American Cinematographer - February 1984 - 85

Fred

Ginsburg

Double

System Video

With the sole

exception of news gather¬
ing, virtually every foot of motion
picture film ever intended to be married
soundtrack has either been shot

to a

and/or edited in what has become
known as "double system" sound. De¬
fined most simply, double system sound
is any process by which picture and
audio are recorded and/or stored on
separate media, yet may still be pro¬
jected in perfect sync registration with
one

another.
For

instance, the act of

shooting film in a camera while record¬
ing sound on a Nagra tape recorder is
double system. Similarly, editing a reel
of picture alongside a reel of magnetic
worktrack

on a

Moviola

or

double system.
This would be in

KEM is also
contrast to

lacing up a Frezzi or a CP16R-A with a
magazine of pre-striped reversal stock
and capturing some fast-breaking
event-simultaneously recording both
the picture and the audio onto the same
strip of film. Whenever the picture and
sound are physically combined on the
same

medium, that is referred to

as

"single system."
Obviously, to shoot and edit
in double system requires extra equip¬
ment on the set as well
twice the effort in the

as more

cutting

than
room.

Nevertheless, all of the added burden is

gleefully accepted by the entire motion
picture community.
When crystal sync permitted
severing the umbilical cord between
camera and tape recorder, it was hailed
as a triumph towards increased creative
flexibility, for it has long been acknowl¬
edged that what may be the best geo¬
graphic position for the lens is not
necessarily optimum placement for the
microphone.

era
us.

Now then, it is 1983 and the
of videotape production is well upon
Millions of dollars of research and

development have brought
cameras

us electronic
that rival film in many aspects,

and

portable videotape recorders capa¬
being slung over a shoulder. Un¬
fortunately, though, all of this
marvelous technology has been con¬
ceived for the most part, by electronic
engineering geniuses who have yet to
learn basic lessons about shooting with
ble of

sound.
As

nicians
we

are

more

and

more

film tech¬

crossing over to videotape,
witnessing a beneficial merger

are

of the creative old with the electronic
Directors of photography encour¬

new.

aged the adoption of low-key, dimen¬
sional lighting to replace the traditional
flat sterility of video. Film editors cried
out for frame accurate editing control¬
lers and the ability to creatively checker¬
board the soundtrack. Production sound

The second

option is that of
employing a multi-track audio recorder
to capture a "live" soundtrack. This
form of double system has been in use
amongst large-scale video productions
for a long time, though it has been
mainly limited to musical concerts. To
achieve sync between the videotape
machine (usually, but not necessarily a
one-inch VTR) and the multi-track (often
a 16 or 24 track recorder), SMPTE time

perfect synchronization even if
unit should "hiccup" a pulse or two
during recording.
Alternatively, separate time
code generators may be used. In this
case, it is important that both genera¬

video. The first of these is with

tors

are

conven¬

tional single-system. The other two al¬
ternatives employ double-system

techniques.
In the

single system mode,
directly from a
mixing panel (or straight into the micro¬
phone level inputs) onto the videotape.
On documentary crews, the soundman
will even carry and operate the VTR
portapak much as he would a Nagra
tape recorder. In all cases, the sound
all of the sound is fed

on

V*"

tapes.

be fed with the same sync
source-such as from a common or
"house sync" master generator, or at
least from two time code units equipped
with accurate internal crystal-regulated
video sync generators.

Although it is editorially
venient for video and audio

to

con¬
have

February 1984

American

operator are

time code

stereo audio

any

joined by at least one cable. This ham¬
pering connection makes any wide¬
spread separation difficult or impossible.

camera

standard method fot

recording SMPTE

sures

matching time code numbers, it is not
essential. As long as there is some sort
of distinctive reference point on both
tracks (such as a clapstick, door slam,
gunshot, etc.), there is no difficulty in
determining the offset (numerical dif¬
ference) between the two code tracks
and entering that information into the

mixer and the

Nagra
adopted a

code is fed from its same generator to
both machines. Having the identical
time code on both video and audio in¬

returning to the indepen¬
dence and improved sound quality of
their audiotape recorders.
There are basically three
ways of recording audio on location for

mixers

Studer and
have

Cinematographer

83
American Cinematographer - February 1984

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