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Topic: Modern Films
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted April 03, 2009 11:23 AM
Quite true, David.
Though it's interesting how few new changes to sound there have been. Except for surround sound in the 70's, I really don't count digital as a big breakthrough.
With crowd noise, you usually can't really enjoy great digital sound. That's where the home cinema really comes into play. There, you can really catch all the subtle things that you can't capture with "background noise' (crowd).
It's hard to believe that stereo first came about in theaters with "Fanta-sound", which Disney brought about for the first 1940 release of Fantasia. Very few theaters were equipped with the ability to play back Fanta-sound, but it was a startling innovation, when you think that people were still using 78 rpm records, (and would for quite awhile).
Even by today's standards, that original soundtrack, restored to it's original 1940's clarity on the special edition of Fantasia, sounds amazingly good. Not the same exact sonic quality as todays DTS and all, but amazing, just the same.
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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Bill Brandenstein
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1632
From: California
Registered: Aug 2007
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posted April 03, 2009 04:04 PM
Hmmm... Osi, I think the regions we live in have a bearing on this discussion. Digital sound made such a difference when it first came out that I would drive to a different part of the city for a movie if it meant that the sound was state-of-the-art. I've infrequently been disappointed. I even remember going to a show with my wife in the early days of digital and lamenting how mushy the sound was at our screen. When exiting, some of the doors to other auditoriums were actually open, show-in-progress, and I remember noticing how clean, crisp, and clear the dialog was on another screen with the exact same film we'd just seen. It was digital sound, of course. Ours had been analog. More recently we've caught our local cineplex (you know, the one that I've ranted about because their equipment is WOW stuff but their prints keep getting killed for some unknown neglectful reason) running analog sound on a movie nominated for a sound Oscar. Nothing special in analog. But you should have heard that screen running Ratatouille in digital. Whoa.
In the right context the difference was, and is, readily apparent. The only pre-digital technology worthy of comparison was hearing Imax 6-track from a mag dubber (standard on all Imax screens in those days). Though now defunct, that's still a formidable top-quality audio format.
At the heart of David's question is a basic technological curiousity. It's true that technology hasn't changed a lot very often. Analog tracks did improve over the years in frequency response and the addition of stereo and surround. But bear in mind that nobody had to throw out projectors to make those changes. Just like adding a Dolby Digital reader to the top of the stack now, those analog readers were retrofitted. And have been again lately for red readers for cyan analog tracks (see www.dyetracks.org). So Graham's projectors could be old as the hills doing beautiful Dolby SR analog surround, or whatever, alongside digital.
For good stuff on technology changes over the years, visit http://www.widescreenmuseum.com.
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Graham Ritchie
Film God
Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted April 07, 2009 03:27 AM
Thanks Lars ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Stewart
Its a pity you did not get a chance, a lot of young people are more than capable of doing the job given the opportunity.
Well the last photos.
This is where most of the work is done changing adds, trailers making up films etc, The cinema runs 12 hours 7 days a week, with only one projectionist on at a time. The three of us thats including our part time projectionist work to our own fixed roster, thats the calender next to the clock, a few years ago I made a light box, cut a hole in the bench and placed some sand blasted "Lexan" over it, one 60 watt lamp and a strip of cooking tin foil to help reflect the light.
There are two Alpha platters down this end the three deck for cinema one and the five deck for cinema two. The five deck is the important one as films can run up or down the roof to cinema three and at the same time the other decks can be used for the Bauer projector. There is a lot of film movement and we can screen up to 10 different features in one day so with roof rollers film can be going all ever the place, we can lift films of the decks by sliding them onto a large circular sheet of plastic with a hole in the centre for holding the downstairs staff are really good at helping out.
This is cinema three its a "Kinoton" forget video projection this 35mm projector will run forever its really quiet, note those rollers on the roof the platter is a five deck Christie.
a closer look and thats the DTS reader all the amplifiers are "QSC USA 850" and both analog and DTS sound is very good.
Its interesting to note that I could fit both Dolby Digital or DTS readers to my 80 year old Ernemann projector "from the silent era" and run this stuff. strike up the carbon lamp if it still worked and "bingo" better picture and sound "or very close to it" than the latest cinema video instalation.
Well... this is the last photo hope you did not mind the tour.
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted April 07, 2009 03:11 PM
Though the Ultra stereo or six track sound came about in the early sixties (I believe), the stereo soundtracks made for the early 1950's films were second to none. For instance, I believe the film was "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (or was it, "How to Marry a Millionarre"?), was one of the first official streo releases of the fifties, and they had a whole intro to show off the sound quality ...
... and sound quality it had ... in spades!
Perhaps this was because it was a new technology (in general) and so they wanted to show it off as much as possible.
That doesn't mean that the films of today don't do a good job of it. To be quite frank, sometimes the audio mix is the best part of the whole film, hearing stuff from all around you, while the actual film is total crap!
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
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comments over the radio, giving the ships coordinates in the North Sea for "help" as they were quickly sinking ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
was well done as with the rescue of "I think his name was Bob" and his collection of records 
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although I will be long gone ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
. when you think that the latest VP electronic marvel of a projector might last 5-8 years if you are lucky its really a bit of a joke compared to 35mm projection equipment. I was asked lately what was the point of training young people in 35mm when things are going video.. well video might be the future but what a thrill to say one day to your children or grandkids when you take them to the movies, that you used to be a cinema projectionist running that stuff that was once called film. 
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