Moving Images, Understanding Media

Chapter 3 Sound and Image 117

Slate – A small rectangular board with clapsticks at the top (also called a

clapperboard, clapboard, or marker) used to synchronize recorded sound with

moving images and to provide technical and recordkeeping information.

SMPTE Time Code – Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers

time code is a system designed to set exact time registration and synchronize

diff erent recordings of sound and picture, by recording pulses that document

individual frame numbers, seconds, minutes, and hours.

Sound eff ect – Other than dialogue, voice-over, and music, sound eff ects

are all sounds created or obtained separately from the production track of

synchronized audio that was captured during shooting.

Synchronous sound – Type of sound, oft en referred to as sync sound, that

is heard exactly as its visual source moves or is seen or perceived to create

that sound, such as when a person’s lips move as they speak. When image

and sound are exactly matched as intended, they are described as in sync,

and when they are incorrectly matched, they are said to be out of sync.

Vitaphone – Sound-on-disc system developed by Western Electric and Bell

Telephone Laboratories in the 1920s, which linked a turntable to the fi lm

and employed special projectors, amplifi ers, and speakers.

Voice-over – Spoken dialogue or narration heard by the viewer but that

is not voiced directly by a character in the scene. Th is includes interior

monologues or thoughts of a character, narration by a character or unseen

narrator, commentary such as in a documentary fi lm, or voices imagined or

remembered in the minds of characters in the story.

Wild sound – Non-synchronous sound eff ects, off -camera lines, and non-sync

dialogue recorded during production separately from the picture

Windscreen – Device used to shield the microphone from wind or air currents

or pressure. A common type is the blimp, which is a large hollow windscreen

that encloses the microphone but allows sound to pass through relatively

freely.

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