TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

Drawing on film animation at the NFB was not limited to visual experiments, because it also led to experiments with sound. The underlying idea is simple: during sound recording, a film’s sound is mechanically set down on an optical sound track. Sounds produce vibrations of the air which are recorded by a microphone and then transformed electronically into vibrations of light. It is thus possible to visualize sounds on the optical track. And if drawings can be produced on the film stock’s image track using etching or painting tools, why can’t drawings also be produced on the optical track reserved for the sound, resulting in the sounds being translated by a loudspeaker?