How are movies produced on film e.g. 70mm tape stitched together and synced with the audio?

Question

I was watching Oppenheimer in London today and I thought the film was fabulous!

After watching the film, I decided to watch the Science Museum’s [guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5XqqylBW7M) on how they prepare the 70mm film tape for production, where they sync the audio disc and the film together.

This got me thinking: during filming, they would have had separate reels of film which would need to have been cut/spliced and stitched together (just like in Premiere Pro or iMovie) before they exported the final tape drum to all the screening theatres across the world.

I was wondering how did the editing studios achieve this? Do they first convert the film to digital, do the edits in Premiere Pro / Final Cut Pro and then match the frames in the tape to the exported video or is there a different process involved?

Also, how do they print the tens or hundreds of film drums for distribution to the various showing theatres across the world. They obviously went to Los Alamos and came back with one film tape that they then had to work with in the editing suite. How did they then print it a hundred times over to the high quality they needed to make it before sending it out for viewing in all the cinemas across the world?

In: 28

Answer 1

Well, this isn’t limited to film, but have you ever seen the ‘clapboards’ that they close before shooting a scene? They usually a have scene #, take #, etc? Usually it’s the last thing they do before calling ACTION!

Well that clapboard serves a purpose! It’s the point that editors use to sync the audio and visual for each scene.

When film is edited, all of the raw footage is developed and edited in big bays, on big, purpose built tables that have reels and a monitor. Once the editor identifies the sync point, all of the edits after that point should be synced.

The editing process is far more complex than I’m hinting at here, because there are layers of audio and visual elements that are added. Conceptually, I hope this makes sense though.

So once an edit is done, there’s a ‘master’ that is then replicated by studios, where the audio tracks are embedded ON the film before distribution. Those copies are sent out to theatres and they’re installed on giant spinning platters in the theatre.

I hope this answers your question.