Lighting and Sound in Films

There is no uncertainty that audio and colour advancements have changed films
forever. With the changes from black and white films to the 4k and clear colours we
see now. With the first film in colour created in 1908, A Visit to the Seaside that used
a red and green filter to bring colours to the scenes. Along with red and green filters,
many old methods of adding colour to fim have been used, techniques such as
printing/ dye-transfer. This printing process adds one to three layers of colour onto
the emulsion of the film, most famously in the Technicolour dye-transfer process.
One of the most famous movies that used the Technicolour dye-transfer process is
The Wizard of Oz, All 1h 52 minutes of the film had the different layers processed
together.

Other techniques such as hand colouring, where the colours were applied with tiny
brushes to each individual frame of the film. Tinting and toning were two of the
earliest techniques with tinting being more popular. Each individual black and white
film positive had to be submerged in dye baths. This would bring out only one colour,
for example light brown, but very saturated. Toning is like tinting but was more
complex, it was a chemical procedure where the silver was replaced with coloured
compounds or dyes for each frame.

As scenes became clearer, with the use of more technical cameras, showcasing
different ways of how lighting is used in scenes was more visible. With 114 years of
colour and more visible lighting being in movies, there has been a wider range of
jobs needed for lighting scenes up in films and shows, such as gaffer,Assistant Chief
Lighting Operator and Lighting Technician.

John Higgins, a famous gaffer, has been a gaffer on films and tv shows since 1984.
He has done lighting on 85 shows with one already broadcasted in 2022. One of his
more recent films, Skyfall has been absolute technical masterpieces in terms of the
scale and overall quality of the projects.

(Picture of John) “LED technology and moving lights is fantastic. It is an ever

evolving and a very exciting aspect of what we do.” - John Higgins

He has also worked on Thor: The Dark World and all Kingsman films with all these
films very good visually, dimmer lighting in more suspenseful scenes and brighter in
exploration, you can tell where his lighting techniques have been used to direct these
films.
One film I didn’t talk about in his credited movies above is Gravity from 2013. It's
remarkable how he was able to make the actors look like they were in space. Also
showing shadows on the actors from the spaceship behind them and having to
match it with the lighting from planets around. Although he wasn’t credited for the
Oscar award “Best Achievement in Visual Effects” his work with directing the lighting
made sure the shadows, shine in helmets, reflection lighting and inside the
spaceship had no faults.

Other Gaffers such as Bob Field have also been working on shows and films for
countless years enticing the watcher into what’s on the screen. Bob worked on 48
episodes of Young Sheldon from 2019-2022. A Gaffer requires many years of
expertise using lighting skills that have been perfected over time, even while filming
shows all gaffers learn more with experience.

From one key part of filming making to the other, audio and its improvements over
time. From sound not on the disk to it playing perfectly with the film. Sound was
added to films in 1926, 18 years after any type of colour was added to films. Audio
has been on films in films either alongside it or edited in for 96 years. The first
method of adding audio to film or shows was The Talkies.

The Talkies Era was the first time sound was “added to films” sound was recorded
on a disc, which was played alongside the movie. The Jazz Singer, an American
musical film, was the first feature-length movie with synchronised dialogue. It had the
actors singing and music playing perfectly with the musical.

After The Talkies, Mono was used for films. The soundtrack was recorded using
multiple audio channels. It was then reproduced with Fantasound, Fantasound was a
sound system developed by engineers of Walt Disney studios and made for Walt
Disney's animated film Fantasia, the first commercial film released in stereo. Mono
was used from 1940-1974, the war stunted films from improving quickly and in 1975
Stereo was used, four channels of sound were put down to two channels to record
on film, then decoding them back to four channels. This allowed for stereo in the
small amount of room available on the film stock. Star Wars Episode IV: A New
Hope, the first star wars film, had stereo for the audio process.

The Stereo Era was only for 2 years, this was because Multichannel was getting
used. Apocalypse Now, a war/drama film was the first film that used multichannel
audio. Only 15 years later one of the most famous movies was released with more
advanced multichannel audio. The movie Jurassic Park, This is the first Digital
Theater Systems film, placed the soundtrack not on the film but on a separate CD-
ROM. The foley sounds, dialogue and background audio, such as the dinosaur
sound and cars moving was all placed separately from the film.
As years went by, Multichannel audio advanced for a better cinema experience, in
2010 Toy Story 3 was premiered. This film used Dolby Surround 7.1; it used the
bandwidth available from the transition to digital cinema to add two separate
surround channels in the back of the theatre. With this audio improvement, enjoying
movies became even easier as you were able to hear everything and what side of
the screen it's happening.

As movies were getting shown internationally, being able to share movies would be
difficult, it became a lot easier when digital cinemas were introduced. In the 2000’s
trying to show movies globally changed for the better. In 2001 for the movie Jurassic
Park III had to be shared over the internet and in smaller disk sizes to be shown at
many cinemas. No audio or colour could be faulted as it was safely able to be sent, if
there was an issue copies could be easily made.

Before, if there was damage to the film the scene would be ruined and having to
make a copy would take ages. This was huge for films then and for the future as only
improvements could be added. As of now we can share films with companies very
easily. Dvd, usb and sent online are just some of the options.

Many great films such as Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Batman Returns, Jurassic
Park, Cast Away, The Terminator and The Matrix all used Multichannel Audio. A
sound designer who has done audio work in the Multichannel era is Ben Burtt, Born
July 12, 1948 has been working with sound in films and shows for 45 years. He has
done work on Star Wars, Indiana Jones, WALL-E and Star Trek.

Burtt is notable for popularising the Wilhelm Scream in-joke and creating many of the
iconic sound effects heard in the Star Wars film franchise, including the 'voice' of R2-
D2, the lightsaber hum. With his work on Foley sounds and adding them into the
films.

"Your success as an artist, to say something new, ultimately depends on the breadth
of your education. My recommendation would be to major in an area other than film,
develop a point of view, and then apply that knowledge to film. Because if film is all
you know, you cannot help but make derivative work.”

Dolby kept on working on how audio could be better and in 2012 they introduced
Dolby Atmos, it creates a 3D sound experience so realistic you can hear objects
passing overhead clearly, a simplified name for it is object-based audio. Object-
based audio was first used in 2012 in the movie Brave.

Walt Disney Pictures were the first company to use it in their film. Other companies
started to use it. Dolby Atmos is the main company that does surround sound
technology, with many of their features used in products. Soundbars, Amazon Echo
Studio and the latest headphones all use 360° audio.

It was developed to push the boundaries of audio creating the best audio for the
scenes. With cars in the distance driving behind you and buildings falling all around
you it's always got a purpose, to make the scene better.

Films from 2012 and onwards all use this feature in their films. Movies like Skyfall,
Interstellar, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Black Panther, Joker and Star Wars:
The Rise of Skywalker all got given awards for best sound in either editing or mixing.
Object-based audio was used in all of them.

All Hollywood movies use this in their films with every one of them improving on the
other trying to get all 360° of audio used to create the best atmosphere. There will be
advancements with audio in Films but this is the biggest development so far. All of
the films everyone enjoys from 2012 have audio that people from 50+ years ago only
would have dreamed of.