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The Sound of Music

What words come up in your mind when you hear the word 'Movie'? 
Actors? Actresses? Directors? Those are exactly the words that we associate immediately with movies. But I recently came upon the realization that there is more than meets the eye, literally. There are thousands of people working behind a film, and only a handful of them appear on the screen.

A close friend of mine is Sound Engineer by profession. Before meeting him, I wasn't even aware that such a profession exists. But a closer look into his professional life unveiled a lot of things that I, like most of us, was unaware of. 

We can all agree on the fact that music is one of the biggest elements of the cinematic world. In my opinion, without the right music at the right place, even a brilliantly acted-out scene won't leave as much impact on the audience. I was recently roped into the fandom of Rajamouli's Magnum Opus- 'Bahubali', and I cannot deny the fact that the music in the film intensified each and every emotion being portrayed on-screen, helping it become a blockbuster hit that it is.

So I talked to my sound engineer friend about what really goes on before we hear the final sound in movies, and I was stumped by the answer. It takes more than 300 hours of hard work. (that too, leaving aside the recording of songs and background music). These 300 hours are split into Dubbing (min. 80 hours), Foley (min. 80 hours), Track Laying (min. 50 hours), Premix (min 80 hours) and Mixing (min. 40 hours).
For those, who are as clueless as I was, about the meaning of these terms, here you go : 

Dubbing is the process of furnishing a film with new sound track and for getting noise free, distortion free dialogues.

Foley is the addition of sound effects recorded after the shooting of a film (eg: footsteps, clicking of a clock, jingle of a key-chain, or any and every noise that we hear in a film)

Track laying is the process of syncing audio (dialogues, voice-over, sound effects, atmospheric sounds and music) to the video.

Premix is the stage in which the dialogues, sound effects, music, etc are prepared for final mixing.

Audio mixing is the process by which multiple sounds are combined into one or more channels, the frequency, reverberation, echo, volume level, dynamics panoramic positions ,etc are adjusted.

Interesting, eh? Phew. I never really knew how much work goes into making sound for a single film. But I am sure that my movie experience will never be the same again. I am  sure to be extremely mindful of each and every sound that I hear in a movie, and of the efforts that have gone into enabling us to hear that sound.
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