8mm Sound options

[JimStrauss]

Hey Everyone,

Just need a little help in the right direction. I have recently purchased a Bolex, will be shooting a short in late March, giving me plenty of time to experiment until then.

I was wondering what my sound options are? I have been reading many many posts, does the DVX work effectively to capture the sound? Will I have trouble to sync it all together in Post? Should I just hire a professional sound person who knows what they're doing?

Thanks,

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

Your best bet is to hire a sound person and record to digital files. This will most likely give you the best quality anyway, and plus I don't think a DVX would work as well as a crystal sync recorder, but I am not an expert on how the DVX digitally writes audio.

The biggest question is if your Bolex is made FOR sound? This is reliant on if your bolex is crystal synced. If not crystal sync'd, your audio, no matter how well you record it, can stray from the picture. This is because there are very small discrepencies from the film camera movement if not run by a crystal sync motor.

Here is a small online article explaining crystal sync:

What is crystal sync?

By Benjamin Craig , filmmaking.net
Historically, when shooting on film sound is recorded separately on tape stock (magnetic or digital). Because of power fluctuations, tape tautness, and many other factors, the speed of either the camera or the sound recorder may vary slightly during shooting/recording. The result of this is that one part of the process may be running at a slightly different speed to the other, creating problems in synchronisation between sound and image.

Pilot tone was the original method for keeping cameras and sound recorders in sync, however it comes with one major limitation – it requires a physical connection between the two devices.

The problem can be alleviated by using a motor that is regulated by highly accurate oscillations of certain quartz crystals. Since both devices use motors with the same crystals, they can be forced to stay in sync without the need for the physical connection (since the crystals oscillate nearly identically in both devices creating a "base-line" for the motor to maintain its speed from).

Best,