As cocooning masses acquire ever more proficient sound and entertainment systems, there exists a growing number of high-living ears spoiled by digital quality sound and expectant of superior aural stimulation in a moviegoing experience. Since Canadian productions have yet to fully avail themselves of digital audio technology in their releases, there is question as to whether those expectations will be met.

Whither sound in Canadian cinema? The current standard in cinema sound today is digital, at a 16-bit sampling rate, released in one of three formats, Sony sdds, Dolby srd or Universal’s dts. While opinions differ on the relative merits of each of the systems, most sound mavens agree that all are a significant improvement over analog stereo sound in the quality and dynamics of the end result.

Most will also attest that the number of Canadian features that release in one of the formats is scant, a situation most report is due to cost, change-resistant producers, and an unwillingness to shell out for an element that is generally thought of, as Michel Bordeleau of Audio fx in Montreal puts it, ‘the basement of the industry.’

But many sound types consider digital sound not only worthwhile but feasible and affordable for filmmakers.

Sixteen-bit digital theater sound, as interpreted by the three major players, means sound is mixed for six discrete channels – left, right and center behind the screen, left surround and right surround in the auditorium, and a sub-woofer for those low, bowel jostling sounds. In the case of Sony sdds, it’s eight channels, with the addition of left center and right center channels.

Dolby and Sony systems feature the digital track encoded on the film, while dts stores the digital sound track on a separate cd-rom disc. dts gained a foothold in theaters in 1993 with the release of Jurassic Park, when Universal sold the units to theaters at a reduced price with the film.

While sound experts admit the average moviegoer would likely not be able to tell the systems apart in the theater, most agree that, logistically, having the digital track on the film is preferable.

According to Lou Solakofski, rerecording mixer at Soundmix in Toronto, 16-bit digital sound allows you to stay as close as possible to what you hear in the mixing theater and allows sound to be reproduced cleanly from normal conversation to sound effects that feel as though they’re breezing past your head or rattling your bones.

‘Everything before digital was a translation,’ says Solakofski. ‘People mixed in anticipation of the medium; we couldn’t do a gunshot that would blow up the speakers here. With stereo, you had to be concerned about how much low-frequency information you put in or you would break up your optical track.’

The road to digital theater sound is fairly well-traveled and, depending on the sound facility, the status quo is that some of the process takes place in the analog realm.

After shooting on set with a digital format like dat (although this is not strictly required), film will be time-coded on set and then loaded into a digital workstation for editing, dialogue conforming and sound effects recording.

At this point, sound can be downloaded to Tascam d88 eight-track digital recorders to keep the digital stream going. After that, says Michael O’Farrell, sound supervisor on Norman Jewison’s Bogus, which will be released in sdds, there are a number of analog stages in the mix because boards are still predominantly analog.

‘At some point, it’s always gone to analog,’ he says. ‘We’ve always mixed down to 35mm mag stripe, even if we’re going digital, that’s what our mix has been on.’

While there are differing opinions as to the cost involved, based on different methods, some sound professionals say the process of designing digital sound is slightly more time-consuming and therefore more expensive.

‘Having discrete surround tracks and discrete sub-woofers, there is a good deal more panning and prep involved in just getting the tracks to the theater,’ says O’Farrell.

Solakofski says it’s difficult to quantify the extra time it would take for a discrete digital mix because it is very project-specific in that the more tracks you have in the premix stage, the bigger the mix will be. He says depending on what is happening on the screen, a producer can expect to add anywhere from 5% to 20% in terms of time spent on sound.

Gregor Hutchison, post-production supervisor at Alliance, who worked on the Sony sdds release of Alliance’s Never Talk to Strangers, says that mixing digital sound ‘the back end way,’ reassigning sounds to channels at the end of the process, is less costly than starting from square one mixing with surrounds. Licencing fees which vary by format and by picture, also add marginally to the bottom line.

Bordeleau, supervising sound editor on the recently completed Canada/u.k. feature coproduction Rainbow, a high-definition feature film to be released in Dolby srd, says the process was more expensive from the standpoint of using more time, more material and more stock, but the end result was worth the effort.

‘Hooray for Dolby srd!,’ Bordeleau enthuses. ‘The format allows the audience to become part of the movie.’

Bob Predovich, vp and gm of Master’s Workshop in Toronto, says in a facility that is equipped and experienced in handling the process, the difference between doing a traditional Dolby stereo mix and doing a discrete digital mix is marginal.

‘In a company like ours, the process is not prohibitively expensive,’ says Predovich. ‘We have always mixed feature films and imax projects to digital multitrack. For us to deliver to the specs needed for any of the formats is not a big deal.’

Predovich says Master’s has been dealing in discrete digital for about 10 years through its work with Imax Corporation, originator of the discrete surround experience for its 70mm films. He says additional cost and effort comes into play when facilities aren’t experienced in the formats and have to install more speakers, more speaker channels and modify their consoles to accommodate the demands of the mix. Predovich readily attests to the benefits of digital sound in a film.

Master’s recently designed sound for Allegro Films’ Screamers, which was released on Dolby srd, and Predovich says he would encourage Canadian producers to avail themselves of the new technology. ‘The more we bring this extra dimension to film, the better Canadian cinema will be viewed,’ he says.

A number of sound facilities, including Soundmix and Soundhouse in Toronto and Pinewood Sound in Vancouver, are undertaking upgrades to prepare for the coming and staying of digital formats.

Expect CD quality

George Novotny, gm of Soundhouse, says with all the improvements in home video, people are expecting impressive sound tracks; they’re looking for cd quality in theaters and home video.

‘We see this as being the long-term format of choice,’ he says of the current technology.

Tracks are getting more complex,’ adds O’Farrell. ‘People are getting tuned to it. With good sound, people walk away more in tune with the film.’

There is still a reluctance, however, to embrace the current phase of digital sound.

Geoff Turner, president of Pinewood, says none of his Canadian clients have partaken of six- or eight-channel digital sound. ‘Like most things with Canada, we wait for a little while,’ he says. ‘We hear about the innovations and then eventually we get the mainstream going.’

Planned expansion

Of the planned expansion of Pinewood, he says it’s been a matter of waiting for people to come around and begin fully utilizing the facilities. ‘If demand was there already, it would be less scary to stick our necks out and make the expenditure,’ he says.

Theaters, too, are playing the waiting game when it comes to installing the systems that allow patrons to experience the end result of all the digital machinations. Currently, Famous Players has a total of 114 digital processors on its 461 screens across Canada, and Cineplex has 300, with both exhibitors having a preponderance of dts systems.

Who will triumph

According to Howard Lichtman, executive vp of marketing and communications at Cineplex, it’s a matter of who will emerge victorious among the digital competitors. ‘The problem is that there are three systems instead of one,’ says Lichtman. ‘Circuits would be more likely to invest in more sound systems if they knew which technology was going to win at the end of the day. It’s crazy to spend a lot of money to find out two years later that you’ve got the wrong system.’

Some form of standardization is desired and anticipated by many in the industry.

Having said that, there is one Canadian production that has traversed some virgin territory in the digital sound realm. John L’Ecuyer’s Curtis’s Charm is the first Canadian film to be done completely digitally on an Avid film composer and an Avid 16-channel Audio Vision.

Toronto-based sound engineer John Hazen, who worked on the film, says the project was assembled as a co-operative of Avid and the National Film Board, with help from Soundplus, Mackie Technologies and GerrAudio.

Hazen also completed sound for Patricia Rozema’s When Night Is Falling, one of the only Canadian productions to be released in Dolby srd.

‘People have said that it’s possible to complete a feature on a workstation, but no one ever does it,’ says Hazen. ‘Nobody has reworked the process based on a digital workstation.’

Hazen, an applications engineer with Avid and a freelance sound designer and mixer, is effusive about the process and the possibilities it opens up for smaller Canadian productions using digital sound.

Synching rushes

The streamlined process excludes having to make a zero offset (to picture edl) dat, which can cost about $450 per hour in a transfer house. A significant step is synching the rushes in the Avid film composer, which bypasses a number of steps that later become redundant, says Hazen.

With savings accrued from avoiding transfer costs, vast amounts of stock and the labor to create it, Hazen approximates the savings to be $10,000 per shooting week, or $100,000 over a 10-week production. Hazen says he can’t see the limit in doing post this way.

Less hardware

‘The effect is that you get professional mixes on much less hardware,’ he says. ‘The savings from just the 200 or so units of stock is huge and can be reapplied to the film instead of going into someone’s pocket as profit. It will mean local films won’t be on the lowest rung of the ladder and offers them the option of getting a film made at all.

‘As we delve deeper into this, we’ll blow apart the entire post process and its segmented and linear fashion.’