AW: Equipment and ratios

Jasper Sharp jasper_sharp at hotmail.com
Tue May 17 10:09:00 EDT 2011


The impression I get at the beginning was that the studios in Japan opted out of the stereophonic sound and used Perspecta sound systems instead. That is not to say that the big showcase cinemas for Western films that originally showed The Robe in Japan were not equipped to run magnetic sound, just that exhibitors of Japanese film took this cheaper option.I'm currently looking at the case of Daiei's 70mm production of Buddha from 1961, and this appeared to have used a 6-track magnetic sound system.


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Date: Tue, 17 May 2011 09:53:53 -0400
From: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: AW: Equipment and ratios



Just to clarify: remember that Cinemascope was originally supposed to use magnetic sound and at first had the sound run on a separate strip, which allowed them to use more of the film strip for the image, like with the silent film era. Then you could get 2.66:1. Putting the magnetic strip on the film made it 2.55:1, but exhibitor resistance to having to buy a new sound system led them to abandon the magnetic strip for an optical strip, which took up more space on the film strip, reducing it to 2.35:1, which was the standard for much of the Cinemascope era. Please also check out John Belton's excellent book on widescreen for all the nitty-gritty details.
What I would ask Jasper is whether anyone in Japan tried to use the magnetic sound system.


Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film Studies Program
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
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Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.eduwebsite: www.aarongerow.com



 		 	   		  
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