• How Does Film Sound Work?

    Posted on by azure in Recent News, Video Editing | No Comments

    When you go to a movie theatre, producing perfectly synched sound that completely envelopes the room isn’t as simple as just playing an audio track.  There are two forms of analog sound: optical process and magnetic. In the early days of movies, many films used an optical process to create sound synched to the film. In the optical process, a clear line is recorded into one side of a film strip, and the line’s width changes according to the film’s sound frequency. A light shines through this strip, and the light transforms into an electrical current thanks to a photocell. This current is sent to a pre-amplifier, which sends it to the amplifier, and then the signal goes to the speakers. As filmmaking became more mainstream, the number of films that used magnetic recording as opposed to the optical process increased. Magnetic recording had better sound quality, but it is …