How to voice movies: features, history and interesting facts

Today we will talk about how to voice films. When did the sound film appear? What technologies are used here? What is required to create high-quality sound? About this and not only further in the material.

A short excursion into the history

At the time of the invention of cinematography, mankind was already available sound recording technology. To do this, we used a device called a phonograph. The first attempts to unite the moving pictures on the screen with the sound were undertaken by the inventor Thomas Edison in 1894. It was he who co-authored with his assistant, William Dickson, created the first film, in which the phrase "Hello, Mr. Edison, I hope you are satisfied with this film?" However, the invention did not find its use, because at that time it was extremely difficult to create a quality record , Exactly synchronizing it with the video.

The principle, similar to Edison, was tried to translate into reality the French producer Leon Gomon. In 1900 he managed to synchronize the phonograph with the so-called Lumiere apparatus, which was used for storyboarding. The invention also remained a technical curiosity, and sound cinema was not destined to appear for several decades.

The first soundtrack

Until the end of the 30s of the last century all the films were "dumb". The viewers were offered only an image that was accompanied by music. Later, after all, a system was invented capable of more or less qualitatively synchronizing sounds with the video sequence. However, successful film studios met innovation with extreme caution. The reason was the reluctance of bosses of profitable companies to spend additional money on the introduction of sound in their tapes.

Opponents of the creation of sound cinema were also the famous actors. In particular, the illustrious comedian Charlie Chaplin spoke of the introduction of technology in the production of films as a solution that "kills" the artistic expressiveness of the acting and the desire for creative experiments. Nevertheless, the sound still opened the possibility for creating better narrative stories.

"Silent" cinema continued to enjoy success at the widest audience until 1927, when the screens went out the first ever sound film. The painting, entitled "Jazz Singer", was accompanied not only by songs, but also had meaningful dialogues that corresponded to the mimicry of the actors. Despite the fact that there were only a few remarks in the film, the tape caused a real sensation in the society and gave a good start to the development of sound cinema.

Sound recording technology

How do they sound films? At the dawn of the formation of cinematography with the content of dialogues, the sound remained phonographic. In other words, the film had an opaque area where the sound track was being applied. The width of the latter was changed based on sound vibrations.

A better "magnetic" sound appeared in the 50's. The essence of the technology was to create a thin strip of metal oxide on the film, the sound from which was read by the action of the magnetic head, like a tape recorder. This opened up the possibility 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 sound.

Methods of scoring movies

And now about how to record voice, voice-over films. Here you can apply the method of preliminary or subsequent overlay of the audio sequence on the video. The first method involves the preparation of phonograms even before the beginning of the shooting process. Thus, subsequently, the performers of roles act according to the finished sound accompaniment, which is reproduced on the site. The method was widespread in the period of the formation of sound cinema. Currently, it is used, mainly when shooting dance and music scenes, the creation of television performances.

As for the way of the subsequent scoring, here, as one can guess from the definition itself, they resort to the creation of phonograms after the completion of work on the film. Recording with this approach takes place in the 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 sound, one can not help but dwell on where the effects of explosions come from, wind blows, birds singing, and other things. It would seem that it is cheaper to create them with the help of digital equipment. But, strangely enough, even the best modern synthesizers are capable of reproducing only hack-work. Therefore, the creators of the cinema do not spare money to organize high-quality full-scale sound recording. To get the sound of the surf, editors have to go to the coast. To record the sounds of the explosion, specialists ignite dynamite pieces in the open field. And this applies to almost all the effects used in modern cinema.

In the arsenal of "noise" there is a wide range of standard methods that make it possible to create some difficult sounds. We will not list the full list of available techniques. We note only a few of them:

• The sound of horses' hoofs - strikes halves of coconut on a hard surface.
• A crunch of bones - grinding before a microphone bunches of celery or pasta.
• Steps in the snow - squeezing a plastic bag filled with starch.
• The sounds of kicking fists against the flesh during a fight - a knock on the carcass of an animal or a watermelon.
• The collision of technology - blows on metal boxes filled with tools.

Who voices films in Russia?

When preparing to show foreign films in domestic cinemas, they resort to the method of dubbing. The method is similar to the subsequent scoring. The difference is the need to translate replicas and lay down the Russian text in accordance with the mimic movements of the actors. During duplication, the original soundtrack is completely erased, after which it is replaced by a new voice and noise accompaniment.

And who voices films in Russian? In the preparation of motion pictures intended for display on wide screens, professional actors most often take part, which create a voiceover translation that requires a coincidence of articulation. As for the tapes produced on discs and other physical media, movies that are voiced by Goblin (Dmitry Puchkov) or other experienced amateur dubbing masters are in demand here. In the latter case, it is often superimposed on the original sound, the volume of which is somewhat muffled.

Scoring in animated films

When you create an animation, you use the preliminary recording of the soundtrack. In other words, the speech of the drawn characters is prepared before when their images appear. The duration of the sound 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 that will be put in frames.

Finally

So we found out how the films sound. At one time, the emergence of technology gave a significant impetus to the development of cinematography and made this art form extremely popular in society. By the way, it was thanks to the creation of sound cinema that new, original principles of photography arose, including widescreen and panoramic.