I wrote this post a while ago but for weeks I couldn’t decide if I should actually publish something as personal as this. I edited it twice, deleted and started over again. Why all the fuss? Well, it was honest. It does make me feel vulnerable. Or at least it used to do. But not anymore. Why? Because I’ve fallen in love with the Internet!

As students we are required to create work to fulfil strict briefs and pass yet another module. The work is often of a good standard. But never perfect. After all we are still learning how to produce quality. But we are far away from being professional. And there lies the issue of creating so called ‘portfolio of work’. This should showcase our creativity and craftsmanship; persuade employers that we have skills and experience in our field. Obviously, the assignments are only just assignments. It is, and always will be, a bit of student work. Often not even semi-professional, often rushed to meet the deadline (yes, I know there are deadlines in real life too) and often the creative choices are dictated solely by equipment availability and level of skills all members of the group presented at the time. This creates problems with internet sharing. I, for one, never uploaded any of my old assignments. I couldn’t see a point. They weren’t professional enough. Suddenly something snapped in me. My whole attitude towards sharing, not only my work but the work of others too, has changed! Thank You Helen, for making me an Internet Exhibitionist! Transferring to University of Salford was absolutely the best decision I could make. My path is clear. I don’t expect to get a job in the BBC any time soon and, like the rest of soon-to-be graduates I was anxious about unemployment. This is where Social Media comes into the picture. I might not have employment straight out of University, but I do have tools necessary to survive and keep on going. Impossible is nothing. The unbelievable stream of creativity, art, sound, music and knowledge, right under our fingertips!! Who is to say what is professional if people can now decide for themselves if they like/dislike anything they find online. The unstoppable flow of creativity is so infectious that my head swarms with new ideas! Impossible is nothing! University gives me tools to be able to express myself. Internet channels my interests, gives me inspiration and satisfaction when my work gets tumbs up! Uploading something personal almost feels like a form of confession, of sharing secrets with the whole wide world. It cleans the mind. They either like it or not. Moving on. Amazing.

For Microsoft lover, like him, this was not a reasonable answer. My colleague argued that iPad is overpriced, closed and restricted whereas Android is an open format. I bet he read it somewhere. Although I can agree with the price issue I cannot see how iPad might be restricted. Even the Flash compatibility is no longer an issue, there is an app for that! More and more developers choose to create apps on iOS instead of Android market. some of my favourite audio companies develop extensions for iOS devices, like the trusted Alesis- a world leader in recording technology. Take a look at their iO Dock. Or IK Multimedia with their iRig micCast. Not to mention their DJ Rig. I have made a good, logical choice by buing an iPad but the only answer I could give to my colleague was the proverbial: ‘If you don’t have an iPad then, well, you just don’t have an iPad’. He didn’t get it. The whole conversation made me uncomftable and my silly answer left me frustrated. So I decided to write this post as this is what I should have said to him:

If we assume that creativity is like any other muscle in our body, then iPad is the best portable gym ever invented. The only one in the world, actually.

I believe that using iPad’s creative apps gives people who have no professional experience a chance to try things they wouldn’t normally have access to, like painting, picture manipulation, music composition, animation, film editing and more. It can be argued that creative works made on the iPad could never be considered ART and compositions made using Garage Band are nowhere close to being professional. Yes, but that is the whole point- Exciting new freedom of creating without the restriction of ‘being professional’, making ‘art’ or simply being ‘good enough’. Not everybody will buy After Effects but using iStopmotion app anyone can make their own animation. iPad is not restricted to being held on tripods to make the stop motion pictures work. The app is designed in a way that lets you move your camera position freely and still keep the animation flawless!! It is a Brilliant tool for future filmmakers.

IPad enables people to do things they always wanted but often couldn’t do. Like creating your own stencil art!! Not all of us have the courage or a message strong enough to go out to the streets at night and paint. Thanks to Fotofitti app we can all create stencil-like art. This app is one of the best examples of how using iPad can change the way we think about the world around us. The app reacts to the shadow and contrast. In order to create a good stencil one has to start with a good picture. Inexperienced and amateurish photographers, like myself, suddenly notice the shadows and contrast issues they did not pay any attention to before.

The flow of creativity I felt since I unpacked my iPad seems never ending. I even found myself digging for my old sketches in the attic, just to have something to play with in Pixelworks:

I created a logo with Fontify, PS Express and Fotofiti:

I started working on my first stop motion animation featuring this little creature (it is still work in progress):

And, believe it or not, I started composing again. I never considered myself to be especially talented in this area. Composition was always a chore for me, an assignment, a module I had to pass. I never believed it worth my time to compose using MIDI sequencers just for the pleasure of it. Using MIDI is time consuming. I remember my struggle, over eleven years ago, when I tried to write down a melody that came to my head on a bus. I had composition module to pass and that melody seemed the best idea I’ve had for ages!! The only way to write it down was to take a piece of paper and a pen and start placing the notes on a stave. The only way I knew how to do it was to use the intervals between each note and sing them in my head to place the next note on the right line. Honestly, a horrible chore!! Now I’ve got Garage Band. No need to comment.

It might be that pieces created on an iPad will never be considered art and that is just fine. I consider it great practice. Besides, even rubick’s cube can become a work of art in the right hands.  So can the iPad when employed by a creative mind.

I wonder how many people unpacked one this Christmas…

Or read the whole post by Paul Delooze here:

The purpose of this video (at the time of filming) would be to promote the audio recording company I’ll be setting up after graduation- Guerilla Sound Lab. The sound I used to do this edit is not the live recording we did in the venue but it is just a rough mix. I initially wanted to swap it for the finished mix but the rough version seems to work with the specific quality of the image. I’ll, therefore, keep the video as it is, preserving the whole point of mobile filmmaking- the spontaneity, the roughness and shakiness of the image combined with a row, barely touched by Pro Tools and my mixing techniques, live music.

After I speak with the band Bob Dean and get their approval, I’ll write a post explaining exactly how the music has been mixed in the end, so watch THIS SPACE if you’re interested in the technicalities of the live multi-track recording in the venue.

Let’s get back to the subject of film editing and mobile videos. This is the second video I did for this assignment, enjoy:

This next film is the first time I’ve ever had a camera in my hand. Also the first time I’ve used Premiere Pro and the first script I’ve ever wrote. The main purpose of this exercise was to familiarize the Audio Production students with cameras, so no lighting, framing, white balance and other issues involved in filming were ever considered in this assignment.  I simply wasn’t aware of any of those. Music was composed by Ben Ludgate, enjoy:

The subject- mobile filmmaking- is a part of the module I study but I’ve extended my research to the issues of social and technological changes that occurred in the last decade. Along with the web 2.0, an interactive, social tool that replaced the static Web 1.0, we now have You Tube, Flikr, Vimeo, and many, many other platforms that allow users to generate their own content. We are getting used to watching shaky films recorded on mobile devices. Promoters, marketing agencies and big labels alike learned to use the social tools to their advantage. The ‘client experience’ the way we ‘consume’ content is changing. People expect the freedom and involvement provided by the internet. They expect more then just being spoon fed new products, new films, new music. The people want to get involved, make a difference, create or just have their voice heard. It changed the way we perceive products and companies. Client generated reviews have more credibility, on the web, then expert advice. Even the adverts have changed. Marketing rules apply to music, film, and tooth paste in exactly the same way: the advertising campaigns are changing and are now being designed to be run by the real client experience.This video explains it a bit better:

Now an example of advertising campaign by Honda:

The Film Industry noticed those changes too. There’s a great example of how the film promoters try to improve the film watching experience:

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/film_festival_TV/documentary_ipad/

So, basically, the film festival comes to you now, whereas before you’d be getting yourself into the cinema theatre, miss at least two festival days due to work, burn £30 worth of petrol and spent at least two hours in the traffic. Now you can watch the documentaries on your iPad, on the train, on your way to work. What a time saver!!

On the other hand films on portable devices are just a different kind of cinema. I cannot find any justification to compare the art of filmmaking with this emerging new mobile film art. It is dissimilar on so many levels that discussing it would make a whole new post. Let’s get down to the films themselves then. Shot on the handheld, portable devices, mainly on mobiles, those films have a sense of ultimate truth and sincerity. When big budget production takes weeks or months of preparation the mobile film is shot on the spot, at the very moment the events are occurring. There are creations that have been planed but even those mobile films scream ‘authenticity’. Here’s my favourite mobile film. The idea behind it is simplistic but genius.

New ways of thinking and new creative ideas emerge from new forms of expression. Democratisation of the film gives us, the viewers, a chance to be the creators. But the approach to democratisation of the filmmaking business has it’s dark sides too. Some people believe the film industry, especially big Hollywood Studios, have been beyond public scrutiny for too long. Their publishers and PR bosses have been controlling the flow of information for their own, business gains for centuries and not everybody agrees it should be allowed. Haktivists. That’s what they are called or how the press calls them. And as some of them are just a new breed of celebrity stalker, the others believe in freedom of information and that control of information flow should not be allowed, no matter how much money is involved. To find those groups you will need to do your own search online as I will not be posting links to websites involved in criminal activities. Even though, on some level, I agree with their attitude.

You do not create a brand new language to write original poem. You use the language that is hundreds of years old, but use it creatively in a new way. And I don’t think anyone needs any more convincing that using and re-using art, music or image, in a creative way, is the most original originality possible to achieve. Especially in music and film, as both music and film have their own specific language.

Music is the most potent form of non-verbal communication. It conveys a meaning that strikes the verry deep, emotional strings of human psyche. There’s no stronger, more manipulative emotional charge, then in film music (K. J. Donelly, 2005). The very role of music for motion picture is to evoke emotions, create psychological tension and show the deepest thoughts of characters on the screen.

                   ‘(…) the power of film music is not simplistic (…) nevertheless it encourages us to emote and to think what it wants’ us to think.’

       ‘Music in films might be thought of as working in much the same way as the buzzer in Pavlov’s famous experiment with dogs. Whereas the buzzer was a device that elucidated a reaction (salivation), music in films functions within the cinematic context as a device for eliciting of emotion and mental reaction in the audience.’₂₁

The power of nondiegetic music (music which is not produced by any device or character existing in the reality of the film) comes from the fact, that it disseminates meaning, without being actively noticed by the conscious ways of perception. This can be easily proved, as most film fans rarely recognize music without image, whereas image is instantly identified.  That is because music, when accompanying the image, operates within the unconscious sphere of the psyche. It hypnotizes and deludes the audience into the fantasy world of the film. Nondiagetic music seems to cross the boundary between the audience and diagetic world of the film. It comes from everywhere, and from nowhere, lives inside the actor’s head or communicates meaning straight into the film watcher’s ears, sharing with him a secret about the characters’ fate. Musical meaning can empower viewer, giving him clues to the future events, or take control over his thoughts and feelings, making him cry, scared or sentimental, even against his conscious mind. In the words of K. J. Donnelly:

‘We tend to react on music whether we desire to or not and if we don’t wish to be moved by it we resent its presence for making us begin to loose control of our rational, “sophisticated” defences. While music’s emotional effect seems “irrational”, this “irrational” association is redoubled in film by its appearance “irrationally” from nowhere in relation to the on-screen action.’₂₂

Many music theorists dismiss the fact of strictly physical influence of music, although it is evident, especially in the horror film genre. The semiotic approach describes music as a set of signs which we simply learn to react to, acknowledging their meaning. On the other hand the psychological approach suggests that human reaction to music and sound is more intuitive, primary and unconscious. Scores for Horror films are a perfect example that both theories are right. The ‘stingers’- sudden, loud musical explosions, are proved to scare children and animals, who are obviously unaware of the cinematic codes or tension build up in the particular scene, whereas the usage of, for example, gothic, religious music is always associated with Evil, by the adult audience, eligible to recognize the ‘musical codes’ of the genre. The most common is a message of doom created by the use of ‘Dies Irae’- Gregorian, religious, chanted poem which describes the ‘wrath of God’, the ‘judgement day’. This medieval Hymn reappears in different forms in many film scores. We can hear it, for example, at the beginning of ‘Shining’, where it is played by Wendy Carlos on a synthesizer, increasing the feeling of unease and notion of something being terribly wrong, terribly out of place. According to Donnelly (2005, p47) the same effect was achieved by Bernard Hermann in the opening scene of ‘Citizen Kane’, where a characteristics of ‘Dies Irae’ can be identified. Other films, in which this Gregorian chant, or the ‘Mass for the Dead’, (as it is also called) appears include: ‘Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street‘ (by Stephen Sondheim), ‘I confess’ (Tiomkin), ‘Escalation‘ (Morricone), ‘Poltergheist’ (Goldsmith), ‘Demolition Man’ (Goldenthall) and also ‘Metropolis‘, ‘The Matrix’, ‘The Lion King’ , ‘Witches’ and so many other films that it would take years to mention all. The ‘Mass for the Dead’ has always been a part of the collective consciousness; it has also become a part of universally established musical language of the cinema. Like many other musical themes it is, and forever will be, used in film scores over, and over, and over again.

How Hollywood created ‘original film score’ that is not so original at all…

The role of music in film can be described in many ways, as it has many different purposes, and incorporates many different techniques of‘ creating atmosphere, highlighting the psychological state of the characters; providing neutral background filler, building a sense of continuity; sustaining tension and then rounding it off with the sense of closure’ ₁₅

From the historical point of view music has always been a part of the film experience. Films were never shown publicly without some sort of sound accompaniment; either instrumental sound effects or music. _9*

During the ‘silent film’ era theatre owners aspired to provide the best possible entertainment for their audience. By hiring a quartet, instead of a soloist, theatre owner could provide better, more exciting experience, bringing more audience to his theatre. The music accompaniment for films soon evolved into full orchestral scores inspired by classical music of nineteenth- century Europe. The accompaniment for ‘silent‘ film grew onto big, symphonic orchestrations, taking from other narrative arts, like ballet and opera, providing music loaded with sentimentalism and emotion, in the likes of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninow. The early sound films, on the other hand, could not provide the quality of sound comparable to the in-house orchestras of the ‘silent‘ theatres. The technological limitations, like unselective microphones and noisy cameras, made it virtually impossible for the music and dialog to appear simultaneously on one sound track, unless they had been recorded simultaneously. Along with the development of recording techniques it become a standard practise, in Hollywood, to record the music separately, in an environment suitable for a large orchestra, and then play it back, while actors spoke their dialogs.

The orchestras were quite expensive to hire and record, especially during the financial crisis. In the early 1930′s Hollywood film producers favoured music already recorded and popular, especially pieces by classical composers, like Mozart or Beethoven. There were no copyrights on compositions created by long dead masters.

                   ‘Such ‘Legitimate’ music added a sense of upmarket sophistication and class to films that have been made cheaply, a process that is still very much alive in more recent cinema’₁₆

Not all of the producers seemed to believe that the widely known repertoire contributed to the films it accompanied. David O. Selznick of The RKO concluded that any music piece that is already known distracts the viewer from the plot. Max Steiner, a master composer said:

            ‘Selznick, who was extremely sensitive musically,  also said he thought music should fit the precise action, mood and even words in a screen play, and obviously should be especially composed.’₁₇

Max Steiners’ original, symphonic score for ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ (released in 1932), commissioned by Selznicks, became a model for ‘classical-style’ scoring in Hollywood. The pompous, sentimental scores of the so called ‘Golden Age’ of film music weren’t to everyone’s tastes. Alberto Cavalcanti, European film director and mentor, wrote in the early 1940′s:

‘Nine times out of ten it is the same as the music of the last film I saw’, no matter what the subject of the film might be. It is a grate swelling theme suggesting that the photoplay  to be presented is the best, the weightiest, the most profound, that the world has ever seen’.₁₈

The sheer amount of films that were being made in Hollywood established the ‘symphonic-yet original’ way of film scoring as the ruling method in world cinema.

Taking directly from classical music, music in film developed its own codes and meanings, universally known by cinema-goers. According to George Antheil:

‘Your musical tastes become moulded by this scores, heard without knowing it. You see love, and you hear it. Simultaneously. It makes sense. Music suddenly becomes a language for you, without you knowing it.’₁₉

Film composers also took over the use of illustrative sound effects and implemented them into the score itself, giving birth to the modern art of film music. Nowadays, for most people, film provides the only orchestral music they will ever hear. The ‘language’ of film music takes directly from Western-European compositions of the Romantic period. Even the term ‘Leitmotif’, which has become a standard in describing short musical themes associated with places or reoccurring ideas in the film plot, was first used by Wagner in the 19th century. The influence of Wagnerian Operas on modern film composers is undisputed.  Bernard Herman- one of the most notable film composers of the  20th century, best known for his score to Hitchcock’s  ‘Psycho’  and ‘Citizen Kane’- directed by Orson Welles, shows a Wagnerian influence in many of his scores. The best example would be the love theme from ‘Vertigo‘, which definitely shows similarities with Wagner’s ‘Tristan and Isolde’ (Donnelly, 2005, p. 96). The music for ‘Psycho‘, (one of the most easily identifiable piece of film music ever written), on the other hand, lacks empathetic, romantic and heavily orchestrated elements. Herrmann wrote the music only for strings, purposely limiting the sound palette. He also used high pitch strings, clearly as a reflection of the physical stabbing moves of the killer’s knife. Although most 20th century Horror film scores seem influenced by ‘Psycho’ and the Art Music genres, in the likes of Minimalism, Aelatoric Music or Music Concrete, there are also many films scored differently. ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’, a film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, has a score composed by Wojciech Killar, a Polish film composer responsible also for the score to Polanski’s ‘Ninth Gate’ . The music for ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’ is far from traditional horror music of the 20th century. On the contrary, it has been highly influenced by romantic compositions of 19th century Europe, taking as back to the Wagnerian influences. It also notably shows characteristics of traditional Slavonic music, valued by notable composers like Frédéric Chopin, Béla Bartók, Krzysztof Penderecki or Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The choice of this sort of score underlines the romantic love theme in Coppola’s film and the sadness, suffering and loneliness of the characters.

After the Second World War musical styles changed. Many film composers experimented with modernist art music, like electronic music, Minimalism and Serialism. Others compiled scores out of pop-songs or using old classical pieces. There are many films, and many different scoring techniques that should at least be mentioned. Some of the scores influenced the film music so strongly, that they should not be overlooked. For example‘ The Planet of the Apes’- first entirely electronic Twelve Tone score or ‘Halloween’ with Carpenter’s ‘stripped down’, minimalistic music and disturbing ‘oscinati‘, made out of only two principal themes. I will summarize with the words of a master film director Francis Ford Coppola, who, in my humble opinion, is the father of modern sound design:

            ‘In the late 60′s, when we used to sit around and talked about movies, one area that we would always emphasize was the sound. ‘Sound is 50 percent of the whole cinema experience’, we’d say. ‘It is your best friend, because it works on the audience secretly”.₂₀

And how exactly does the sound evoke the unconscious reactions of the film audience? By using recognizable motifs over and over again

_{15. Donnelly K. J., ‘The Spectre of Sound: Music in Film and Television’, 2005,    British       Film Institute Publishing, London, page 1}

_{17.  ‘Film Music. A History’, A. Wierzbicki, Taylor&Francis, 2009, UK, page 129}

_{18. Film Sound theory and practice’, E Weiss, J. Belton, 1985 Columbia University                Press, page 106.}

_{19. Kassabian, A., ‘Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary            Hollywood Film Music’, 2001, Routledge, UK, page 8,}

_{20. Forlenza J., Stone T., ‘Sound for Picture’- MixPro Audio Series, 1993,             MixBooks, foreword.}

_{21. Donnelly, K. J., ‘The Spectre of Sound: Music in Film and Television’, 2005,   British Film Institute Publishing, London, pages 5 and 6}

_{22. ‘The Spectre of Sound: Music in Film and Television’, K. J. Donnelly, British    Film Institute Publishing, London, 2005, page 10}

_{23. Sonnenschein D., ‘Sound Design. The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and Sound Effects in Cinema’, 2001, Michael Wiese Productions, U.S. A., page                 108}

_{About.com, 2009, ‘The History of Motion Picture’, ‘Thomas Alva Edison’,              ‘Dickinson’s Experimental Sound Film’, ‘Lee De Forest’ and other related}

                _{articles retrieved from www.inventors.about.com/library/inventors/}

_{Audio Engineering Society, ‘Audio Timeline‘, retrieved from}

                _{www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/audio.history.timeline.html}

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_{Dolby for professionals,‘ Technical Library’, ‘Motion Picture Technologies’,            ‘Broadcast and Pro Audio Technologies’, retrieved from                 www.dolby.com/professional}

_{Dolby, ‘Dolby Surround Tools- Users Guide’, (provided by the School of                 Sound      Engineering, Cracow, 2001,).}

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_{Encyclopaedia II, ‘History of Warner Bros’, ‘Sound Film History’, ‘General Electric’                 and other related articles retrieved from www.experiencefestival.com}

_{Film Formats, retrieved from www.film-center.com/formats.html}

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_{Pelletier Jan-Marc, ‘The Birth of the Synthetic Voice‘, retrieved from       http://jmpelletier.com/2009/07/the-birth-of-the-synthetic-voice/}

_{‘Internet Encyclopaedia of Cinematographers’; retrieved from                 www.cinematographers.nl/FORMATS4.htm}

_{The Media Management Group, January 2009, ‘Time Line of Music and Media      Technology’, retrieved from                 http://www.classicthemes.com/technologyTimeline.html}

_{The Media Management Group, 2009, ‘Timeline of Sound and Broadcast              Technology’, retrieved from                 www.classicthemes.com/technologyTimeline.html}

_{‘Moog Synthesizer’, Wapedia- mobile encyclopaedia, retrieved from      http://wapedia.mobi/en/Moog_synthesizer}

_{Schoenherr S. E.,1999, ‘Motion Picture Sound’, retrieved from               http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/recording/motionpicture1.html}

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     While Ice-T recounts tales from his life on the mean streets of south central, Cube must rely on artifice to compose his raps. Under ordinary circumstances, this would be a cause for applause; for it is in the nature of things that artists should rely on artifice. But in the case of hard core rappers, excessive reliance on imagination is anathema, because authenticity is central to the legitimation of their views.’

*(The Guardian, 11 March 1993)

Authenticity is a goal, a quest which shapes the tastes of popular music audiences since the very beginning of the recording industry. It seems that almost every contemporary artist tries to appear, or convince his audience that he is not, a pop star, self-invented artificial ‘persona’ or a ‘sell out’- compromised by money, but a real person and authentic creator. Why do fans of popular music, journalists and producers take so seriously the faked independence and so cruelly judge commercial artists and bands even though the openly commercial musicians are the ones with nothing to hide or fake? What exactly is the audiences role in shaping the culture and music industry?

The Audience

One of the first notions about the Listeners of Popular Music comes from a member of so called Frankfurt School, Theodor Adorno. He wrote:

          ‘(…) this whole type of music (i.e., popular music in general) maintains its hold on the masses‘₁ , were by ‘masses’ he actually meant audiences, with no distinction at all. In his study Adorno referred to popular music and culture as ‘mass-culture’- a standardized and ‘pre-digested’ form of leisure (K.Negus, 1996). He explained:

            ‘The customers of musical entertainment are themselves objects or, indeed, products of the same mechanisms which determine the production of popular music.

            They want standardized goods and pseudo-individualization, because their leisure is an escape from work and at the same time is molded after those psychological attitudes to which their workaday world exclusively habituates them.’

            ‘Listeners are distracted from the demands of reality by entertainment which does not demand attention either‘.₂

In his critique of music for the masses and audience for which it is created he goes even further, suggesting that:

‘Most listeners of popular music do not understand music as a language in itself. If they did it would be vastly difficult to explain how they could tolerate the incessant supply of largely undifferentiated material.₃ ’

According to Adorno the public had little or no freedom of choice at all due to the way the entertainment industry created, promoted and propagated repetitive, standardized music (Negus, 1996,). Sounds familiar? Adorno believed that industrialized, popular music lead only to passive, de-concentrated listening and maintained this point of view in his later publications. In early 1990’s he introduced a new type of listener:

‘(…) the eager person who leaves the factory and occupies himself with music in the quiet of his bedroom’₄

Shy and lonely Adorno’s music fan indulged himself in music to avoid social confrontations and find his own illusion of intimacy. He was poorly socialized and unprepared for life as an adult. This model of behavior is till this day often used by media or concerned parents to illustrate bad influence of music on vulnerable individuals. Yeah, that sounds familiar too, doesn’t it? Adorno created a depressing and gloomy image but even now it would be hard to disagree completely with his observations. But that’s mainstream. What about the ‘so called subculture’?

In 1950 David Riesman introduced a distinction which had a great influence on later studies, especially on subculture theory. He divided music listeners into majority and minority groups where members of the majority had undiscriminating tastes in music, similar to Adorno’s masses. The music industry and production weren’t their concern and their favored ‘the hit parade’ and most popular radio stations (Negus, 1996). The minority group, on the other hand, was seeking something more. They appreciated music and the way it was composed and produced, and expected higher standards giving more serious meaning to music creations. Understanding of that meaning was reserved for the minority only. They were a critical and questioning audience.

‘The distinction Riesman made was between an active, hip and rebellious minority and passive, undiscriminating and conformist majority’₅

This led to further distinctions between music listeners and their attitude. ‘The Subculture’ published in 1979 by Dick Hebdige was covering the phenomenon of punk and its subcultural ancestors. Hebdige developed his theory by looking on music culture as a broad range of behavioral styles and special meanings and values known to the audience of the particular music genre. Music was, in his view, a way of expression of feelings and beliefs, and it provided a variety of social activities connected to the specific subculture. In his view audiences have their own different ways of living their lives, which should be considered in order to explore the kind of music they favor.

Subcultures created by members of working class, were contesting the dominant system of values and creating their own contra-culture with music and independent, non-commercial artists in its centre. It was music that made young people group together and create a style. Depending on specific time and place subcultures differ from each other and their members create their own identity in opposition to mainstream, the majority, the establishment, etc., It is a critical reflection of social problems. But Hebdige’s theory lacks an important notion: subcultures are transcontinental, internationally recognized and used in different countries to express views and feelings of their members. Is there anything spontaneous in adopting somebody else’s style of dressing in order to express a yourself? Does the meaning remain authentic if it’s brought into other social circumstances, or does it change in order to express different views and believes?

‘The sounds and images of punk were transformed and expropriated by many musicians and audience members in Stalinist states of Central and Eastern Europe during the 1980s. Punk noises and visuals were used to register a sense of distance from and opposition to political repression and to challenge state-promoted culture (such as officially sanctioned rock bands). Punk styles of music and dress were adopted to register opposition in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the German Democratic Republic’.₆

In Western Europe, in those times, Punk was something quite different. Honestly. Misinterpreted. Maybe due to the language difference, partially because of the Iron Curtain. For people who experienced real oppression from the government punk style was ideal to prove a point. In late 1970s and early 1980s in Poland Milicja (Military Police) hunted and imprisoned anyone who’s appearance differed from the norm. Young people were thrown into prison cells and often severely beaten, for being a threat to social order (special ‘care’ was given to students by the Milicja forces as every government knows students ARE dangerous). You can visit, if you want, a staircase of a house in the heart of my city- Krakow, where a young, innocent student has been beaten to death by the Milicja forces. These government repressions affected mainly students, considered dangerous, and it was student communities that took over the subculture of punk from British working class youths. Band gigs were made in secret so that Milicja couldn’t assault everyone involved, especially that Milicja itself was often the main subject of punk lyrics. Fan-zines and independent, underground labels were often non profit formations, giving the audience something more than music itself – the feeling of being involved in a real oppositional movement, even if the only real activity was dressing up and listening to music.

So what is the proverbial ‘Message’ canceled in music? Most importantly: do all people acknowledge the same meaning when confronted with the same cultural texts?

In 1980 a model of encoding/decoding in media industry was formulated by Stuart Hall, to answer this kind of questions. Hall distinguished tree types of interpretation of meaning made by the television audience: they accept the dominant meaning (as intended by the producers), negotiate with it or develop a completely different, independent interpretation.

‘Production (…) constructs the message. (…)Of course the production process is not without its ‘discursive’ aspect: it, too, is framed throughout by meanings and ideas: knowledge-in-use concerning the routines of production, historically defined technical skills, professional ideologies, institutional knowledge, definitions and assumptions, assumptions about audience and so on (…)’₈

The encoded messages are transmitted to the audience witch receives them and decodes using similar means as the ones used during production; their own knowledge, interpretation skills, life experiences and their own ideologies.

‘The codes of decoding and encoding might not be perfectly symmetrical. The degrees of symmetry- that is, the degrees of ‘understanding’ and ‘misunderstanding’ in the communicative exchange- depend on the symmetry (…) established between the positions of the ‘personifications’, encoder- producer and decoder- receiver’₉

That basically means that no matter how complicated or simple a cultural text might be its real meaning is created through audience’s interpretation of it. Semiotics. I will not devour on this subjet as it would make a greate post in its own right. But let me just state that the meaning of a cultural text, being it music or film, is created by the audience, not the author. The audience decides what is popular- what is understood. No wonder that in order to make a living many artists compromise the act of creation with standardized ‘plans’ or ‘recipes’ for hit songs.

‘The stronger the position of the industry become, the more summarily it can deal with costumers’ needs, producing them, controlling them, disciplining them and even withdrawing amusement: no limits are set (…) Even when the public does- exceptionally- rebel against the pleasure industry, all it can muster is that feeble resistance which that very industry has inculcated in it.’₁₀

For Adorno industrialization leads to standardization of music and music creation processes. Music becomes a commodity but who decides if a band or an artist is good enough, commercial or authentic enough to become such a commodity and earn millions of pounds? Who decides that one music piece is more worthy or important than the other, one artist more talented or more sellable? Hit charts, were majority finally can have a vote, and illusion of control, are for musicians the very end of a struggle to be heard, noticed and accepted by the music business. The business itself isn’t free from assumptions made by people employed within it. Companies are struggling with uncertainty of the market and the impossibility of predicting what type of music, artist or band is going to be a success. They apply a variety of marketing strategies and their own knowledge and experience to determine what is going to be commercial. The real nature of connections between independent and major labels (as you probably know they are one and the same) does not, in my opinion, reflect the public attitude towards artists. It is common for journalists and music television presenters to cherish creativity and distinguish it from commerciality. It is common for the fans to turn away from their favourite bands for ‘selling-out’. In 1976 Simon Firth wrote, after carrying out a research of a specific fan group, that:

‘Their tastes weren’t just a matter of identification, they also reflected a different- more serious, more intense- relationship to music. The hairies thought of themselves not as just another teenage style, but as people who had transcended the trivialities of teenage style. Their music meant something, and when one of their acts ‘sold out’, become part of mass taste, there was great bitterness’₁₇

But who is to say that only independent musicians are creative. How do people define independence and creativity in the world where every idea could be turned into profit? And every idea is derived from something older? What is the creativity the originality, the authenticity? It seems that music journalists, audience and even musicians themselves are confused when trying to define a boundary between commerce and creativity. Simon Frith rejects this idea calling it a cliché, but even for musicians as successful as George Michael the tension between commercialism and art is absolutely real.  In 1994 George Michael appeared in British Court room accusing his recording company, Sony Corporation, for being interested only in his commercial potential (Longhurst). Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor in their book ‘Faking it’ went even further and suggested that desire to remain authentic could have contributed to Kurt Cobain’s premature death. Kurt Cobain was considered to be one of the most authentic creators in the history of rock.  His songs were full of personal pain and reflected his disturbed state of mind. No wander that his absolutely genuine attitude towards his music and his own uncompromised style were so attractive for young and passionate audience, tired with contemporary music scene. His lyrics and his emotional, raw voice on top of simple but extremely loud guitar cords created sensational mixture of primitive passion, disappointment and pain. By his fans he was seen as the only real thing in the fake music business, but his own desire to remain authentic and his fans’ expectations were at odds with his long standing desire for success. He despised his own achievements while still continuing to strive for more (H. Barker, Y. Taylor). In the interview for ‘Rolling Stone’ (on the cover of which he was photographed wearing ‘Corporate Magazines Still Suck’ sign on his T-shirt) he said:

‘I don’t blame the average 17-year old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. Maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realize that there’s more to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously’₁₈

He then criticized Perl Jam and other, more ‘commercial’  bands:

‘I would love to be erased from my association with that band and other corporate bands like the Nymphs and a few other felons. I do feel a duty to warn the kids of false music that’s claiming to be underground. They’re jumping on the alternative bandwagon.’₁₉

Cobain was more successful than others yet he tried so hard to remaining fatfull to his alternative roots. With more and more fame he felt more and more compromised by the music industry. Faking it, pretending. A great, shameful lie. In his suicide letter addressed to his fans he wrote:

            ‘The fact is, I can’t fool you, any one of you. It simply isn’t fair to you or me. The worst crime I can think of is to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I’m having 100% fun’₂₀

But doesn’t every alternative artist, once he is successful, come finely to a point when his message is sent to the wrong crowd? Instead of his small, but faithful, audience his message becomes universal and confronted with mass audience who doesn’t understand it and simply follows the commercial trends. With the great help of media industry the myth of authenticity becomes stronger than the desire to appreciate music in itself. The same can be said about originality. But this problem would be best saved for my next blog.

(This post is based on my academic work)

The purpose of my research was to explore the subject of sound in relation to visual arts and media. As the mentioned subject is wide and complex enough to create a separate branch of academic studies, this report is merely a fraction of all the issues concerning integration of sound and image.

First part of thispost touches upon the issues of technological changes which influenced the production process and development of sound in film and media.  It is delivered in a form of a timeline, describing the key events and inventions. Although the main focus is the historical context, the timeline has been broken and divided into several chapters to reflect the social aspects of the occurring changes. The second part will be posted next week and touch upon the issue of music in film.

The history of sound in film; Timeline

1. Early Developments

2. Sound Film and Multi-track recording

3. Dolby and the Surround Sound

4. Film Sound Formats

 5. Development of Television, Video Games and Internet Broadcast

 6. Time Code

The history of sound in film; Timeline

1. Early developments:

1896 For the first time a symphonic orchestra accompanied the motion picture.

1900 Trials of combining the moving pictures with recorded sound started as early as the development of film itself. In1895 took place a public presentation of Edison’s Kinetophone. –  combination of phonograph and Kinetoscope- where the moving images were shown, inside a cabinet, with a musical accompaniment played from a phonograph record. The music was newer fully synchronized, even though a belt connection existed between the Kinetoscope and Phonograph. Edison’s company developed the device under the supervision of W. K. L. Dickson. The film known today as ‘Dickson Experimental Sound Film‘ has been released to promote the sales of Kinetophone- it shows a man playing violin, onto a phonograph horn, and a pair of dancing men (image right)  

In1901 a French inventor Leon Gaumont developed a device named Chronophone which was one of the first attempts to synchronize sound with the moving picture. Chronophone used two phonographs and a single projector, connected to each other by a system of cables. The speed of sound was controlled electronically.

In1902 the Chronophone was presented before French Photographic Society but the real commercial premiere came in 1907, when American Motion Pictures Patents Company licensed the device for use in The United States. The system failed to success as the installation was relatively expensive considering the poor quality of sound reproduced by the device. According to Douglas Gomery (Gomery, 1985, page 6-7), there were more then a dozen other inventions developed between 1909 and 1913 but all of the early sound devices shared common problems, the main one being sound amplification.

In 1906 Lee De Forest, an American inventor improved Fleming’s Valve (a modified Edison’s valve) by adding a grid to control and amplify signals. He called his device the Audion. Audion was in principle a vacuum tube amplifier which later contributed to the invention of Television and Radio.

In1907 Eugene A. Lauste was granted a patent for ‘improving means and methods for simultaneously recording and reproducing movements and sound’1. His experiments resulted in an early version of sound-on-film technology. Lauste used 35mm motion picture film, a mechanical grate and a light gate made from silicon wire vibrating between two magnets (‘Motion picture sound’, part 1). The sound was being converted into light waves and then photographically imprinted on a celluloid film.

                                    ‘It was a double system, that is, the sound was on a different piece of film from the picture…. In essence, the sound was captured by a microphone and translated into light waves via a light valve, a thin ribbon of sensitive metal over a tiny slit. The sound reaching this ribbon would be converted into light by the shivering of the diaphragm, focusing the resulting light waves through the slit, where it would be photographed on the side of the film, on a strip about a tenth of an inch wide’2

Lauste produced a number of early sound films but like many other entrepreneurs of the time, he only succeeded to install his device in several theatres. The main cause for slow reaction from the theatre owners was the expensive installation of the new systems, poor synchronization that could not be maintained for longer periods of time, and amplification issues. Most of the theatres were far too big for the early systems and no theatre owner was willing to reduce the audiences’ number.

The development of sound for motion picture could be divided into two main categories: sound-on-film and sound-on-disc. Although sound-on-film became, in later years, a standard in the industry, it was sound-on-disc that provided better sound reproduction quality in the early systems of sound for moving picture.

In 1913 Edison improved his Kinetaphone. The new device used specially designed cylinder machine with oversized long-playing cylinders connected to the film projector by a system of belt and pulleys. The speed was controlled on the phonograph. Braking device, attached to the projector, was also designed. That allowed to slow down the image in order to keep the sound synchronized.

                                    ‘Edison’s demonstration on January 4, 1913, impressed all present. The press noted the system was more advanced than all its predecessors. Its sensitive microphone obviated traditional lip-synch difficulties for actors. An oversized phonograph supplied the maximum mechanical amplification. Finally and intricate system of belts and pulleys erected between the projection booth and the stage could precisely coordinate the speed of the phonograph with the motion picture projection’3

Edison’s invention was installed in several Vaudeville theatres in New York, but it soon proved to have a major technical problems. Sound often lost synchronization and audience booted pictures off the screen. In 1914 Edison’s West Orange factory was damaged by fire.  After the incident the production of Kinetaphone was never reactivated, even though the factory itself was quickly restored. Edison’s failure ended the era of inventions based on mechanical synchronization of film projector and phonograph.

Between the years of 1913 and 1922 Bell Labs, in cooperation with Western Electric’s Research Division (Western Electric was bought by Bell Labs in 1881), undertook a program to improve the long distance sound transmission for their telephone lines. This led to the development of electrical recording technology, condenser microphone, vacuum tube amplifier and the loudspeaker. In 1913, after a presentation of Lee De Forest’s invention- vacuum tube amplifier- Harold D. Arnold initialized his own research into sound amplification at AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph Company that later assumed all assets of Bell Labs becoming the AT&T Bell Labs Company). Arnold presented his first amplifying vacuum tube in October, 1913. The sound amplification technique was used to produce the first electrical recording device: a disc-cutting phonograph.

In 1916 E.C. Wente (Western Electric) developed the condenser microphone and in 1918 Henry Egerton, of Bell Labs, patented his first balanced-armature loudspeaker driver. Those three devices were combined in 1921, creating the first Public Address Sound System. In the early 1922 Western Electric presented their first experimental animated film showcasing the advantages of the new technology.

                                 ‘(…) Bell Telephone Laboratories, lead by Joseph P. Maxfield and Henry C. Harrison had developed an electrical recording system using a carbon microphone connected to vacuum tube (valve) circuits for signal amplification, and feeding the amplified signal to an electromagnetic moving magnet (also called “moving armature”) disc cutting head which Bell Laboratories had also developed.’4

‘The Audion’ (Schoenherr S. E., 1999, part 1) was the first electronically recorded Talking Picture (the title comes from the name of Lee De Forest’s vacuum tube invention).

In1925 Warner Brothers Pictures obtained Vitagraph Studios (equipped in WE sound-on-disc device) through a series of merges and acquisitions.

     ‘(…)Warners bought the pioneer Vitagraph Company which had a nation-wide distribution system, and as a bonus got an experimental synchronized-sound process called ‘Vitaphone’5

In the mean time research into sound-on-film technology were conducted by independent inventors.

In 1917, in cooperation with De Forest, Theodore W. Case developed the Thalofide Photocell (oxidized thallium sulphide) and later, in 1922 the AEO-light as a source of modulated light.

‘During projection, light was focused through this soundtrack on to a photoelectric cell to produce variations in electrical current that the loudspeakers converted into sound’6

In the 1920‘s Lee De Forest successfully exhibited ‘Phonofilms’ produced using those ideas, and even produced a two-reel sound comedy ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’. Film studios resented his invention and refused to pay the expense of converting their silent theatres onto the new sound system.

Theodore W. Case and E. I. Sponable developed, in1924, sound recording mechanism for Bell and Howell’s film camera, using the AEO-light tube. In 1925 Case began to work on a film projector sound head and ended the cooperation with De Forest (unconfirmed rumours, about De Forest trying to take credit for Case’s invention aroused, along with claims, that it was Case, who stole the patents from De Forest). One year later the system called Movietone (Case and Sponable’s invention based on ‘Phonofilm’) was licensed by William Fox of Fox Film Corporation.

1926 was a year in which the first commercial picture, with synchronized musical background, was shown to the public. ‘Don Juan’, made by Western Electric, in cooperation with Warner Bros., proved a success in New York and established the Bell/WE system as the definite conqueror of ‘the silents’ (silent films in opposition to ‘the talkies’- sound films).

The early development of sound for moving picture was determined by the desire to control patents and profits as well as plain economy. In ‘The Coming of Sound: Technological Change in the American Film Industry’  Douglas Gomery argues that, despite De Forest Phonofilm’s technological advantage and sophisticated design, Western Electric’s sound-on-disc system achieved a commercial success simply by monopoly practises. It was not the ‘(…) Laboratory          success (…) which distinguished Western Electric’s efforts from those of De    Forest and other inventors. Most importantly Western Electric had almost        unlimited financial muscle. (…)If absolute economic power formed the     greatest advantage, patent monopoly certainly added another’7

Further on, in his work, Gomery describes the ‘New Era’ of Wall Street investors and customer-controlled economy of the 1920‘s, as the major factor in the final breakthrough- the Warner’s investment in sound-on-disc technology. Although William Fox successfully imitated Warner’s strategy of innovation, with the sound-on-film device, by the time installation in Fox’s largest theatres was completed, the Warner brothers had already signed exclusive contracts with almost all major entertainers (Gomery, p17), becoming a monopolist. Only the strongest competition could threat Western Electric’s position in the early sound film industry.

Established by Edison in 1890, General Electric, became a powerful corporation able to match AT&T Bell Lab’s financial investments in new technology. GE initially created RCA Corporation (Radio Corporation of America) in the attempt to control radio patents. The RCA’s research into the radio technology triggered the invention of Photophone, originally designed in 1921 and named Pallo-Photophone. The company resigned from commercial exploitation of the device and only after the success of Vitaphone, GE decided to reactivate its division. With Photophone virtually ready for commercial usage, GE looked to gain control over the profitable sound film industry. The two electrical giant corporations (WE and GE) rivalled for several years, trying to gain contracts with the largest film corporations of the time. The GE’s success in sound-on-film technique forced the Western Electric to improve their sound-on-film system, instead of continuing the sales of Vitaphones (Encyclopaedia II,).By the 1930‘s both Corporations improved their devices to eliminate competition. This struggle of ‘Giant Concerns’ benefited the ‘Film Giants’, able to negotiate more favourable contracts.

(…)The coming of sound produced one of the most lucrative eras in the U.S. movie history. (…)The major film corporations-Paramount, and Loew’s MGM- were joined by Fox, Warner Bros., and RKO in a surge of profits, instituting a grip of the marketplace which continues to the present day.’8

The RCA’s Photophone used a Variable-Area format for representation of optical sound track. This format is still a universal standard for analogue optical sound track on film. The previous inventions, including Movietone, used a Variable-Density format, which is no longer in use.

Incidentally, the visual representation of sound waves on the film strip inspired rather controversial ideas, like creating sounds by drawing them by hand or listening to music hidden in existing, visual patterns. The experiments resulted in a demonstration of the first, entirely synthetic voice. In the 1930′s Eric Allan Humphriss painted a 40 feet long sound wave which he then photographed on an empty film strip and reproduced using film projector, during a public presentation. Cecil Thompson, describing the experience, wrote for the ‘Daily Express’:

‘A deep bass voice it was, clear as a bell, sufficient to please the ears of any Oxford don. “All . . . of . . . a . . . tremble . . .” it said.

            There was silence. The “robot” voice had spoken. It was terrifying for the moment, almost horrible. I felt a tingle down my spine. I had heard a voice that was not a voice, words that had never been spoken.’9

2. Sound Film and Multi-track recording:

1930‘s initialized the standardization of a motion picture sound track. The invention of electrical recording in earlier years allowed the single optical sound track to be recorded on the edge of a 35mm film strip. The optical sound technology used a projector with the optical pick up head that converted the changes of width (variable area) or density (variable density) of sound representation imprinted on the edge of the celluloid film strip. Light from the projector passed through the film strip onto a selenium photoelectrical cell where the changes were converted into electrical signal, then amplified and sent to a large horn speaker placed at the front of Film Theatres.

In 1935 MGM Corporation developed a two-way speaker system and installed it in New York’s Capitol Theatre (one of the largest venues on Broadway at the time). The manufacturer of the components (high frequency horns and low frequency 15-inch woofers) was Lansing Manufacturing Co. that later become Altec Lansing co. to finally become JBL in 1955- the undisputed industry leader in motion picture loudspeakers at the time (considering commercial success and Academy Award for technical excellence).

Since 1932 RCA and Bell Labs had been developing a ‘Multi Channel Recording’ process, by recording single optical sound tracks onto separate 35mm film strips. All tracks were edited into a single channel and imprinted on the edge of the released film.’ One Hundred Men and a Girl’ was one of the first films to be recorded using this technique. It was released by Universal in 1937 and featured songs of Deanna Durbin and the sound of Leopold Stokowski’s orchestra. The same recording process was used to produce soundtrack for Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ in 1939/1940, where Stokowski’s orchestra was recorded onto 8 separate optical sound tracks. The 8 channels were then mixed onto 3 optical tracks (plus a 4th control track) and reproduced on multiple loudspeaker installation, created by RCA. The ‘Fantasound’ system was impressive, but costly, and its manufacture was stopped by the American Government, due to the priority of financing the country’s defence, during the Second World War.

The post-war era brought the magnetic sound recording technology to the Cinema.  The premiere of ‘This is Cinerama’, in 1952, inaugurated the magnetic sound track era. The new technology involved narrow stripes of iron oxide material (similar to the magnetic tape) applied to the release film strip. The Cinerama system used a 3-way projector (three strip process) and designed by Hazard E. Reeves and Walter Hicks 7-track magnetic soundtrack. The Cinerama system was never commercially successful as it required specially designed Cinerama Theatres.

In 1953 a cellulose tri-acetate film strip was used, for the first time, by Twentieth Century Fox, allowing 4-tracks of sound to be registered on a single 35mm strip of film. The Cinemascope system used a curved screen to project an image and three speakers, placed behind it, for sound reproduction. First film to be released in Cinemascope was ‘The Robe’.

Year later, in 1954, a rivalling system- the Paramount’s VistaVision with Perspecta sound format- was introduced. Although Perspecta used monophonic sound track it allowed for separate gain changes of the left, the centre and the right sound channels, giving the audience more directional sound effect. The sound could be panned between three channels by the use of encoded control signals embedded on the soundtrack. The 30, 35 and 40 Hz tones were decoded by the projector’s sound head, changing the gain between channels, accordingly to the events shown on the screen.

The year 1955 brought the invention of Todd-AO magnetic soundtrack system designed by Westrex and Ampex. Todd-AO films ware shot on a 65mm negative and reprinted onto 70mm film strip wide enough to contain 6-track magnetic soundtrack.

’70mm film, plus the TODD-AO special camera, plus the TODD-AO newly developed 6 channel high fidelity magnetic sound, plus the TODD-AO “all purpose” 70mm projector and the great arched TODD-AO screen equal the most revolutionary of all screen inventions, with clarity of perspective, detail and colour reproduction never before achieved10.

The speed of 24fps (frames per second) and 30 fps speed formats were simultaneously used to release films in two Todd-AO formats (‘Internet Encyclopaedia of Cinematographers’). 35mm film strip had also been used for a while but discontinued, after 1958, and replaced with the 70mm format. The films released in Todd-AO include: ‘Around the World in 80 Days’ and ‘Oklahoma’.

Also in the year 1955 the first, entirely electronic score was created, and year later released, for the science fiction film ‘Forbidden Planet‘. In order to produce the score a special synthesizer had to be designed and build. It composed of many different circuits, each able to produce only particular sounds and perform a limited amount of functions (Audio Engineering Society, Moog synthesizers).

1967- The ‘Graduate’ became one of the first films to use an existing, popular song as part of the soundtrack. These techniques become a standard practise during the 1970′s.

1971- The release of ‘A Clockwork Orange’- the first film mastered with Dolby A-type Noise Reduction and decoded by Dolby Model364 cinema unit.

1974- Universal Pictures released ‘Earthquake’ in Sensurround Sound. Sensurround was design to imitate the vibrations of a real earthquake, by using low frequency sound waves. The audience could feel the theatre shake while watching a horrific destruction on the screen.

”Earthquake’  was released in the three standard theatre film formats; 6 track magnetic sound on 70mm film, 4 track magnetic sound on 35mm film, and the old standard single track optical sound on 35mm film. A system was devised to interface the Sensurround 1 effects to all of these formats. In reality the term “Standard” theatre sound equipment hardly has any meaning today. Some theatres have old sub par systems, while others have been updated partially and are hybrids; still others have new systems. This fact made it difficult to design a system that can be quickly and simply installed anywhere and work’.11

For the film industry and a movie-goer alike, this new, extraordinary experience, announced a beginning of a new era: the era of Surround Sound.

3. Dolby and the Surround Sound

In November 1974 Dolby Labs introduced the Dolby Stereo technology. The Dolby Stereo format consists of two optical sound tracks, each of them carrying one channel of the stereo sound. A special, central track for dialog is also encoded onto the two tracks, along with a separate channel for sound effects and ambient sounds, called surround track. Dolby Stereo contained four channels of audio encoded onto a narrow strip on the film edge. A strip of exactly the same width could accommodate only one magnetic sound channel. This technique provided an increased fidelity of sound reproduction in cinemas, and lowered the costs of production and maintenance of films (in comparison to expensive process of production and fragility of a magnetic sound track).

In 1986 a new recording process was developed, called Dolby SR (Spectral Recording), which provided professional noise reduction, increased amplitude and widened the frequency range of sound in cinemas. Currently all analogue optical soundtracks are Dolby SR (‘History of Dolby’, Dolby official website).

In 1996 Dolby Digital was introduced. Along with the analogue Dolby SR soundtrack a 6 channels of digital optical soundtrack are provided, on one strip of film.  5.1 Surround Sound format provides independent Left, Center, Right, Left Surround, and Right Surround channels, plus a subwoofer channel for low frequency effects, which gives 5 full range sound channels plus one sub bass channel, hence the name.

In 1999 Dolby adds rear surround channel to Dolby Digital, creating more realistic sound perception in Cinemas. The new Dolby Surround EX (or Dolby Surround 6.1), like all the other Dolby formats, is compatible with its ancestors.

Encoding and Decoding Surround sound is a complicated process providing outstanding possibilities. The role of Dolby encoder/decoder device, AC-3, is to encode the 6 surround channels onto stereo soundtrack in a way, that enables ‘converting them back’ to surround channels, during play back. In other words; the encoder combines the additional channels on both the right and the left outputs of film sound track. The resulting track is ready for stereo playback, can be converted into mono or decoded back onto 5.1 surround sound format, using AC-3 converter.

‘Dolby Digital (AC-3) is a perceptual audio coding system developed in 1992 to allow 35 mm theatrical film prints to carry multichannel digital audio in addition to the standard analogue optical soundtrack. The system has since been adopted for use with laser disc, ATSC high definition (HDTV) and DVB/ATSC standard definition (SDTV) digital television, digital cable television, digital satellite broadcast, DVD Video, DVD-Audio, DVD-ROM, and Internet audio distribution’.12

The principle of AC-3 coding is based on TDAC- Time Domain Alias Cancelation. In simplicity, the sound spectrum of multiple channels is divided into narrow frequency bands using a compilation of specially designed filters. The signals are analysed in terms of masking (one of the properties of human ear, which cannot detect low level sounds when there are higher level sounds at nearby frequencies). In the process of encoding, the masked frequencies are dismissed as inaudible, therefore lowering the amount of space needed to store the audio data. Similar rule is used in Layer-1, MP3 encoding systems (Dolby Surround User’s Manual)

4. Film Sound Formats:

13

Digital video formats:

IMAX, introduced in1988 by Sonic Associates;

Dolby SR-D, introduced in 1991 by Dolby Laboratories;

DTS, introduced in 1993 by Digital Theatre Systems;

Sony SDDS introduced in 1993, Sony Electronics;

MPEG-4- internet delivery standard; developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group in 1998,

Flash Video- internet video format introduced by Adobe

AVI (Audio Video Interleave), Microsoft format for Windows operated PCs

QuickTime- video format for Apple.

Level 3 Advances Internet Video Delivery- live streaming format, being currently under development by Level 3 Communications, Inc. It has been used for live streaming internet television in HD quality.

Most of the video formats for streaming video on the web use MP3 compression for audio delivery.

5. Development of Television, Video Games and Internet Broadcast:

1926 The invention of mechanical television called ‘Televisor’, by John Logie Baird. The image was black and pink and the screen the size of a postcard.

  1927 First transmission of ‘electric television’ picture.

  1928 Milton Berlie becomes the first person to be seen on the television screen during experimental broadcast in the U.S. In the same year Baird transmits his mechanical television signal through Atlantic, from the UK to America.

1933 First electronic television transmitter is built by Harry Lubke. It uses 300 scan lines at 20 frames per second and broadcasts for an hour, six days a week.

1941 NTSC (National Television Standards Committee) standard is adopted for television broadcast. It uses 525 interlaced horizontal scan lines and frame rate of 30 frames per second.

1948 First cable TV carries broadcast signal through a cable to remote areas.

1950 For the first time a pre-recorded ‘laugh track’ appears in sitcom series ‘Hank McCune Hall’, broadcasted by the NBC network.

1951 Colour TV program is shown by the CBS. The system was not compatible with black and white receivers.

1956 The video tape (VHS) is demonstrated by Ampex Co. Costumer video recorders follow.

1969 The beginning of ARPANET- a connection between 4 computers in four different Universities. This link was the predecessor of the Internet.

1972 First computer game is designed by Atari. It is named ‘Pong’. It generated one sound in the kinds of a sonar ‘blip’.

  1975 Midway Games releases ‘Gunfight’- the first computer game to use a microprocessor. It has a one channel amplifier to provide the sounds of gunshots.

1977 Atari Video Computer System becomes available for costumers. It provides primitive sound effects that are a foundation for the sound in video games of the early 1980′s.

1979 First talking video game appears. It has a computer generated voice giving commands.

1980 ‘Pac-Man’ hits the market. It is possibly a game with the most recognizable sound design. The sounds from ‘Pac-Man’ became a part of pop-culture and still appear in films, songs or cartoons, where they are instantly recognizable even by those, who never themselves played the game.

1981 PC- Personal Computer is released. In the same year Atari creates a POKEY chip for sound generation. It allows four sound channels with separate control over pitch, volume and distortion for each channel.

1983 First game is released on laser disc. It provides a stereo sound track with real human voices.

1987 ‘Square releases ‘Final Fantasy’ (…). A franchise is born and it will generate what is considered by fans and historians to be the best video game music ever made. Composer Nobuo Uematsu breaks entirely new ground with his sweeping and cinematic musical scores and continues to work his magic in sequels to this day’ 14

  1984 First stereo sound broadcast on television.

1991 MPEG-1 becomes an international standard for distributing audio via the Internet.

1998 MPEG-4 is introduced, giving better quality for the internet delivered videos.

December 2005 The U.S. Congress announces the need of change from standard NTSC analogue to digital transmissions of all television and Radio broadcast.

7. Time Code

Along with the film technology the need for better sound quality aroused. Sound-on-film technology, which used the camera as a sound recording device, was no longer sufficient as audiences expected the sound quality to mach the quality of the image. To record better sounds and clearer dialogs the techniques of dubbing and foley were introduced, which meant that the sound and the image were recorded separately to be synchronized in post-production. As portable magnetic recorders were introduced the use of external recorders on the set created a problem of device synchronization. The first linking of a camera with an external recorder was created via ‘synch-lead’. The camera was the master device. As the speed of both, the camera and the recorder become more stable, the connection was replaced by crystal lock systems. In both techniques the clapper-board was used as a marking point for the synchronization.

The most popular of those systems was Nagra Neo-pilot and BBC Half Track. Both devices used a pilot track recorded onto the magnetic tape from the camera.

The need for more accurate synchronization, allowing finding the exact frame for edit, required a different system- a Timecode.

Timecode is a digital signal recorded on alongside the audio and the video tracks, which provides exact timing information. Each frame is electronically synchronized to the timecode and each can be found by it’s own ‘address’, containing exact hour, minute, second and frame number. In the USA a drop-frame timecode system was also developed, because of inconsistency in the frame rates between colour television (29.97 fps) and black and white television (30 fps) programmes.

The most common timecodes, in use today, are the American SMPTE standard, introduced by Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and European AES-EBU, where EBU stands for European Broadcast Union. Both of them are similar in principle, and SMPTE was soon adopted by EBU. The information for each frame, contained in SMPTE timecode has four parts:

The time in hours, minutes, seconds and frames

The userbits

The controlbits

The synchronisation word

Timecoding enables the post-production synchronization and identification of single takes and scenes of the video and on the sound track.

(As this post is based on my academic work it contains this list of quotes which, in time, I’ll be chenging into functioning links within the text to make the reading a bit easier)

List of quotations:

*Alberto Cavalcanti, “Sound in Films,” in Film (London), November 1939, retrieved from http//www. /lavender.fortunecity.com/hawkslane/575/sound-in-films.htm

1. Schoenherr S. E., 1999, ‘Motion Picture Sound History’, part 1, retrieved from             http//www.history.sandiego.edu/GEN/recording/motionpicture1.html

2. Eyman (1997), pp. 30–31. (a quotation found in wikipedia)

3. Weiss E, Belton J., 1985,’Film Sound theory and practice’, Columbia University           Press, page 7

4.  Western Electric official webpage www.westernelectric.com/

5.  Encyclopaedia II, ‘Warner Brothers History’, retrieved from     http://www.experiencefestival.com

6. ‘You ain’t heard nuthin’ yet’, Published: 12:00AM BST 06 Jul 2000, retrieved from             http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/4751179/You-aint-       heard-nuthin-yet.html

7.  Weiss E., Belton J., 1985,’Film Sound theory and practice’, Columbia University         Press, page 9

8. Weiss E., Belton J., 1985,’Film Sound theory and practice’, Columbia University          Press, page 9

9. Pelletier Jan-Marc, 2009, ‘The Birth of the Synthetic Voice‘, retrieved from        www.jmpelletier.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07

10.  ’The Todd-AO Corporation press release’, 1953, retrieved from        www.in70mm.com/todd_ao/index.htm

11. ‘About the sensurround sound’, from a Sensurround Manual,             http://www.in70mm.com/newsletter/2004/69/sensurround

12. Dolby for Professionals ’5.1 Channel Production Guidelines’, , Technical        Library,             www.Dolby.com

13. ‘Film Sound Formats’, by SMPTE, www.filmsound.org/          http://frank.mtsu.edu/~smpte/table.html

14. Glenn McDonald, ‘A brief Timeline of Video Game Music’, 2001, Game Spot,             retrieved from www.gamespot.com

15. Donnelly K. J., ‘The Spectre of Sound: Music in Film and Television’, 2005,   British   Film Institute Publishing, London, page 10

16. Kassabian, A., ‘Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary           Hollywood Film Music’, 2001, page 8, Routledge, UK.

17.  ‘Film Music. A History’, A. Wierzbicki, Taylor&Francis, 2009, UK, page 129

18. Film Sound theory and practice’, E Weiss, J. Belton, 1985 Columbia University          Press, page 106.

19. Kassabian, A., ‘Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary           Hollywood Film Music’, 2001, Routledge, UK, page 8,

20. Forlenza J., Stone T., ‘Sound for Picture’- MixPro Audio Series, 1993,           MixBooks, foreword.

21. Donnelly, K. J., ‘The Spectre of Sound: Music in Film and Television’, 2005, British Film Institute Publishing, London, pages 5 and 6

22. ‘The Spectre of Sound: Music in Film and Television’, K. J. Donnelly, British Film Institute Publishing, London, 2005, page 10

23. Sonnenschein D., ‘Sound Design. The Expressive Power of Music, Voice and          Sound Effects in Cinema’, 2001, Michael Wiese Productions, U.S. A., page         108

10. References:

About.com, 2009, ‘The History of Motion Picture’, ‘Thomas Alva Edison’,             ‘Dickinson’s Experimental Sound Film’, ‘Lee De Forest’ and other related

articles retrieved from www.inventors.about.com/library/inventors/

Audio Engineering Society, ‘Audio Timeline’, retrieved from

www.aes.org/aeshc/docs/audio.history.timeline.html

Davis M. F., ‘The AC-3 Multichannel Coder’, Dolby Laboratories Inc., reproduced            by permission of the Audio Engineering Society, Inc., presented at the 95th             Convention, 1993 October 7-10, retrieved from Dolby official website,             www.dolby.com)

Dolby for professionals,’ Technical Library’, ‘Motion Picture Technologies’,          ‘Broadcast and Pro Audio Technologies’, retrieved from   www.dolby.com/professional

Dolby, ‘Dolby Surround Tools- Users Guide’, (provided by the School of             Sound Engineering, Cracow, 2001,).

Mc. Donald. G., 2001, ‘A Brief Timeline of Video Game Music’, Game Spot,        retrieved from www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/video/vg_music.html

Encyclopaedia II, ‘History of Warner Bros’, ‘Sound Film History’, ‘General Electric’           and other related articles retrieved from www.experiencefestival.com

Film Formats, retrieved from www.film-center.com/formats.html

‘Film Site’, www.filmsite.org

‘Film Sound’, retrieved from www.filmsound.org.

Vet. LTD, ‘Film and Broadcast production- Glossary’, retrieved from        http//www.vet.co.uk/site/help

Pelletier Jan-Marc, ‘The Birth of the Synthetic Voice‘, retrieved from         http://jmpelletier.com/2009/07/the-birth-of-the-synthetic-voice/

‘Internet Encyclopaedia of Cinematographers’; retrieved from      www.cinematographers.nl/FORMATS4.htm

The Media Management Group, January 2009, ‘Time Line of Music and Media     Technology’, retrieved from             http://www.classicthemes.com/technologyTimeline.html

The Media Management Group, 2009, ‘Timeline of Sound and Broadcast             Technology’, retrieved from             www.classicthemes.com/technologyTimeline.html

Let us get back to the point. I started wandering how people react to images and how we all interpret the visuals by the prism of our own experiences. For people who have never seen the Media City building seeing the older version of it wouldn’t matter, it’d be just yet another building like so many others. On the other hand there are examples of behaviour common to all, regardless of how different our personal histories are. The need to find sense and meaning in even the most random events.

It is said that an experiment was once performed. Unrelated, random images have been edited together and shown to people with a bed of music. Music was not synchronized to the pictures, the pictures were not related in any way, but the audience were convinced that the film shown to them is a work of art and conveys meaning, an important message from the artist, even though their own interpretation skills are not enough to grasp it. Another cinematic trick, which makes use of our investigative nature, is that the more we look at a single image on screen, either shown continuously or in short glimpses, the more interesting and mysterious it becomes; especially if it is seemingly unrelated to the events of the film.

moviefone.com

Viewer would often increase his/her concentration in order to understand what this image means and how it relates to the artist’s/director’s vision. Imagine doing this trick with sound. Sound, as symbolic as it can be, is instantly recognizable by the audience. Even the most eerie, unnatural sounds are not distracting the viewer from the film’s plot. People know their role and why they are used there. It’s an almost subconscious reaction. But what if we are to place an unrelated, mystical sound in the middle of our film, a sound seemingly unrelated to the plot? Would this technique keep the audience on the edge of their seats craving to know more about the meaning of this random sound effect? At best they might think about it for a second, get a bit distracted by it and then go back to the film’s action. At worse they will feel that the film is poor quality and the sound effects disappointing. Sound is only symbolic in a commonly known ways, created through the history of film cannon of meanings, instantly recognizable by every generation of cinemagoers. Image, on the other hand, can be mysterious, symbolic and loaded with elegiac pathos if used in a new, controversial way. Think of all the home videos people record over the years. How haunting the images would become if found 60 years after, in a basement of a ruined house? How more interesting the film would become if the identity of the family was unknown? It is the nature of film itself, it’s melancholy and the way it freezes time for future generations….

So, why not commence a #videoexperiment? Let us try to crate meaning out of a seemingly meaningless pulp of video and still pictures. I dare you to sent short videos, stills and graphics; accompanied by a number (the number will represent their place in the edited film). The only requirement for all the images is that they need to be artistic in their nature, enough to capture our imagination.

Send them via Dropsend, Transferbigfiles, or any other, trusted file sharing site, to : soundsketchers@hotmail.co.uk

Thank You

http://soundcloud.com/alicjas/15-min-sound-design

I would like to thank Alan Watson for making it possible. Eternal gratitude.

This is part of my original sound design to ‘15 minutes that shook the world’. Post production of this film took place in The Vocal Booth in Liverpool. The sound supervisor for this project was no one else but Alan Watson- director of The Vocal Booth and a tutor at Liverpool Community College (Audio Production). As a student of Alan’s I’ve been given a chance to create sound to a number of scenes from this film and many of my sounds ended up on the released soundtrack. This sequence of sound effects was to create an impression of ‘descending to hell’. The director’s brief mentioned also that it should be ‘wet, like in sewers’ . The ‘swashes’ you hear are representing fast camera movements and visual effects that accompany them.

P.S. I do apologise that I cannot use the video but I have no copyrights to it.