Many spectators who go to the cinema believe that the magic that is experienced in projection rooms has to do, above all, with special effects, those computer-generated graphics that are already capable of making us believe that anything is possible and that coming out hence, there is not much else to look at in the creative process of a film. But nothing is further from reality, do you know why?
This is how it worked 80 years ago
The Internet hides audiovisual treasures that we often don’t find because we don’t know they are there, and proof is the video rescued by the @lostinHistory on Twitter, which brings us back a nice documentary of just two minutes where we can see how technicians sound an animated short by Walt Disney in the distant year 1941. You can see it right here below.
How cartoon artists at Walt Disney created sound effects in 1941. pic.twitter.com/Hk46Wtemjz
— Lost in history (@lostinhist0ry) August 2, 2022
Although it may seem strange, do not think that you work very differently today, especially in those films that want to have their own universe of sounds and do not resort to the huge pre-made libraries of effects that filmmakers have available.
In the video we can see the art of creating sounds in sync with what’s happening on screenand that are what really bring the cartoons to life: the whistles, the gears of the engine starting to run, the jumping tiles leaving their notes of color and that feminine voice of the locomotive before the jump over the destroyed bridge.
As we say, things have changed little because those films that take care of their soundtrack down to the last detail replicate these same techniques today, in which someone, with an object in hand, is capable of creating the illusion of reality even inventing effects that we have never heard of before. Or did you know what a Wookiee sounded like before you met him in Star Wars?
a nice reminder
It goes without saying that cinema is image and sound, and that in addition to the dialogues of the actors and those wonderful themes composed by John Williams, there is what is known as sound effects. A territory within post-production that comes to fill the gaps left by filming on set, where many times it is not possible to capture that noise that the director wants to be highlighted within the scene.
Nowadays, almost all movies go through the sound process, where practically all that sound track is reconstructed where the steps go, the doors that open and close, the explosions and that noise of lightsabers when they cross in the air. Even more so if spatial effects are applied later and each one has to be located in a certain place within the 3D stage of the scene.
Ben Burtt, for example, is one of the benchmarks in the industry since his enormous work throughout the saga starwars since 1977 or his later participations in In Search of the Lost Ark either wall e. He has been in dozens of top-tier movies that he has brought to life through a completely unique universe of effects that, in essence, they are still obtained in the same way that Disney did 81 years ago.
