Today we’ll talk about how the films are voiced. When did the sound movie appear? What technologies are used here? What is required to create high-quality sound? About this and not only further in the material.
A brief excursion into history
At the time of the invention of cinema, humanity already had sound recording technology available. For this, a device called a phonograph was used. The first attempts to combine moving pictures on the screen with sound were made by inventor Thomas Edison back in 1894. It was he, in collaboration with his assistant, William Dixon, who created the first movie clip in which the phrase was uttered: “Hello, Mr. Edison, I hope you are satisfied with this cinema?” However, the invention did not find its application, since at that time it was extremely difficult to create a high-quality recording, precisely synchronizing it with the video sequence.
A principle similar to Edison's was tried to translate into reality the French producer Leon Gaumont. In 1900, he managed to synchronize the phonograph with the so-called Lumiere apparatus, which was used for the storyboard of the video. The invention also remained a technical curiosity, and sound cinema was not destined to appear for several decades.
First dubbed movie
Until the end of the 30s of the last century, all films remained “dumb”. Viewers were offered only an image that was accompanied by music. Later, after all, a system was invented that could more or less qualitatively synchronize sounds with video sequences. However, successful film studios met the innovation with extreme caution. The reason was the reluctance of bosses of profitable companies to additionally spend money on introducing sound into their tapes.
Famous actors also turned out to be opponents of the creation of sound cinema. In particular, the celebrated comedian Charlie Chaplin spoke about the introduction of technology in the production of films as a solution that would “kill” the artistic expressiveness of the acting and the desire for creative experiments. Nevertheless, the sound nevertheless opened up the possibility of creating better narrative plots.
"Silent" cinema continued to enjoy success with a wide audience until 1927, when the first sound film in history was released. The painting, entitled “Jazz Singer”, was accompanied not only by songs, but also had meaningful dialogues that corresponded to the facial expressions of the actors. Despite the fact that the film had only a few remarks, the tape caused a real sensation in society and gave a good start to the development of sound cinema.
Sound recording technology
How are the films voiced? At the dawn of the emergence of cinema with dialogue content, sound remained phonographic. In other words, there was an opaque area on the film where the sound track was applied. The width of the latter varied based on sound vibrations.
A better “magnetic” sound appeared in the 50s. The essence of the technology was to create a thin strip of metal oxide on a film film, the sound of which was read by the action of a magnetic head, like a tape recorder. This opened up the opportunity not only for recording dialogs, but also for creating high-quality stereoscopic effects. This technology is often used today, despite the possibility of creating digital audio.
Film Sounding Techniques
And now about how voices sounding films are recorded. Here, the method of preliminary or subsequent superposition of the sound series on the video can be applied. The first method involves the preparation of phonograms even before the start of the filming process. Thus, subsequently, the performers of the roles are already acting according to the finished soundtrack that is reproduced on the site. The method was spread during the formation of sound films. Currently, they resort to it mainly when shooting dance and music scenes, creating television plays.
As for the method of subsequent dubbing, here, as you can guess from the definition itself, they resort to creating phonograms after the work on the film is completed. Recording with this approach takes place in a studio, where the actors reproduce the necessary sounds, watching the scenes with their own participation on a special screen.
Creating effects
Telling how the films are voiced, one cannot help but dwell on where the effects of explosions, the blowing of the wind, birdsong, etc. come from. It would seem that the cheapest way to create them using digital equipment. But, oddly enough, even the best modern synthesizers can reproduce only hack. Therefore, the filmmakers do not spare money on the organization of high-quality full-fledged sound recordings. To get the sound of the surf, the editors have to travel to the coast. To record the sounds of the explosion, experts set fire to dynamite checkers in a clean field. And this applies to almost all the effects used in modern cinema.
In the arsenal of "noise controllers" there is a wide range of standard methods that make it possible to create certain difficult-to-reproduce sounds. We will not list the full list of available tricks. We mention only a few of them:
- A clatter of horse hooves - blows by halves of a coconut on a hard surface.
- Bone crunch - chopping celery or pasta bundles in front of a microphone.
- Steps in the snow - squeezing a plastic bag filled with starch.
- The sounds of fists hitting the flesh during a fight - a tap on the carcass of an animal or a watermelon.
- Clash of equipment - hitting metal boxes filled with tools.
Who voices the films in Russia?
In preparation for showing foreign films in domestic cinemas, they resort to the dubbing method. The method is similar to the subsequent scoring. The difference is the need to translate replicas and stack the Russian text in accordance with the mimic movements of the actors. During duplication, the original phonogram is completely erased, after which it is replaced by a new speech and noise accompaniment.
And who is voicing the films in Russian? In the preparation of films intended for display on wide screens, professional actors most often take part, who create an off-screen translation that requires a coincidence of articulation. As for the tapes produced on disks and other physical media, films voiced by Goblin (Dmitry Puchkov) or other experienced amateur dubbing masters are in demand here. In the latter case, speech is often superimposed on top of the original sound, the volume of which is somewhat muffled.
Voice acting in animated films
When creating animations, they resort to pre-recording sound. In other words, the speech of the drawn characters is prepared before their images appear. The duration of phrases and effects is recorded in special exposure sheets after preliminary measurements. All this allows the multipliers to calculate the required number of drawings, which will be laid out in frames.
Finally
So we found out how the films are voiced. At one time, the advent of technology gave a significant impetus to the development of cinema and made this type of art extremely popular in society. By the way, it was thanks to the creation of sound cinema that new, original principles of shooting arose, including widescreen and panoramic.