Museum of Moving Image

During my trip to the Museum of the Moving Image I was able to learn about a wide variety of things. The tour guide was extremely informative and engaging and brought us through several exhibits in the museum. I felt like I learned a lot of production secrets about some of the famous movies that I have and have not watched, including Titanic, The Exorcist, Black Swan, Nightmare on Elm Street and more. The first activity we did as a group was listen to a sound clip from a movie and identify which movie. Listening closely, I was able to deduce that it was Titanic I was listening to, a film I had watched for the first time only a few months ago. But the tour guide then broke it down, and had us listen to certain sound layers with the movie showing. I learned that James Cameron intended for the Titanic itself to be an animal, hence the sound of moaning elephants when one of the towers of the ship collapses. The editing itself and the foley used was also something I had never thought of prior to this trip—turns out the foley of the cables snapping on the ship were of rounds being shot from a rifle in an open range.

I also learned how sound was recorded back in the day. The term “soundtrack” comes from the roll of film that has two “tracks” or lines of magnetic tape. This allows for sound to be recorded alongside, or perhaps separate from the video. Then when editing, it goes through a very large machine with a monitor and a contraption that keeps the film reel taut.

Now that major films are recorded digitally, this lack of need for physical film and more for memory cards allows for lighter transport, higher resolution on film, and arguably a higher quality of film and sound recording than what we had in the past.