Sound follower

A sound follower, also referred to as separate magnetic, sepmag, magnetic film recorder, or mag dubber, is a device for the recording and playback of film sound that is recorded on magnetic film. This device is locked or synchronized with the motion picture film containing the picture. It operates like an analog reel-to-reel audio tape recording, but using film, not magnetic tape. The unit can be switched from manual control to sync control, where it will follow the film with picture. Many motion picture cameras do not record audio sound on the film, so in professional film production, there is a need to have the sound recorded and played back on a device that has a double-system recording to tapes, or by any means, for example DAT or Nagra, SD or other audio recording media and then transferred to 16mm or 35mm sprocketed magnetic film. The sound recording would then be synchronized with a movie projector or a telecine. Either 35mm film or 16mm film that is fully coated with a magnetic material can be locked, sprocket hole by sprocket hole, to the film with the picture image. On the set, a clapperboard is used to mark the spot where the sound and picture will later be aligned in editing. Typical sound followers lock to the power line using a sync motor and toothed timing belts, or by using 240 Hz bi-phase interlocking pulse signals to sync sound to film. The 240 Hz bi-phase is ten times the 24-frame rate. Sound followers are found in many post-production studios for record and playback and in movie theater for sound playback. In telecine use, the 24 frames per second is slowed to 23.976 frames/s to lock to SDTV and some HDTV standards, thus the digital bi-phase pulse is 239.76 Hz. The average feature film requires a large amount of 35mm film. One second of 35mm film uses 1.5 feet of film, moving at . One minute of film uses , and one hour uses . So, a two-hour movie with previews uses 11,250 feet or of film. For 16mm film, these numbers are all divided by 2.5 (36 ft/min.).