WEBVTT - Movie Making: Sound on Film 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.880 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:17.760 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.400 Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Polette and 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:22.680 I'm an editor at how stuff works dot Com. Sitting 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:26.360 across from me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan. I 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:32.479 can't stand them. That actually ties into our topic today, 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.080 well as it usually does. Yeah, often sometimes I don't 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.040 have time and I just pick a quote at random, 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:40.640 But this time that actually has to do with what 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.159 we're going to talk about today. It's going back to 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.279 our movie making series, which we we've kind of you know, 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:48.319 we slacked off on for a while. But we've got 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:50.280 a lot of topics that we cover here at tech Stuff, 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.840 not just movie making. So we decided we revisit the 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.840 whole movie making series and look at how they put 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:02.840 sound on film. Right. Yeah, before before any of this happened, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.400 if we would introduce that podcast, it would have sounded 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:09.000 like So it's a good thing that we are recording 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:11.840 a podcast. It's it's nice that we have a way 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.479 of plate of of keeping sound in some sort of 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:20.600 fashion where we can replay it at a later date. Actually, um, 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.080 I was I was looking back in preparation for this podcast. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.119 I was looking back at one of my movie books 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:30.040 from one of my classes in college. Uh, that would 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:35.200 be Understanding Movies by Lewis Giannetti, a very old version. 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.200 This book has come out in many, many incarnations. Now 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:42.240 they're in the double digits. But you know an interesting point. 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.000 Movies have always had sound. It's just that they didn't 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.720 always have sound on film. I mean the earliest movies 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.360 were just visuals, and they would hire someone to play 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.200 along with it in in the uh, in the theater, 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:57.880 in a lot of cases, on an organ. I mean 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.560 you see that. I think back to us the Three Amigos. Actually, right, 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:06.040 it's either an organ or it's an old clanky honky 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.760 tonk piano. And uh and yeah, that's that's sort of 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.680 the general image we have those early films. But some 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.400 of them, like some of the really big movie houses, 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.600 would have a full orchestra player and uh and and 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.480 in fact, that actually played a large part in why 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.880 there's sound on film, or why sound on film arrived 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.680 when it did. Um. In some places, of course, they 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.480 couldn't have a full orchestra. They just didn't have the 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:33.520 space for it, or they didn't have the people, and 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.640 you might have just a single musician playing on guitar 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.919 along with the film, in order to provide a soundscape 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:45.240 that goes along with the things that the audience are seeing. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:45.440 --> 0:02:48.840 and um, you know, at the time, of course, dialogue 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.680 was you'd see them mouthing words, but you wouldn't hear 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.399 the actors actually speak. You, you know, see the important 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.720 stuff on cards. That the more occasionally you would have 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.600 a narrator. Yeah, once in a while you would have 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:06.760 someone who would provide narration and provide dialogue, but they'd 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.600 be doing it live on stage while you're watching the film. Uh. 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.880 But yeah. Eventually, the silent films got to a point 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.600 where the art of the silent film was so well 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:19.680 developed that if you were a really good silent filmmaker, 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.720 you could keep those little cards to a minimum because 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.520 you were able to express everything you needed to in 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.680 the scenes just through the visuals, and so you would 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.280 have them pop up every now and then to provide 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:37.200 important information, like if a character suddenly reveals a secret, well, clearly, 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:42.360 it's hard to reveal a secret without any dialogue and 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.640 so that might be important, but for other scenes where 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.480 you see two people having a loving conversation with one 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:50.120 another or a fight, you might not have a card 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.920 pop up at all, because really they just want to 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.880 get across that emotion that moment. There wasn't the words 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:01.320 were not important. And uh even apparently some of the 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:05.800 early filmmakers who were around at the time of the 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:10.640 transition to sound on film uh actually didn't want to 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.840 do it. They said that the idea of synchronous sound 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.920 with the film would actually hamper their ability to edit 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:18.720 the film the way they wanted it to. That it 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:21.760 wouldn't that it might actually slow them down, or or 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:24.479 they would be anchored to the soundtrack of the film, 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:26.880 and they didn't want to be constrained. One one notable 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.400 was the Russian filmmaker Eisenstein. Sergeie Eisenstein said, you know, 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.800 I remember watching Battleship p Tempkin in my in the 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.720 aforementioned movie class, and yeah, I can't imagine actually having 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:41.800 sound in some pieces of that because of the montages 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:45.440 he put together. But uh, other movie makers realized that 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.840 they could use the actual actors voices and you could 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:53.080 hear uh dialogue without having to you know, do stage 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:56.560 whispers as you might see on you know, in a play. Uh, 0:04:56.600 --> 0:04:58.760 and you could you could add the subtleties of actual 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.200 verbal lang wage And there are things that you do, 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:04.800 those things you couldn't do with a narrator or with 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.800 the Q cards. That's true. And UH. The idea of 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.640 actually putting sound to film goes all the way back 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:15.240 to the earliest days of film itself, because Edison struggled 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:20.599 with ways of creating a sound and film device that 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:25.159 would let you to watch moving pictures and hear prerecorded 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.440 sound at the same time. He worked on that starting 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.360 in the mid eighteen eighties. Yeah, so this is nineteenth 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:35.400 century technology. Yeah, and so by he came up with 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:40.000 a Kineta phone. Now, the Kineta phone combined two earlier 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.320 UH inventions, the Kineta scope, which if you've ever seen 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.800 one of those, it's it's the circular device that has 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.039 slits cut in it, and it has a series of 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.719 images on the inside. And when you spend the device 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:54.680 and you look through the slits, you see those different 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:59.280 images appearing before your eyes in a very a quick succession, 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.600 and it provides the the illusion of animation, illusion illusion 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.760 and a Kineto phone or the connect. The phone part 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.440 was from the phonograph. Of course, we all probably know 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.919 what a phonograph is. You know, records sound on a 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.520 cylinder or a disk, and then it uses a stylist 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:21.000 to create vibrations which are then uh turned into sound 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:25.880 waves through some sort of amplifier, yes, often just a horn. Well, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.640 he created the Kineta phone, which combined these two things. 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.719 You had to use rubber ear tubes to listen to 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.520 the sound. Yeah, you don't want to hit the Kineta 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:37.799 phone at the end of a hard day's work because 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.239 who knows who's been there before you, Yeah, just saying, 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:48.400 And they were the picture and the sound were somewhat synchronized. 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.760 They used a belt system to link the two so 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:56.719 that as the Kineta scope turned, the phonograph as turned 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.599 as well. It wasn't perfect, obviously, It was one of 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:05.000 those early kind of prototype sort of almost a curiosity 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:12.400 really that presaged the whole sound on film movement. What's 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:17.160 interesting is that we have one of these films we do. 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.480 One of them exists that we can actually people can 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.040 go and look at if they want to. Um. It's 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:27.840 called the Dixon Experimental Sound Film, and it was filmed 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:32.720 sometime around what's it about. It's about seventeen seconds long. 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:39.120 It's uh, it's the fellow Dixon actually um he was 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:45.680 uh playing a violin a fiddle in front of aum 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:50.600 recording phonograph. And there's two men, um, two of Edison's 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:55.800 lab assistants who are dancing to the music that Dixon's 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.680 playing on the fiddle. And um. What's interesting is that 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:05.480 the film and the phonograph were separated the cylinder, So 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.920 you had the film and the cylinder existing in two 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.920 different places. The film was with the Library of Congress. 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.400 The cylinder was with the National Park Service because it 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:21.640 was part of the Right Museum. So you've got and 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:23.240 and for a long time, no one knew that these 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.000 two things were actually connected, that they were a part 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.800 of the same event. And then it was discovered that 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.439 that was indeed the case. And uh and so ah, 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.360 a fellow by Walter Merch was given the task to 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:42.520 resynchronize these two different medium right, and so he took 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:46.880 the film, which was seventeen seconds long, he took the cylinder, 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.400 which had a recording that was about two minutes long, 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:51.640 and he had to find out where they seek up 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:54.400 and so You can actually see that on YouTube now 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:56.520 if you go to YouTube and you search for Dixon 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:02.920 Experimental Sound Film, it's on their Grant's a guy playing 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:04.800 a fiddle and two other guys dancing with each other. 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:09.840 It's but it's interesting. It's the very first uh surviving 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.679 sound on film experiment that we can see. And granted, now, 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.720 technically the sound is not on the film itself, right, 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:21.280 there are two different devices that coexist. And that was 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.680 kind of the case for the earliest sound on film, 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.920 uh the or the earliest films that incorporate sound in 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.800 the pre record sound The first the first one really 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:38.000 was Don Juan Um or Don Juan for our friends 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.160 over in the UK. Yes, but that one is a 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:45.000 Warner Brothers film, and it was using something called the 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:50.280 vita phone. Yes, which remarkably enough, is not a phone 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.319 packed with all the nutrients that you need for the day. 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.480 I was very disappointed to learn that you can have 0:09:55.520 --> 0:10:00.440 a vitaphone and still get scurvy. Yes you can. I 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.840 like that, so at any rate, Yes, that's a vitamin 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:08.160 C joke. YEA. The vitaphone was again, it was a 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.160 phonograph system and it was hooked up to a projector 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.480 with a with a Pulley system of Pulley in belt 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:18.079 system and it would synchronize the music with with whatever 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.280 was being projected on screen. Now, don Juan, this was 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.959 just music. It was not dialogue. Yeah. And it was 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.120 a wax record too, was it not? I believe so, 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:28.559 yes it was. It was a wax record for the 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.320 earliest one. So they really did put it down on wax, 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.280 Yes they did. Yes, it's that was That's not just 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:38.800 a saying, um. And so sound on disc not sound 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.360 on film. And the disc was a thirty three and 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:46.160 a third RPM disc. It was developed by Bell Telephone 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:51.439 Laboratories and Western Electric and it actually used several discs 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:53.679 clearly because you can't you know that the disc does 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.160 not have enough space on it to record an entire 0:10:56.280 --> 0:11:00.400 film's worth of soundtrack. And I understand typically to the 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.960 sound for sound on disc films was recorded after the fact. Yeah, 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.160 more than anything else. It wasn't it was SYNCD up, 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:08.959 I guess to the to the movie as it was, 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.400 So it wasn't done simultaneous right well, and in this 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:13.839 case again it was it was a soundtrack. It was 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.920 the music. It wasn't dialogue. So you could record it 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.319 anytime you wanted, well, right, right, But as as the 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.679 as they continued to make sound on disc because the 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.480 jazz singer uh you know the year after uh Don 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:31.600 Juan slashed you and came out. Um yes, I remember 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.200 that from my college English classes as well. Um, yeah, 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:37.679 that it was. It was out and it had it 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:42.120 had additional material, including sound effects and dialogue, if I'm 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.680 not mistaken. There was some resistance to putting sound on film. Early. 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.600 Part of it was that the silent film art had 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.240 really progressed to a point where people felt comfortable with it. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.800 As you pointed out, the editing issue was there. Um, 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.559 some people just thought that audiences wouldn't really care for 0:11:57.679 --> 0:11:59.880 sound on film. There was also a real problem of 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.880 how how do you create the right volume so that 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.160 everyone in the theater can hear this sound because the 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:09.520 speakers weren't great this early on. It's my opinion that 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.160 they are still wrestling with how much volume is enough 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.200 of a well, now, it's the other way around, right, 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:18.840 It's it's at what point do we start dialing it back? 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.880 When audiences complained that they can no longer hear anything 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.920 else once the movie's over, I'm looking at you, Michael 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:30.160 Bay and uh the but yeah, the the earliest, the 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:36.199 reason why Don Juan was even attempted was that you 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:42.079 had the Warner brothers, uh see a demonstration of this system, 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:47.199 and um, Sam Warner was totally buying into it, right. 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:51.000 Jack Warner was not as impressed until Jack Warner saw 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:55.160 one film that included an orchestra playing and it played 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.079 the music as well, and then he thought, this is 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:00.160 what we should use this for, not for dial dog, 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.120 but just for the music, because there are so many 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.080 movie theaters out there that don't have a full orchestra, 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.040 and now they can benefit from that. This is brilliant. Well, 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.040 then you had the Jazz Singer come out, which was 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.360 just going to be singing right. There was not any 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.480 dialogue in that except Al Jolson decided to add lib 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.679 a little and they kept it in the film and 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:25.079 it ended up being a big commercial success. So then 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:30.360 a little bit later in you had another sound film 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:34.960 come out, Short film, very short film, famous one cartoon. 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.920 It was a certain a certain mouse made appearance in it. 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:43.840 You know what I'm getting at, right, Steamboat Willie. Yeah, 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.360 Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie, and uh, the mouse sure 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.280 can drive a riverboat, pilot a riverboat. I should say 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.920 it was the first film that really truly synchronized sound 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.600 two images and made it part of a story. Yeah, 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.480 so from there there was no turning back. Uh. But 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.000 the vital phone system really limited you quite a bit. 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.839 For one thing, it had two points of failure, right, 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.040 because I mean if the Vito phone breaks, then suddenly 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:20.560 you've got no sound whatsoever. Right, So how do you 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.960 simplify the system so you no longer have two devices 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:29.360 to depend upon? M m. Let's see, you could put 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:33.440 this sound on the film brilliant? But how do you 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:38.440 do that? I mean because superglue? Yeah, nail that note 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.400 to the film buster. Um no, Actually it was really 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:49.320 an ingenious design. Yes, it's creating an optical uh track 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.680 on the film that doesn't show up on the screen, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.640 but it allows light to pass through it, and depending 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.280 on how much light passes through, that's what Jenn rates 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.920 the sound you hear. There are actually photo cells that 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.680 receive light and then depending upon how much light they 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.880 do or do not receive, they send electric current to 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.600 another device which will create the actual sound. So in 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.280 a way, you're looking at the physical you're like, you're 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.840 really an optical representation of what sound is. Right, You've 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.280 re recorded the sound, you print it on the film 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:28.240 so that it only allows specific amounts of light through. 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.520 It gets matched up to the two frames of the 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.600 film so that everything is synchronized because it's all in 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.080 one place. You've got the images on the film and 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:39.000 you've got the sound on the film, usually to the 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.800 right of the images. So if you were looking at 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:44.720 a strip of film, you would see the images in 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.200 in the middle of it, and just on the very 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:49.400 far right edge of the image you would see this 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:53.480 weird line or sometimes two lines, and that was the 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.600 optical track for the soundtrack. Yes, and you use an 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.360 audio pickup or an audio a reader to to see that. 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.920 And uh, from from our article on on movie sound, 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.680 I did read that, Uh, you the analog pickups are 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:15.760 often blow the lens while the digital pickups are above it. Right, Yeah, 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:17.880 because of course now we do have digital sound. In 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.000 the earliest days it was all absolutely and in fact 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:25.240 most well we'll get into this, but most most films, 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.520 even the ones that have digital sounds, still have the 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:29.800 analog track on it. And we'll explain why when we 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.480 get to that point. Yeah, there's there's usually an exciter 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:38.040 lamp inside the the actual not that kind, but it's 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:42.000 a lamp that provides a particularly bright and pinpointed light 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:46.160 through the the optical tracks. So it's specific for that 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.680 within a projector. And um, yeah, it goes all the 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.320 way through the pre amplifier, the pre amplifier, since the 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:57.920 amplifier which creates you know, increases the the What Chris 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:00.560 is looking at me and laughing, I'm just wishing I 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:04.560 hadn't done that. Oh the yes, the excited part. Yes, 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.320 that's okay. I'm sure that I'll get plenty of mail 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.159 about it, don't you worry. Alright anyway, So yeah, the 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:12.679 pre ampsence sends the signals to the amplifier, which then 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.000 sends the signal to the speakers, and then you get sound. 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:20.080 And uh, there were some a lot of movies early 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.399 on in the in the forties started using this system, 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.040 not the digital as I said before, just the endim 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:30.840 um and one in particular really went overboard. Yes, Fantasia. 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.920 Once again, we go back to Disney Fantasia. If you're 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:38.040 not familiar with Fantasia, it's a film that presents several 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:44.080 different classical music pieces set to animation done by Disney. Uh. 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.480 Some of the animation, actually, much of the animation is 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.600 completely original. It doesn't have any or it doesn't rely 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.080 upon their their stock characters. There's a couple of pieces 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:57.640 that do, depending on which version of Fantasia you see. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:02.480 And um, yeah, I'm Disney liked to experiment with new technologies. 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.199 He was. He was very into pushing the envelope. And uh, 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.680 I mean even when they the studio released snow White, 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.120 a lot of people told him it couldn't be done, 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:16.880 that creating a creating an animated feature that long would 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.840 be very difficult, it wouldn't go over well with the audience. 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.040 And I think every time people told him, you know, 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.280 it couldn't be done or he was crazy to try it, 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.080 he I think it just pushed him more to try 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:31.800 to develop new technologies. So Fantasia was certainly an ambitious project. 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:36.960 Ambitious project, I'm sure it was. Um the it it 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.480 had multiple tracks of sound, so it wasn't just mono 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.520 sound coming from behind the screen. That was the Other 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.879 thing is that early early movies with sound, they had 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.320 the speakers were actually mounted just behind the screen. That 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.720 was it. And it was just blasting the sound through 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:55.439 the screen at the audience. Fantasia was more sophist, kid. 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.680 It was using a fantas sound is what they called it, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.800 and not there's no big surprise there. We mentioned that 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.359 on our Surround Sound podcast a little bit. And they 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:09.520 used actually used four mono optical soundtracks. And the problem 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.720 here with four mono optical soundtracks is that's too many 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:18.680 to fit on the actual film of the images that 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:20.920 you're watching on the screen. If you were to fit 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.840 four optical tracks side by side, it would creep into 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.000 the frame of the movie and you would see that 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.840 on the right side. Would be really weird, right, Yeah, 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.800 there there's a physical limitation to the amount of space 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:35.440 available on the celluloid. In this case, you would have 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:40.800 to otherwise create new projectors that could handle much wider film, 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.440 and that's a little expensive. Yeah, this was already a 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.560 little expensive. But what they ended up doing was instead 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.440 of having the optical tracks appear on the same film 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:57.600 as the actual movie, they had two separate reels of film. Really, yes, 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.400 one reel of film had the images and the other 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.200 reel of film had the optical tracks on. So you 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.359 had to have two projectors to show this movie the 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:09.280 way that Disney intended it to be screened. The second 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.240 projector would just be handling the soundtrack, which is crazy 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:14.200 to me, but each of those tracks would be sent 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.520 to specific groups of speakers, and that way you could 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.080 get the the sensation that you're sitting in the middle 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:23.040 of an orchestra, right, which is really what they were 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.680 going for there. They wanted to They wanted to sort 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:27.800 of transport you as if you were actually sitting in 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.680 a symphony hall, not watching a movie screen. This was 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.880 a very manual way of doing it because they would 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.359 fade the sound in one speaker and turn it up 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:43.080 in the other two produce that audio illusion of depth. 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.399 So yeah, I mean people who are using the more 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:48.560 modern tools where you can play with different tracks and 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.240 add all kinds of different tracks in their computers, and 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:54.679 this was this is a more hands on approach, if 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.000 you will. So, do you know how many of these 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:02.280 fantas sound systems actually got sold? No, but I'll take 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.159 a guess. I want to say four you are twice 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.679 as optimistic or four. Yeah. One was sold to New 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.439 York's Broadway Theater and the other one to Carthe Circle 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.800 theater in Los Angeles, and you bet the one in 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:19.240 n l A. But I thought they were five thousand 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.560 dollars to install this thing. That's only slightly expensive. Keeping 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:27.600 in mind this is that's incredibly expensive, and it needed 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.800 fifty four speakers in the in the audience in order 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.040 to do this properly. So yeah, it's obviously this is 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:37.280 not the kind of sound system that's gonna work for 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:41.040 every theater, clearly and not, and it's not necessary for 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:45.119 most movies. So really, the fantas sound was one of 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.400 those things where it really kind of showed you where 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:51.040 movie sound could could go to, but it wasn't practical 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:57.560 for moving forward, so most most of the film studios 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:01.280 stuck with the optical tracks. Um. And that was pretty 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:05.399 much the case until sometime in the fifties when they 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:09.920 started to experiment with a new kind of soundtrack on film, 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:15.280 which was magnetic. Yes, now that magnetic, Uh you know, 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:18.280 I would assume, based on on what I know of 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:21.520 these things that uh, we're talking the same type of 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:25.040 technology that you would see in say a floppy disk 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:29.800 or cassette tape exactly. So uh, yeah, that that was 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.280 certainly an innovation, but you know, they and it it 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:39.360 did have better sound quality. Yeah, supposedly the magnetic approach 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.840 was superior to the optical tracks at the time, uh, 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:46.280 in sound quality if you leged to see the movie early, 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:50.440 because unfortunately, one of the by products was that the 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:54.640 magnetic tape or the magnetic coding rather, would wear down 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:57.880 over time, and of course as you showed the film, 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:00.760 it would wear down faster. And so if you were 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:03.280 to catch a movie three or four days after it 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:05.840 had started playing in a movie house, especially if it 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:08.680 had a lot of shows during the day, the sound 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:15.119 quality would be it would be noticeably less pristine, right, 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:18.040 it would not be pristine compared to if you had 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:20.680 seen it the first time. They screamed the film. So 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:24.159 that's not the case with the optical tracks. I mean, 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:25.959 as long as the films in good shape, the optical 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:30.040 tracks are just fine. And uh, there are most of 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:32.000 the movies that were made with this magnetic or some 0:23:32.160 --> 0:23:34.359 of them anyway, were they were made with this magnetic approach, 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.159 did not have the optical tracks as a failsafe. Some 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:41.160 did because people were saying, hey, you know what if 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:44.200 the system fails for this, do we have a backup plan? 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:46.320 And the idea is, well, we already know how to 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:49.240 do the optical track, let's do that too, And that 0:23:49.400 --> 0:23:52.040 ended up being the rule of thumb for most audio 0:23:52.119 --> 0:23:54.919