Synchronized shooting

In cinema and on television, it is customary to distinguish between two main methods of sound recording: simultaneous and separate. In the first method, the combined phonogram is recorded on a common medium with an image. This technology has become widespread in video recording and filming with a digital movie camera . When recording separately, the image and sound are recorded on different media synchronized with each other. The first method is technologically simpler, but involves difficulties in the separate installation of the phonogram and sound, which is necessary in professional cinema and on television. Separate recording allows you to mount sound and image independently of each other, but requires careful synchronization of two media, coupled with technological limitations.

Sound cinema technologies appeared only in the late 1920s and, with rare exceptions, are based on separate recording to date. In some cases, simultaneous recording of sound on a medium common to the image was used. Based on separate and simultaneous recording in a movie, four main methods of synchronous shooting are known:

• Recording optical phonograms on a separate film, moving at the same speed as the film in a film camera . This method was basic until the widespread use of magnetic sound recording in the 1950s ^{[4] [5]} . The negatives of the image and phonograms obtained after the manifestation are subsequently used for printing combined photocopies .
• The optical method of recording on the same film on which the image is taken. This method of shooting with a “mixed-camera” ( Sound on Film, SOF ) was used to a limited extent due to various characteristics of the film required for recording sound and image, and the impossibility of their separate editing ^[6] . With the spread of magnetic recording, mixed cameras received a new sound unit that records sound on a magnetic track deposited on film ^[7] . Both technologies were used in documentary films and when shooting news television spots on a 16-mm film with one-sided perforation, but were not used in artistic cinema. Amateur narrow-film cinema cameras with sound recording on a magnetic film track were produced abroad.
• Magnetic recording on a separate tape recorder . In the first decades after the advent of magnetic recording in the film industry , perforated 16 or 35 mm continuous irrigation tape was used ^{[8] [* 1]} . It was recorded using the same technology as optical: synchronization with a film was carried out using a common AC source of synchronous motors , since the same speed was chosen for the magnetic tape as for the film - 456 mm / s ^{[9] [10]} . The use of gear drums in tape recorders was considered mandatory for accurate synchronization, since it eliminated slippage of the tape. Subsequently, during the initial recording, they were abandoned in favor of the pilot tone (“magnetic perforation”), recorded on a narrow magnetic tape with a width of 6.25 mm along with sound. The most common device for this recording method for several decades remained Nagra tape recorders . The original phonogram was later copied onto a perforated magnetic tape, which was more convenient for editing ^{[11] [12] [13]} . The pilot tone signal recorded on a narrow tape was used to force synchronization when copying to a new medium ^[14] . A further development of this technology was the use of quartz stabilization drives in cameras and tape recorders that provide high accuracy of synchronization without electrical connection between devices ^[8] . The magnetic synchronous phonogram obtained by such methods after installation was converted into optical and was also used for printing combined film copies.
• Currently, synchronous sound recording is immediately carried out by digital methods , which allows to obtain high - quality multi - channel phonograms suitable for subsequent transcoding into one of the standards of analog and digital optical phonograms . Recording takes place on solid-state drives or on the hard disk of a recorder or laptop ^[15] ;

When recording on different media, special measures are taken for the subsequent synchronization of the received phonograms during editing and dubbing . Initially, a numbering clapper was used for this. Currently, the address-time code SMPTE and the bar code of the film footage numbers are used for synchronization ^[16] . Most modern filming machines allow you to imprint the time code on the film, giving you the additional ability to synchronize with the phonogram.

The resulting synchronous phonogram can be both final and draft . Finishing phonogram is considered to be the main type of synchronous phonogram in art cinema , since it can be used in the phonogram of a finished film without additional dubbing by actors in the studio ^[17] . The draft phonogram requires further processing and most often serves for actors only as the basis for re-sounding, but is not used in the film.

The complexity and cumbersomeness of synchronous recording equipment of the first decades of sound cinema left a serious imprint on the technology of synchronous shooting. The bulkiness of the recording equipment forced to conduct the main work in the pavilion , practically excluding full-scale shooting. The proliferation of magnetic recording in the late 1940s simplified the technology by eliminating the laboratory processing of negative phonograms , but the equipment did not become more compact due to synchronization difficulties. Most scenes with actor’s dialogues could be shot only in the pavilion in the scenery due to the cumbersomeness of synchronous cameras and recording equipment powered by a common AC source . The result was a ubiquitous imitation of most natural scenes using rear-projection methods or a wandering mask in the scenery of a film studio. Scenes with dialogs of actors riding in a car , a train compartment or flying on an airplane were shot in the pavilion against a previously shot background. If necessary, synchronous shooting on nature, which was carefully avoided until the early 1960s , used recording equipment transported in specially equipped cars or buses - cars with an autonomous AC source to power the drives of film-making and sound-recording devices. General , and often average plans in kind were shot in a silent way, followed by speech and noise in the studio. Only the appearance of portable tape recorders with an unperforated magnetic tape and recording a pilot tone signal saved the cinema from the need for studio synchronous shooting ^[12] .

A small number of mixed cameras were used only for documentary filming and allowed to obtain a phonogram of extremely low quality. In the USSR , single types of filming machines were produced that made it possible to record a photographic phonogram on a single film with the image: Convas-sound (1941), Era 2KOS (1964) and prototypes of the Rodina camera KSX-sound (1953) ^{[18] [19]} . American narrow-film mixed-cameras Auricon, recording optical phonograms on a 16-mm film at the same time as the image, have been used by foreign television companies since the early 1950s ^[7] . In addition to poor quality, another important drawback of such a phonogram was the impossibility of installing it separately with the image. Full-fledged technology for synchronous filming in nature appeared only in the mid -1970s , with the release of the latest filming machines, which had a low noise level with a relatively small mass, and suitable for shooting not only from a tripod , but also from the shoulder and even from the hands, as well as in motion ^[20] . The first cameras of this type were the German Arriflex 35 BL and the American Panaflex. The quartz stabilization of the camera and tape recorder drives, as well as the possibility of synchronization by the time code, in the end saved the pilot tone wires and special power sources.

An additional complication in the technology of synchronous filming was brought about by the appearance of cinematic systems with multi-channel magnetic phonograms. To obtain the surround sound of the original phonogram, several microphones were initially placed on the set, fixing the localization of sound when the actors moved in front of the camera. In the USSR, this method was used as a basic technology until 1968, and in Hollywood it was abandoned 10 years earlier. The multi-channel primary recording was replaced by the traditional single-channel recording, followed by the distribution of voices and noise over different channels using the studio “panoramic” mixer during dubbing ^[21] .

Usually, synchronous shooting begins with the “Silence!” Command, which means the beginning of recording, when conversations and extraneous noises unrelated to the content of the frame should be stopped. In the shooting pavilion at this moment, the lights “Quiet! Shooting! ”, Sometimes duplicated by a sound signal ^[22] . The subsequent command “Attention! Get ready! ”Serves as a warning to actors and technicians. Next, the command “Motor!” Is given, which serves as a signal to start the drives of film-making and recording equipment ^[22] .

After this command, the time interval necessary to accelerate the mechanisms and start their synchronous operation, marked by the sound signals of the equipment ^{[23], is given} . After that, synchronous marks are made on the film and sound medium using special marking devices or a clapper-numbering device. In the latter case, the assistant director makes a cracker in front of the camera lens and pronounces aloud the data recorded on the board. After the cracker fires, it is taken out of the frame and the “Start!” Command sounds, which indicates the beginning of the actors , extras and the actual beginning of the editing frame ^[22] . A click from the clapperboard and its image on the corresponding frame are the main marks used in the future when synchronizing films with sound and the image on the sound editing table . The pavilions for simultaneous filming are equipped with soundproofing materials and are designed taking into account the requirements of architectural acoustics .

The technological complexity of synchronous filming led to the emergence of two different streams, one of which is based on the fundamental refusal to record the final phonogram directly on the set ^[24] . This technology allows you to shoot any scene with mobile non-synchronous movie cameras in the presence of extraneous noise. Filmmakers from the opposite camp prefer synchronized filming for most scenes with actor dialogs. For example, almost all the dialogues of the film “ Quiet Don ” at the request of Sergei Gerasimov were shot simultaneously, despite the imperfection of the equipment of those years ^[25] . The synchronization of sound and articulation is especially important on large and medium plans . Scenes in which there are no replicas of the actors, or general plans, are most often filmed in a silent way without recording a synchronous phonogram. This speeds up the process and significantly reduces the cost of film production. Most scenes of documentary films are also shot in a silent way, and synchronous shooting is used in exceptional cases, if the actors speak directly in the frame. In popular science films , synchronous episodes are also sometimes found, however, in many cases in documentary and popular science films, the synchronous phonogram is significantly processed due to the complexity of sound recording in nature.

The complexity of the technology for manufacturing an optical phonogram excludes its use in amateur conditions. In addition, most amateur filming equipment is unsuitable for synchronous shooting due to the unacceptably high noise level and instability of the filming frequency , making synchronization impossible. High-quality sound recording requires a separate sound engineer who has the skills to correctly install microphones and control sound recording equipment.

In 1960, Fairchild launched the Cinephonic 8 movie camera, capable of recording sound onto magnetic tracks of a 2 × 8 film ^{[26] [27] [28]} . In 1972, Bell-Howell ( Bell & Howell ) released a series of movie cameras “Filmosound” ( Eng. Filmosound ) format “8 Super”. A special tape recorder was connected to the camera with a pilot-tone cable, which was generated by the camera’s electric drive and recorded on a separate track of the compact cassette . During playback, the recorded signal controlled the motion of the movie projector , providing synchronization. Later amateur cameras appeared that recorded sound on the magnetic track of the “8 Super” film in the “Kodak K40” Instamatic cassette ^[29] .

Despite the lack of similar Soviet equipment, film enthusiasts nevertheless made attempts at synchronous shooting with sound recording on a tape recorder. For subsequent playback, electromechanical set-top boxes-synchronizers, for example, SEL-1, were produced ^[28] . There were systems with rigid mechanical coupling of the movie projector and tape recorder drives with a common electric motor ^[30] . This technology made it possible to watch 8-mm and 16-mm amateur films with a synchronous phonogram recorded on a tape recorder. More reliable synchronization could be obtained by shooting on a 16-mm film with one-sided perforation and a magnetic track, and then overwriting the phonogram recorded on it with a tape recorder. However, this required refinement of film projectors, equipped as standard with a reproducing head only.

Amateur filming equipment recording sound on a magnetic track was not produced in the USSR, while professional equipment was not affordable even for public associations of film enthusiasts. Film with a magnetic track was almost never available for sale, and film enthusiasts glued a magnetic tape onto a film with one-sided perforation on their own ^[31] . These circumstances became decisive after the advent of household video cameras , which made it easy to record a synchronous phonogram. Since the mid-1990s, domestic video recording in the CIS countries has completely replaced amateur cinema.

• Scoring
• Synchronous

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