American Cinematographer - September 1990 - 79

created

a soft, contrasty light which ac¬
curately emulated the visual ambience of

able before CDS, but now we have to
think about those things."

the theater.
Salzmann used

Re-recording mixer Don Mitch¬
editing sound,
you are creating layers. The problem is
that every time you add a layer with
analog sound, you pick up background

camera,

a

Panaflex

mainly with Eastman color nega¬

tive film 5247, which he rated for an
exposure index of 80 (about a half-stop
over-exposed). That still allowed him to
pull a T-2.8 stop. "I knew we would be
making 70mm prints, so I wanted the best
possible image quality to start with," he

said.
Wexler noted that there

were

uncomplicated shots which didn't
require a lot of discussion. However, even
then, he was looking ahead.
"We had a noisy dolly," he
recalled. "Normally, you wouldn't worry
about that because it was very low-level
noise which could be covered up with
other sounds. But, we wanted a produc¬
many

ell adds, "When you are

noises. There is bias noise and hiss. That
doesn't exist with digital sound. You can

layer forever, and it will stay clean. That's
the first thing I noticed. It's quiet, and
that's a great advantage."
Over the longer term, Wexler
believes CDS could drive the evolution of

space by creating a solid wall of low-level
ambient noises in the spacecraft," Kramer
said. "There was a steady hum of back¬

ground noise, so when the scene moved
outside the spacecraft, the absence of
sound was a compelling factor in making
the audience feel the void of space. Any¬
time you can make an audience forget
they are watching a movie, the fantasy
you are creating becomes their reality.
That makes the film-going experience so
much more powerful."
Kramer drew another interest¬

sophisticated use of noise reduction
technology in postproduction. "That
would allow us to discretely eliminate
unwanted noises recorded during produc¬
tion," he said. "CDS will encourage this
evolution of technology because it pro¬

ing parallel between visuals and sound:
"Today's low-light sensitized films allow
us to see things in the shadows the way
the human eye does. The result is that
movies are being shot in much more re¬
alistic light. CDS comes a lot closer to
how we hear things. As a result, I believe

vides

we

more

a

release format that takes advan¬

tion track which was free of extraneous
noise. That gave us maximum freedom
later in mixing the sounds we wanted
without having to repair errors. So, we did

tage of very sophisticated manipulation of

things like moving the generator a little
further away from the scene. The noise
level probably would have been accept¬

ous

sound."
Sounds Like the Heel World
demonstrates how that can work in vari¬
ways. For example, the film uses a
sequence from Stanley Kubrick's 2001.
"Kubrick emphasized the quiet void of

T H E
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will learn how to make better use of
natural sound on location. That will also

enhance the feeling of reality."
Within a week of the first

screening of Sounds Like the Heel World,
Buena Vista Pictures Distribution Com¬
pany and Touchstone Pictures announced
that Dick Tracy would be the first feature

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American Cinematographer - September 1990

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