Sound for film started to become digital during this time period. Straying away from analogue equipment to DAW such as pro tools. It started with Gary Rydstrom creating sound for Luxo Jr. He used synthesisers and pro tools to create a life like sound to the animation. Creating audio for animation at this time was very basic and Gary managed to add human attributes to the character on screen.
He did a similar job on Toy Story 1995. With Woody and Buzz Lightyear having specific choices for their speakers. With Woody being older Gary decided to make his speaker sound like an old record inside him and Buzzs to be a modern speaker system. These key choices made him a great sound designer for picking out tiny differences that govern your thoughts during the movie.
On Jurassic Park 1993 Gary did the same with incredible work creating sounds for the dinosaurs. Layering up 5 animals to create the roar. He noted that Pro Tools helped the sound editors see the waves for the first time, and to hear all the sounds played together simultaneously which wouldn’t be possible in the past before DAW programs.
The Matrix 1999. One of the first movies to have all digital sound effects. This was difficult as the computer systems were still sketchy and prone to crashes and losing things. But on the other side the computer allowed for different techniques that analogue didn’t.
In Birds by Alfred Hitchcock, It was one of the first time that a film had audio designed into the script. This allowed the sound editor and designer to have more of a hands on approach to the designing, It made the sound have more a meaning that just music for the background or just speech. This also occurred in other movies. Where music was not prominent and silence was used effectively. Stanley Kubrick 2001, David Lean – Lawrence Of Arabia. This was dramatically different to movies that were around in the 1950-1960s that were all predominately the same. Carbon copy movies coming out like a factory, with the same themes, ideas even sounds and scores. It was corporate creations.
In 1965 an important moment happened. Television became widespread into every American home. Tv took over which made films harder to operate and at the time Hollywood was so dissociated with what was going on in the grander aspects of society that it felt out of synch and didn’t connect with the population.
One of the key equipment that allowed for easy portable recordings used on set during this time frame was the Nagra. Which allowed portable use of recording audio in synch to cameras.
The founding of American Zoetrope by George Lucas & Francis Ford Coppola meant that they were allowed to dictate how they operated and by their decisions they decided to incorporate sound design extensively into their movies. Putting sound as important as video.
The first movie directed by George Lucas that was released through American Zeotrope was THX 1138. Walter Murch who did the sound design and editing decided to record every sound himself in this feature length film. This was the foundation of more ideas to come later on his career. Despite being a commercial failure THX 1138 still remains a huge step towards sound design in its current modern state.
1972 Godfather. Walter Murch also worked on sound design on this great movie. He felt heavily influenced by john cage who spoke about how everything is music. The clapping of a crowd could be music. How even plants can be music. He used this aspect into certain scenes in godfather. For example when killing Sollozzo you can hear the ambient noise being filtered and his thoughts become sounds of trains. Showing his ideas in an abstract nature can encourage different thoughts.
Sound for film in the early 1970s was still in mono. Which in contrast to the music industry it was heavily behind. Stereo had already been a standard for years. This level of immersion that two speakers gave influenced the sound editors at the time to take creative steps into changing the norm. In 1975 the first stereo movie came, with Dolby providing the first initiative to bring stereo to the current day cinemas.
1975 A Star Is Born. This was the first stereo movie released. The standard time for audio editing was usually around 7 weeks for a commercial release. This took 4 months and was privately funded by Barbra Streisand. She was adamant about having the film in stereo. Feeling that the degree of reality that stereo posses cant compare to mono, the success of this application made it into an industry standard.
Jim Webb standardised the use of multitrack recordings during this time period. He would mic up even the extras with their own microphones to make it easier to create ambience and background noises in the mixing stages. This was important as before this it was incredibly hard to record live on set during filming. This made it that the story of films became more led by sound, which never used to happen.
Ben Burtt Star Wars 1977. Burtts work on Star Wars changed the attitude towards sci-fi sound design for ever. Before Burtt typically sci-fi work was used with synthesisers and other machines alike. Burtt decided to not use synthesisers with his work for most of the sound effects. He was tasked to create the noise of a Wookie speaking. He ended up recording a baby bear you loved bread and it fitted perfectly. His use of non synthesised sounds changed the cannon of sound design.
Apocalypse now 1979. This movie also changed movie sound with its specialisation usage as well as experimental techniques. Director Francis Coppola was listening to Planets by Tomita which was a 4 track piece. Essentially you put 1 speaker in each corner of the room. You then sat in the middle and were surrounded by audio. Francis Coppola was so inspired he told his sound design team that this was what he wanted his film to sound like. The only problem was most of the sound team had only ever worked in mono. The sound team spent 1 year and half editing the sound and 9 months mixing. The technique of making someone edit/mix one section of the audio also began here. You would have one person mixing/editing the dialogue. Then the other the ambient sounds, sfx etc. This 6 track system of audio reproduced in cinemas created the modern film sound we have today. Dolby 5.1 came out of this movie/production.
Many modern sound editors were inspired by early radio dramas. As sound was the only medium with this art form. Artists had to get creative in order to portray a strong immersive experience as the technology at the time was really limiting. There was no DAW so everything had to be practiced as you couldn’t edit as easily as with pro tools. Using tape made for less dub overs.
One of the radio shows that inspired was The shadow, which Orson Welles performed as Lamont Cranston, He performed anonymously throughout 1938. The sound effects and ambience in this show was notable and inspired many.
Another was War Of The Worlds 1938. Orson Welles pioneered sound perspective. The radio drama performed and narrated by Orson Welles. Was famously known to scare and confuse the public into thinking there was an actual alien invasion. His performance and creative use of sound affects was for its time influential.
Orson Wells also worked on Citizen Kane, a masterpiece known by society. In Citizen Kane 1941 Orson Wells took the skills he learnt from radio dramas into film further. The notion of sound design and sound editing was taken to another level. The sound in this particular film was energised. The Sound energised the environment, and this at the time was a rarity as the norm from around 1930-1960s was to to put a score or music over scenes instead of creating ambience with sound effects. Now music can create emotion but too much music can also take a layer of immersion away from the scene. Having no music play can put emphasis on the person to pay attention to whats happening.
In 1877 Thomas Edison created the phonograph, society was finally able to capture audio and play it back. Edison also developed the camera. His idea to combine audio and video was dropped due to synching issues. It was impossible. They both played back at different speeds and he was unable at the time to get them to relative timing to synch up.
In the early days of films they had orchestras that would travel around and play with the film. Similar with sound effects, they would play them live with instruments and other creations alongside the film. For example in Wings released 1927 they used drums for plane engines as there was no way to combine audio.
Don Juan 1926 was the first movie to use the Vitaphone a machine that played records in synch to the movie. The phonograph would play at 33 1/3 rpm synched up mechanically with the film reel being played. Synched up sound effects and and music score were played in synch but not dialogue. As when filming the picture the microphones did not have enough clarity to capture audio without being close to the actors. The technology had not yet been created. It was so popular that it became Warners best selling movie at the time with people fighting over tickets.
I can understand how amazed people would of been to not hear or see an orchestra at the front of the stage. Synching would of been a breakthrough for the art form and really set up the future sound/film relationship that we have today.
The Jazz Singer 1927 is marked as the end of the silent film era. Being the first motion picture that had synched sound effects, score and singing ; speech.
It was the first film that recorded audio on set. It became a hit and the world saw it as a sensation. The word for this type of movie became talkies, coming from the synched speech that wowed people. The commercial success that talkies brought, inspired the whole industry to change the whole thought behind how they operated. The sentence quiet on the set came from the movie, As microphones had a very small range so the actors couldn’t move when performing. This made the technique very limiting in terms of freedom of movement with the actors and creativity with the script designers but still the audiences loved the speech synched that they knew they were on to something great. This movie was also where sound effects began, as because mics couldn’t record everything a sound editor was created or more so went outside of his job to do it. As at the time the music department handled everything and they weren’t really sure what the music department were doing to get the end goal.
King Kong 1933 was the most influential sound design movie since the dawn of movies. It was what pioneered sound design. Artist Murray Spivack created the screams of King Kong by collection sounds of tiger and lion roars and reversing and slowing down. Then combined and played together created the well known noises. This was a huge step forward as most studios used their own stock sounds that everyone else would use. Every movie would have the same noises and be familiar. But Murray Spivack decided to record his own and through doing that created and established a new art form.
