Sound Of Music Is Back in 4K

[Frank Angel]

Those of us who grew up hearing those Todd-AO mixes with directional dialog and were indeed lucky to hear it done right, we still have a nostalgic soft spot for that type of mix. Then even beyond the 70mm system, when 35mm CinemaScope mag prints allowed for discrete tracks, directional dialog (matching the location of the sound of the voice to the actor's image location on the screen) continued, pretty much as a trend because the technology even on 35mm mag prints made it possible. But soon I remember seeing criticism building against it, mostly because while it sounded very natural to have a voice come from the location of the actor who was speaking, it because very jarring and intrusive when that voice had to jump from one side of the screen to the other to accommodate the location of the actor during shot changes. And as much as I was a fan of directional dialog, I have to admit, that is a very valid criticism -- one of the mortal sins of cinema is letting any technology draw attention to itself rather than work unobtrusively to inform the story, unnoticed in the background.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

The Sound of Music very effectively uses 5-screen channels with a panned dialog. You would not want an exaggerated speaker placement or the voices won't line up I have done 5-across on screens 20-feet and wider and never had an issue with directionality. It is all up the acoustics in the theatre and the speakers you are using. If they are good point-source speakers and your acoustics are good, localization is pretty clear. If you have an echo-chamber and some line-array monstrosity, well, no.

Absolutely true! I saw it twice at the Michael Todd Theater in Chicago and the panned dialog was amazing. But a theater definitely needs to be set up properly. I know the Michael Todd and the Cinestage right next door had A2's. They also used some sort of large Altec surround speakers that had the horns on the bottom, or perhaps just turned over. Each screen amplifier was the 100 watt Altec amp that used two 807's as outputs. All I can say is in those two theaters, everything was done right. I will try to dig up that photo of the Cinestage booth...