Summer 2001 - The Association of Motion Picture Sound

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In Mttrch oJ this year, the Ar:udemy qf'Arts uncl Motion Picture Sciences (AMPAS) presentetl dn uward to loan AIIen ancl Rabin Bran.shLrrv of Dotbv Labs, and Mark Han'alt of Walt Disnett Co ior thehwork as creatrlrs conr:ept, de,rign antl i mp Ie rne ntat itt n - t{' t he T rai le r Au.dio S I urulu' d s As s o c ittt i u n'.t ( 71{,5A J T r ui le r Lo ud nt: s s S t a ntlar tl. With tlttc respect tfi the ttutu.rd a.nd. uchitv,ernenl.t of tfu cLbove rt:tipients, AI,IPS editrtrs woultJ like to tb'aw nzenther's attentittn tr: tl't.r: u,r-trk dt.tnt: itt Brituitt hy the ll'lntiorz Pir:ture Luutlne.r.t (nmrnittee (MPLC)on llw sturtt stth.ied, &ntl the Commhree's achievement in having it's finrlings incctrporated into a British Standrtrd, The following is a report byt Graham Hurtstone, Chairmanofthe MPLC. MOTION PICTURE LOUDNESS COMMITTtrtr F-ollowing adverse press articles about the excessive sound levels in cinemas, the MPLC (Motion Picture Loudness Committee) was formed under the chairmanship of Graham Hartstone in November i998. The committee consisted initially of representatives from Dolby Laboratories, DTS and Sony Cinema Products Corporation. Other committee members were drawn frorn the maior di stri buti on companies, cinema exhibi tors ( C"EA i, cinema advertisers (CAA), cinema installers, the British Standards Institute, (BSi), various rerecording mixers from the AMPS membership, and the all-important optical transfer supervisors. Our aim, under the combined wing of AMPS and BKSTS, was to establish some contiol over excessive soundtrack levels as a form of industrv self-regulation, before it became a serious health and safety problem. From the early meetings it became clear that other organisations were pursuing the same goal. TASA (Trailer Audio Standards Association) in the USA, CAA (Cinema Advertisers Association) in the UK, and more globally SAWA (Screen Advertisers World Association) were all proposing to use a Dolby model737 LEQ(m) to rnonitor levels. This rneter measures average peak levels over the timescale of the programme, in other words, the annoyance factor. It does not prohibit loud sounds from being used in a mix, but they must be compensated by periods of lower modulation in order to register an acceptable average level. These LEQ(m) limitations are now widely accepted in many countries, most of the mixing facilities have the LEQ(m) meter to moniror levels, and a further check is made at the optical transfer facilities. Currently the maximum levels of 86 dB LEQ(m) forqailers and 82 dB LEQ(m) are adhered to. Further reductions are being sought, MPLC successfully incorporated these levels into a British Standard (BS -5,5-50-7.4.2:2000) and an ISO equivalent is being drafted. The human ear has a bLrilt-in protection de vice. When- subjected to continuous high levels it begins to self-attenLrate, especially the high frequencies. Fortunately it slowly retrrrrrs to nornral drrrirrg a followirrg quieter periocl, although too much continuous high level exposure may cause pcrrnailent hearing damage. This phenomenon is well known to rcrecorcling mixers. Irr future, the 'overtures' to feature lilm presentations (trailers arrd commercials) carr be played at the starrdarclfader setting without causing offence. This means that feature mixers will not have to compensate during the mix for the virtual certaintv thatlheir tracks will be turned down in the cinema. Let us make full but not excessive use of the more than adequate avai lable dynamic range. As chairman of the Mpt-C, I woulcl like to thank all the members of the committee for their time and contributions so far in achievins the British Standard, with special thanks t6 John Croft FBKS, for being an excellent secretary to the committee. GRAHAM V HARTSTONE IJ-\\4PS FI]KS Head Of Post Production. Pinewood Studios ii I OMISSIONS & CORRECTIONS THE EDITORS APOLOGISE '"-"'*'1 Unfortunately the following names in the End Credits 2000 columns, printed in the last Newsletter, were spelt incorrectly : Ann Boorman, Carmen Dillon, and Hedy Lamarr. Sadly, the names of Marc Davis and Bernard Wicki, who both died in January 2000, were missed from the listings. Marc Davis was the great animator who, working for Disney, created many cartoon characters including Bambi, Thumper, Tinkerbell, and the evil Cruella de Vil. He was also responsible for devising installations at Disney theme parks. He was 86. Bernhard Wicki, actor/director, born in Austria in 1919 of Hungarian-Swiss parents, did much to restore the prestige of the German Film Industry. In 1959 he directed The Briclge, a story of Bavarian schoolboys defending a small bridge against American attack. The film won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar. The excellent Gernran segments in Darryl Zanuck'sThe Longest Da_y 66yi" were directed by Wicki. He also directed two American movies. Zhe Vlsit (l9e) andThe Sttboteur (1965) and acted in a number of Italian and American films. t I 1 f
Richard Duniel Gaes.... GIZMO GAZING One of the things that I really enjoy is trawling through magazines, newspapers, catalogues and web sites looking for new stuff that might be usefirl to us iri the sountl game. Recently I have noticed a speeding up ol consumer technology's move towards our'professional' territory with both new hardware and software. From shooting. to editing, to final delivery, it's all getting smaller, faster and cheaper. Also the equipment, because of its cheapness, is no longer the huge capital investment it once was: if fact. if it doesn't work it's probably cheaper to throw it away and buy another one. So here are a few items that I have selected for your entertainment. First check out the new HHB Portadisc MDP500 portable MiniDisc recorder (rvrvlv.hhb.co.uk). I have always like the concept of MiniDisc for location use. The disk is rugged,light and well protected and has large label on it for clearly marking content information. It is also easy to send in an envelope and pretty damage proof. The Portadisc looksjust the job as it includes phantom powering tor the mics, an internal speaker and optical digital inputs and outputs for copying, plus a six second prerecord buffer so you wont miss the clapper board. It has a USB port so that it can be connected to a laptop to transfer files to and from the recorder, and to provide editing facilities that would be useful for'playback' sessions on location. As with many semi pro products, the main thing that it lacks is timecode recording but this might be overcome by using the Aaton burst timecodeapproach where a few frames of code are recorder on the audio track at the start of each recording. On transfer this code can jam a timecode generator and provide continuous code to the copy. This brings me to the Ambient Recording Clockit Sync Module for DAT (and MiniDisc?) recorders. This unit can genlock the word clock of the DAT recorder to its very accurate timecode generator which can be jam synced from a master clock. Text data logging to a PC is on the way. This may be useful for Sony 24P shooting! Bored with using conventional recorders? Well why not try recording sound on your lap top? Checkout the Sound Devices USBpre (rvwrv.sounddevices.com) box which enables you to connect, via an USB port, two channels of analogue audio such as microphones (including phantom powering), and line inputs in any combination. The unit has a level meter and full headphone monitoring. All this is powered directly from the USB port. This sounds ideal for recording onto Pro Tools V5 on location. Not sure whether it's working? Checkout the TerraSonde Audio Toolbox (wr'vrv.tenasonde.com). When I saw the original Toolbox I couldn't believe what it offered, and it was purple! This is a handheld test set, battery or mains powered with lots of plugs and sockets, ancl includes a distortion rneter, an impedance meter, a sine wave sweep generator, a phase generator, a continuity tester, SPL meter, frequency and hanlonic analyscr and so on. It has a PC/Mac serial interface for the transfer of measurcnrents to your coillprlter for the printing of chafts. A very erttertirining and unusually designed piece of hardware. Moving along into the editing domain, chcckout theApple PowerMac 733MHz G4 computer (rvrvw.apple.com/ukstore) with its distinctive shape, optional flat screen and see-through speaker system made by Harman. This beast includes their new SuperDrive DVD Recorder and iDVD software where you can import your videos with sound, edit them and transfer them direct to DVD, all for about f3O0O. If you are PC based checkout products by Pinnacle and Matrox who sell video editing systems for both the consumer and professional markets- (Ed: the samz Apple Gl computer can be used as the basis of a DVD authoring system.from {5000; or in a full video editing configuration using CindWave around f 10,000). Tired of carrying around all those CD sound effects libraries from cutting room to cutting room, and cannot afford a server system? Then checkout the Hango PJBox. This is a handheld MP3 player which can hold up to 320 hours of stereo audio on its 20 Gigabyte internal drive all for the princely sum of about f700. Creative and Archos also make similar devices for even less! Had enough of all this high tech stuff and feel like a trip down memory lane? Do you remember when the word 'disc' meant one made of vinyl? Checkout rvrvrv.danscttes.co.nk for the latest in portable battery operated record players. Look for the one called the Fonorette which ejects the (45rpm) disc at loomph!. Finally, it would be amusing to read this article in a couple of years time and see how things have moved on since now. Happy Gizmo Gazing. DANCING SF{ADOWS SOI.IM) IN MOTION PIC]I'I]RES Earlier this year BBC Radio 4 broadcast, in surround sound, four episodes of an excellent series invcstigating the use of sound in motion pictures. Produced by Mark Burman and presented by Christopher Cook, a number of 'top drawer' sound designers / sound editors along with exhacts lrom the movies they talked about. Amongst those intervierved were Walter Murch, Frank Warner, Alan Splet, David Lynch, Mikc I-c Mare and Graham Hartstone rvith excerpts fromThe Converssliott, Saving Private Ryan, Eraserhead, Ilts Boot, BItde Rturrtcr and olhers. Unfortunately thc programmes were broadcast on a weekday at 1.30pm so probabiy onll' a fcrv members gclt to
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Summer 2001 - The Association of Motion Picture Sound

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