ABSTRACT

In the 1960s life was easy for synchronizing sound and picture. Film and television were separate except in one instance: films were shown on television one-way street. During postproduction of all but the very simplest productions, double-system sound was used, and for movies, sound magnetic film was used with the same dimensions as the picture film and with perforations. Twenty-four frames per second was the frame rate of the synchronous motors used on cameras of the era and on magnetic film recorders running in parallel with the camera. Film shot for both theatrical features and television is transferred to video for editing. There are complications due to the differing natures of film and video that are necessary to understand to get and keep picture-sound synchronization throughout the various processes. Originally developed for videotape editing purposes, it was soon extended to keeping multitrack audio machines in sync with video machines for postproduction and then to production sound.