How is sound added to movies?

[Kain]

I was just wondering, how is Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS sound added to movies? Do they first film the movie and then go back and insert the sounds into the movie?

And how do they encode the movies into Dolby Digital 5.1 and/or DTS? I mean, do they just say "This sound will come from speaker x." Then do you edit the movie to make different sounds come from different speakers?

And what about the bass? Does the amount of bass in a movie depend on how much the producer wants? If so, then why don't they max out the bass on all explosion scenes and other "bass-heavy" scenes in every movie? I mean in some movies the explosions are not as bassy as in other movies. Is this because it was intended to be like that?

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[justin_tx_16]

it depends on the film. for instance.

stereographic films or 35x2 films have stereo tracks on the actual film where the sound is recorded.

digital films will do the picture and sound, but keep the files seperate more often than not.

traditional filmtography is the same, you record the pictures and sound at the same time but keep them seperate.

when you get back to the studio to edit the film and sound at the same time, to make sure your time codes are equal, otherwise you will get voices going with no mouths moving once you have finished the basic editing you can go back and fix the film, do a little air brushing and whatnot and adding those lovable characters that are animated. This goes also for the sound track, you make this seperate again and inhance the audio properties, as well as sound effects. you then add another layer of audio (depending on your editing suite hardware/software) with the music and then another with the producer/director comments and/or a different language (DVD's).

if you are doing an animated movie, you do the sound after the movie is finished being filmed or created. you do the voice overs and then go back to the film and make sure the voices line up correctly and keep the lip movements and whatnot in sync and style with the voice.

that is how my dad does it at least.

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-justin

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[dblue]

I have a little something to add on the animated section. Some animation studios (disney, dreamworks, Don Bluth) do the voiceovers first, and then animate around them. This gives a much more realistic look when the characters are talking. Most Japanese animation houses do just the opposite. They animate first, and then try to do the voicovers around the animation. This is why some anime (even the original language tracks) do not look as natural when the character is speaking.

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