

In 1973 the one-pulse-per-frame technique was used to control recording directly onto sprocketed magnetic film in the Super8 Sound Recorder. developed by inventor Bob Doyle. The Super8 Sound Recorder could also "resolve" sound that had been recorded onto cassette tape with this new "digital" sync pulse.

Today, digital video cameras and digital sound recorders have very accurate crystal time references and so can be used for double-system video production.

Sync Sound in Asia

In Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, sync sound was not widely used until the 1990s, as the generally noisy environment and lower production budgets made such a method impractical.

Most Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...

 film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

s from the 1960s onwards do not employ this technique and for that very reason the 2001 films Lagaan
Lagaan
Lagaan is a 2001 Bollywood sports film written and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker. Aamir Khan, who was also the producer for the film, stars with Gracy Singh in the lead roles; British actors Rachel Shelley and Paul Blackthorne play the supporting roles...

and Dil Chahta Hai
Dil Chahta Hai
Dil Chahta Hai is a 2001 Indian film starring Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Preity Zinta, Sonali Kulkarni, and Dimple Kapadia...

 were noted for the use of Sync sound. More recently it was used on Rock On. The common practice in Bollywood is to 'dub'
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...

 over the dialogues at the Post-Production Stage. Industry people such as sound designers and mixers Resul Pookutty
Resul Pookutty
Resul Pookutty is an Indian film sound designer, sound editor and mixer. He, along with Richard Pryke and Ian Tapp won the Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing for the film Slumdog Millionaire...

 and Baylon Fonseca are endeavoring to change this.

The very first Indian talkie Alam Ara (1931) saw the very first use of Sync Sound in India, and subsequent Indian films were regularly shot in Sync Sound with the silent Mitchell Camera, until the 1960s. With the arrival of the Arri 2C, a noisy but more practical camera particularly for outdoor shoots, 'dubbing' became the norm and was never reversed. http://www.upperstall.com/syncsound.html

Use of this technique has increased in recent times with development in film techniques and instrumentation like Arri
Arri
-History:Arri was founded in Munich, Germany as Arnold & Richter Cine Technik in 1917, named after founders August Arnold and Robert Richter. They produce professional motion picture equipment, digital and film cameras and cinematic lighting equipment...

 Blimp camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...

. This system has been used in Hindi movie Jodhaa Akbar.
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