American Cinematographer - November 1985 - 102

we

began editing,
on one

we recorded time code
of the sound tracks of the tape

upon which the scenes were to be as¬
sembled. The time code would be the

guide during our sound editing. The pro¬
cess is vastly simpler, quicker and
neater The alleged disadvantage I keep
hearing from film editors is this. "What
happens when you have an edited tape
and the producer wants to add five
frames

to a scene

in the middle? The

is

simple. Re-record the se¬
the change, make the
change and re-record the remainder of
the sequence. If you keep your edited
answer

quence up to

"reels" limited
tenth generation
wording
hotographed
irectly from the
wnitor

screen.

Uthough picture
'egradation is
bvious, the foot and
rame

track down shots. Before

sistant to

numbers

are

learly legible.
Photo by author)

(using the resolver) to a two track Vt"
audiotape, one track of which had been
pre-recorded with SMPTE time code.
This could be looked upon as the equiv¬
alent of transferring to sprocketed mag¬
stock

netic

with

the

time

code

"electronic sprocket
holes." The synchronization of the pic¬
ture and sound is performed elec¬
tronically by an amazing piece of
computer technology, the Audio Kinetics
functioning

as

Q-Lock. The Q-Lock is the heart of the

system. It slaves our 14" 2-track and
our 2" 16-track audio recorders to the
%" videotape machine. Anyone who
has ever struggled with syncing dailies

using workprint and magnetic stock
turn green with envy over the
ease of syncing electronically. This is
the way it works:
The clapstick point is located
on both picture and sound using the 0Lock keyboard. Because both have been
previously logged, it is simply a matter
of entering the time code address on the
keypad and locating the scene. Once
sound and picture are together, a few
more buttons are pressed and the pro
would

duction sound

transferred to one of
the videotape It so

is

the audio tracks

on

the sound. Be¬
cause we were working in a difficult
location (our filming coincided with a
carpet-laying project next door,) we had
problems with our production sound. For
a while we tried saving it with equilizers and noisegates, but then we de¬
we went on to

cided

to build the entire sound track
from scratch. After all, this was to be
our studio demo reel, so we might as
well show our stuff. Our Automatic Di¬

alogue Replacement (ADR) sessions
were a breeze. A cycle of any length
can be programmed into the 0 Lock and
it will repeat a scene over and over
again until given instructions to stop.
We recorded the new dialogue directly
the 16 track recorder and would

was

reel and

corded

on

cutting and spooling, there's

film bin,

and there

trims

over

no
elusive little

are no

the floor

.

.

.

all

just a few book-sized

videotapes within arm's reach of the
editor, who no longer needs an as
100

editing

alogue

no

American

Cinematographer

takes

never worked in video
before tackling Opportunity Knocks. He
became so enthusiastic over the system
that he is using it for a current 50
minute documentary project.
Once we finished the picture

onto

code number There's

it

Al Martinez had

happened that the summer we began
work on the film my 19-year old daugh
ter Cassie was interning with me After
training her for an hour or so I turned
the syncing chore over to her and she
polished it off like an old hand.
Once the production sound
was synced to the picture we went on
to the editing. The scenes are logged by
time

minutes

to ten

little time to accomplish the task.
You lose a generation, but it makes no
difference as long as the time code and
foot-and-frame numbers are legible. Off¬
setting this little inconvenience are the
advantages of vastly quicker logging,
searching and actual editing. Our editor
very

usually record several takes without a
pause The actor kept repeating his
lines until the director was satisfied. It
is a source of pride to me that most

people who

the film are totally
word of the di¬
"looped.
see

that every

unaware

Sound effects

brary,
We

were

either

location, taken from

foleyed in

our

re

li¬

sound booth
usually found it faster to foley the
or

sound effects for the

the ADR

our

same reasons

sessions were so

November 1985

easy.

that

All of the sound in the picture
built on 12 of the 16 tracks on our
2" audio recorder. Three were saved for
the music, effects and dialogue com¬

was

posite tracks. (The 16th track is used
for time code.) By using predubs for
some of the more complicated sound

effects, we managed to get along quite
well with just 12 tracks. But had we
needed more, we could have mixed onto
4-track recorder giving us a total of
to work with. For an even
more elaborate project we could gang
our

15 tracks

together two multitrack recorders with
the 0-Lock. At this point we had an
edited videotape and a composite sound
track. Now it was time to go back to
the negative, cut it to match the edited
videotape and marry the sound for an
answer print.
My plan for getting around
computer programs and expensive stateof-the-art equipment was to make a
kinescope of the edited videotape. This
would give my negative cutter some¬
thing concrete to cut to. The numbers
would be right there on the picture for
easy identification. Kinescoping has
been used little since the advent of

videotape, but

found Ringer Video

we

Services, who did the job for us. After
the kine was made we had our sound
transferred to 16mm magnetic stock,

hoping that the time code would keep it
in sync. But no such luck. The sound
simply wandered all over the place. So
we started calling anyone and everyone
we could think of who might have an
for us.
If anybody knew the answer,
we couldn't find it. My original idea had
been to make the kinescope and trans¬
fer the sound to mag at the same time,
answer

relying
things

the

frequency to keep
But this would have
necessitated my purchasing a kinescope
for my studio or hauling all of my equip¬
ment over to Ringer, a prospect that we
on

main

in sync.

both found unthinkable. There

was one

could get our sound in sync.
Ringer has a standard system for get¬
ting a synced mag when they make a
kinescope. While shooting the kine,
they simultaneously record the sound
from the videotape onto a 2 track au¬
diotape recorder. They also record a
pulse on the other track which is the
guide for their soundlab to transfer to
way we

mag in sync. (This is similar in principal
to the familiar pilotone system.) We had
a

final

mix on our

videotape and could
American Cinematographer - November 1985

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - November 1985
