What Is a Sync Sound Camera?
Sync sound cameras are a class of film movie cameras. The development of workable sync sound cameras was extremely important to the technological history of cinema.
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Film
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Even today, film cameras do not record sound the way digital cameras and consumer camcorders do. A film camera simply records moving images onto a film strip, the contents of which are connected to a separate audio recording much later in the film production process.
Early Cameras
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Before the advent of sound film, it was not necessary for cameras to record images at a precisely constant speed. Early cameras often ran at variable speeds, meaning that the projected film would very slightly speed up and slow down as people watched it.
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Syncing Sound and Picture
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For the sound and picture of a film to be in sync, it's necessary that both the camera and audio recording equipment run at a precise and constant speed; otherwise the audio will drift out of sync over time. For standard film, this speed is 24 frames per second (FPS).
Sync Sound Camera
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A sync sound camera is one capable of providing sync sound--one that runs at a constant speed. Modern sync sound cameras usually run on a quartz crystal motor--the same kind used in a quartz watch--to ensure a constant 24 FPS.
Wild Sound
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Sometimes, additional sound is recorded "wild"--that is, unsynced. This sound has to be manually and painstakingly synced up with the relevant images in the editing bay, during film postproduction.
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References
- Photo Credit film image by saied shahinkiya from Fotolia.com
