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Speaker 1: from how Stuff works dot com where smart Happens. I
Speaker 1: am Marshall Brain with today's question, how does a movie
Speaker 1: clapperboard work? If you have a video camcorder, then you're
Speaker 1: used to having video and sound recorded at the same time.
Speaker 1: The sound in the video are always synchronized because they're
Speaker 1: recorded together in one place. When filming a movie, the
Speaker 1: pictures and sounds are usually recorded separately. The picture is
Speaker 1: recorded onto film or some kind of digital device ACE
Speaker 1: and the sound gets recorded on tape or more recently,
Speaker 1: into flash memory. Because they're recorded on two different devices,
Speaker 1: you need a way to synchronize them. The clapper board,
Speaker 1: that black and white board you see all the time
Speaker 1: when people are making movies, is the traditional way to
Speaker 1: handle the synchronization. The bottom of the clapper board is
Speaker 1: normally a slate of some sort on which you can
Speaker 1: write the scene and take number. This information helps identify
Speaker 1: the shot during editing. Once the tape recorder and the
Speaker 1: camera are rolling, the clapperboard operator places the clapperboard in
Speaker 1: front of the camera so the camera can see it,
Speaker 1: reads the scene, and take information so the tape recorder
Speaker 1: can hear it, and then claps the clapper. During editing,
Speaker 1: it's very easy to synchronize the visual of the clapper
Speaker 1: clapping down with the clap sound it makes on the tape.
Speaker 1: The digital slate is the more modern form of the
Speaker 1: clapper board. The tape recorder, whatever it's made out of,
Speaker 1: contains a time code generator. The timecode is recorded continuously
Speaker 1: on a special track on the tape or in flash memory,
Speaker 1: and the timecode is also displayed continuously on a large
Speaker 1: led display on the digital slate. By showing the digital
Speaker 1: slate to the camera before the action starts, the editor
Speaker 1: knows exactly what the tapes time code is and could
Speaker 1: synchronize it with the film. Sometimes a digital slate also
Speaker 1: contains a clapper, but generally it's not needed. The digital
Speaker 1: slate normally has a slate area because identifying each shot
Speaker 1: is still extremely important during editing. Do you have any
Speaker 1: ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send
Speaker 1: me an email at podcast at how stuff works dot com.
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