From: Bob Olhsson <[log in to unmask]>
> Singing and dancing has almost always been shot to a playback.
From djwein:
> As far as I've read, due to low budgets, EVERY Soundie had the music
> recorded first and then the filming was lipsynched to the playback -
Randy Riddle wrote:
> With musicals, they used a combination of live, on-stage dialogue
> sequences with pre-recorded playback for the musical numbers, a
> practice that started in the early days of sound after someone figured
> out that recording a full orchestra hidden off-screen and a performer
> singing live wasn't so easy to pull off, especially if a complicated
> number needed to be restaged.
It was not so much having the orchestra off-screen for a live
performance, rather if there is going to be editing of different shots
from multiple takes of a musical number then performing to a playback is
a MUST. This is because otherwise there will be either tempo changes or
sync problems if one take's audio is used for another take's picture.
There are occasions where picture inserts have been done with a camera
running wild (meaning not attached to the sync system) but they either
have to be very short, distant, or not show a distinct image of the
performer on the track. (There are inserts in Woodstock done this way.)
Rex Harrison's insistence of using a body mic for live recording of
lyrics was partially a way of avoiding having to lip-sync to a
performance he might have recorded months ago, but also forced the use
of longer continuous shots which he preferred.
From: "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]>
>> As to your other question about equalization, I do recall the need for
>> an "Academy EQ" on playback in screening rooms, but I did not keep
>> extensive notes on it as it was handled by other people where I worked
>> and I was only involved in one or two screening rooms that required
>> that. I don't know if digging deeper on that phrase might help you in
>> your search. I do not recall a reference to mag stock in IASA TC04...not
>> saying it's not there, just that I don't recall it.
>> http://www.iasa-web.org/tc04/audio-preservation <<
It might be considered sloppy production when a film is shown or
released without proper equalization, but one of the worst problems is
when the dialog is in Academy EQ but they use a non-EQed music track and
mix the two without undoing the dialog's EQ. I discussed in the past
the records that were issued from the "High Society" soundtrack by
Capitol as an example.
About the discussion of post-war Italian films, the Italians found it
easier, quicker, and cheaper to shoot films with just a dirty reference
sound track and do post-production looping of the dialog. Since most of
the films were going to have to be dubbed into other European languages
they figured they might as well also do it with the native Italian
language. This also enabled them to use actors from other countries who
didn't speak Italian who would have to be dubbed anyway. Sometimes on
the set there were three languages being spoken.
As for current films, they do routinely loop at least some of their
dialogue post-production. Sometimes it does reach 100% in action
movies. It is not always that the recorded dialog is indistinct, but
that they want to artificially create a sound pattern and do not want
the set's natural sound to interfere with their created sound effects.
Mike Biel [log in to unmask]
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