00:00Acting cannot be broken up into sound and visual.
00:07You know, when you have a lot of noise going on everywhere,
00:10it's also distracting for the actors.
00:13Forty years ago, people, the sound recordists were much better trained.
00:17They were much better trained because there was a demand made on them.
00:20Today, you have, nobody makes that demand.
00:24When and how did you learn the existence of Sync Sound
00:26and how did you adapt this to the Indian context?
00:29Well, you see, I started shooting in Sync Sound
00:33from the very first feature film I made,
00:36Ankur, onwards.
00:38I was shooting in Sync Sound.
00:40At that time, when I started,
00:43I used to use a studio camera.
00:45Even though my films were shot in outdoor,
00:48I was shooting with a Japanese camera called Seiki.
00:51It belonged to the Shree Sound Studios here.
00:54And it was a camera that was designed after the Mitchell.
00:58So, it was a completely silent camera.
01:01And so, I was using that camera to shoot my films.
01:05Now, when I was forced to use a RE-2C camera,
01:10which is not a silent camera,
01:13we used to insulate it
01:16by using, you know, mattresses and so on and so forth
01:20to make it as silent as possible.
01:22And so, I, you know, for me, Sync Sound is not anything new.
01:28I have been using it from the very first film I have done.
01:31When did I come to know about Sync Sound?
01:34Let me tell you that in India,
01:36ever since the very first sound film was made, Alamara, in 1931,
01:41films were always shot in Sync Sound.
01:44They were shot in Sync Sound almost until 1960s
01:49when, with the new RE-2C cameras, 2B and 2C cameras,
01:57when these cameras started to be used as against the older Mitchell cameras,
02:02and these were noisy cameras,
02:04it was from then, I think, the Indian film industry,
02:07particularly the Mumbai film industry,
02:09started to shoot films that were not Sync Sound.
02:12And they would, all sound would be post-sync.
02:15You know, that is, there would be a lot of dubbing of all the dialogues and so on and so forth.
02:20Now, I have also dubbed.
02:22But I dub when I find that the location and the environment is very noisy.
02:27If the environment is not noisy, I have always preferred to shoot Sync Sound.
02:32And that continues to be so till today.
02:35And one of the great advantages,
02:38I mean, there are many advantages,
02:40but one of the great advantages is
02:42that your post-production time gets reduced,
02:45you know, when you shoot in Sync Sound.
02:48So, the sound that you have got is your final sound when you're editing the picture.
02:52That is number one.
02:54Number two, the performance of the actors is one integrated performance.
02:58Now, that's also a very important thing.
03:00When you get one, because after all,
03:03acting cannot be broken up into sound and visual.
03:07You know, your mind, the way you act, the way you speak your lines,
03:11a lot depends on the kind of emotion you are carrying when you are acting.
03:17And that should be the quality of your sound.
03:20Now, people try and reproduce this in the recording studio afterwards.
03:25Two things happen when you do that.
03:27First of all, you don't have the ambience of any given location.
03:30Second of all, you don't get the right perspective.
03:33You see, because everybody concentrates on getting the right timbre of voice
03:38rather than the right perspective of sounds.
03:41And the character of sound that goes with a certain emotion.
03:46You know, people's voices get heightened or lowered depending on what the emotional moment is
03:53and also depending on where they are in perspective.
03:57You know, people who are in the far end of the corridor
04:00are not likely to sound like they are next door to you.
04:03Now, these things would have to be done, corrected later on by sound recordist.
04:09But when you shoot and sync sound, all these things come right.
04:13Now, there are many advantages. Then there are economic advantages.
04:18Because it cuts down, as I said, your post production period.
04:22But on location, you have certain distinct disadvantages as well as advantages.
04:29Let me take up the disadvantages first.
04:32The disadvantages on location, when you have sync sound,
04:36is that you have to be sure that every shot you have got in the camera,
04:42for the same shot, you have the exact same quality of sound.
04:47Which means that your sound recordist has to be very particular.
04:52And as much as I might pay attention to my cameraman when he said that he got an okay shot,
04:58apart from me as a director saying I have got an okay shot,
05:01he should also confirm that he has got an okay shot.
05:04Similarly, the sound recordist has to confirm he has got an okay shot.
05:08Now, therefore, there is a little more time spent on this.
05:14But that is still worth it. Then on location when you are shooting,
05:19one of the things that we notice, we all notice,
05:22that whenever an Indian film is being shot, there is a lot of noise on the location.
05:27Whether it is in the studio or outside.
05:30Now, when everybody knows that the film is going to be shot in sync sound,
05:34that noise level comes down.
05:37People work much more quietly than they would otherwise do.
05:41So, this is a great advantage and makes it much less tension filled.
05:47You know, when you have a lot of noise going on everywhere,
05:51it is also distracting for the actors.
05:54It is distracting for the actors, it is distracting for the technicians
05:58who are working on the film. Everybody is making a lot of noise.
06:01So, that noise level will come down immediately.
06:05But in order to get good sync sound, two things are absolutely essential.
06:13The sound recordist's understanding of what quality of sound he is getting,
06:19he must be absolutely first rate.
06:22And second of all, which is something that in the Indian film industry,
06:26nobody seriously pays any attention to, is the boom man.
06:32The man who is actually carrying the microphone.
06:35Because our films have not been, you know, for many years, nobody uses sync sound,
06:41they do not know how to hold the boom.
06:45How to hold the boom mic.
06:48How to get the right sound of the people who are speaking.
06:51And the boom man, just as much as the sound recordist,
06:55does not necessarily pay as much attention as he should
06:59to the fact of the camera placement, the movement of the camera,
07:04the movement of the actors.
07:06Because the boom man has to know exactly who is going to speak at what time
07:13and where the camera is going to be at what time.
07:17Now these things are very, very important,
07:20which means that just as much as a cameraman pays the kind of attention he does
07:26to every shot he takes, the sound man has to do the same.
07:30The sound recordist has to pay as much attention as a cameraman pays
07:36both to the actors as well as to the action.
07:43So a sound recordist has to be equally familiar with the script,
07:49like a cameraman has to be familiar with the script.
07:52He must know exactly how the shot is going to go.
07:55So during the rehearsals, he must not only look, he must find his position.
08:01A boom man is very, very crucial.
08:04Now apart, you know, except in India where we pay no attention to the boom man,
08:09abroad, particularly you will find in countries like Europe,
08:13you will find that the boom man is given as much importance as the sound recordist.
08:20Because you can often have the boom man being the sound recordist
08:24and the sound recordist being the boom man.
08:27They can interchange their positions.
08:29If they can interchange their positions, it means that both are of equal importance.
08:33And this is where you must realize that when sync sound comes in,
08:40it means that the quality of your sound recordist, the quality of your boom man
08:44has to be as good as a cameraman.
08:49I just wanted to know, do the artists' performance limited in the terms of sync sound
08:55because they have to perform as well as they have to concentrate on the dialogues at the same time?
09:00When you are acting, you are acting with everything.
09:05You are not acting with the face in one shot and hands with another shot.
09:10You are one complete person.
09:13You have your eyes, you have your mouth, you have your ears, you have your limbs.
09:19So when you are talking about sync sound, you are talking about their giving a complete performance.
09:25There is no such thing as a partial performance.
09:28You cannot say that he is giving me a good visual performance
09:31and he is not giving me a good audio performance.
09:34That is ridiculous. An actor is trained as a totality.
09:38So a good actor is one who will be able just as much as his mime is first rate,
09:45his voice, ability to use his voice will also be first rate.
09:50And they will be integrated together because they are not separate things.
09:55So there is no question of separating these two things.
09:58And therefore, according to me, to get that discipline back into the film industry,
10:05everybody should actually be using sync sound.
10:08Only in those locations which are very noisy,
10:12where you really cannot use sync sound, it's okay.
10:16But otherwise, at least 90% of your film should be in synchronized sound.
10:23No question.
10:25Do they cooperate in terms of technique and time in your film?
10:28Everybody does. You see, when they realize,
10:32because after all you are also saving their time,
10:35just as much as you are saving yourself some time,
10:38there is much greater efficiency in using synchronized sound on the sets.
10:44No question about it.
10:46And an actor will focus his attention just as much as every technician
10:51will focus their attention correctly.
10:55You know, it is not a question of saying only the cameraman will pay attention,
11:00just as much as the director pays attention, the cameraman will pay attention,
11:04the sound recordist will pay attention, actors will pay attention.
11:08And that is what you need for a really good film.
11:12You need good performances.
11:14And there cannot be a better performance than a complete performance.
11:19Not done in parts, but as a totality.
11:23And it's the same thing for everyone.
11:26What is the difference between making a sync sound film 40 years ago and today in India?
11:31There is no difference. The difference is that 40 years ago,
11:34people, the sound recordists were much better trained.
11:38They were much better trained because there was a demand made on them.
11:42Today, you have, nobody makes that demand.
11:46Film units use the sound recordists, they don't take the sound recordists very seriously.
11:52Because they say that he is only going to give you a pilot sound, so it doesn't matter.
11:56Even if they don't have a sound trained sound recordist, it doesn't seriously matter to them.
12:01Because all they want is a pilot track.
12:03Which means that the training of a sound recordist is languishing behind
12:10compared to the other disciplines of filmmaking.
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