This is how they created sound effects at Walt Disney in the 40s

Many spectators who go to the cinema believe that the magic that is experienced in the projection rooms has to do, above all, with the special effects, those computer-generated graphics that are already capable of making us believe that anything is possible and that from there, there isn't much else to look at within the creative process of a film. But nothing is further from reality, do you know why?

This is how it worked 80 years ago

The Internet hides audiovisual treasures that we often do not find because we do not know they are there, and proof is the video rescued by the account @LostinHistory on Twitter, which brings us back a nice documentary of barely two minutes where we can see how the technicians sound an animated short by Walt Disney in the distant year 1941. You can watch it right here below.

https://twitter.com/lostinhist0ry/status/1554484981325447168

Although it may seem strange, Do not think that work is done in a very different way nowadays, especially in those films that want to have their own universe of sounds and do not resort to the immense prefabricated libraries of effects that filmmakers have available.

In the video we can see the art of creating sounds synchronized with what happens on the screen, and which are the ones that really bring cartoons to life: the whistles, the gears of the motor starting the march, the jumping tiles leaving their notes of color and that feminine voice of the locomotive before the jump over the destroyed bridge.

As we told you, little things have changed because those films that take care of their sound track down to the last detail replicate these same techniques today, in which someone, with an object in hand, is capable of creating the illusion of reality, even inventing effects that we have never heard of before. Or did you know what a Wookiee sounded like before you met him in The Wars?

a nice reminder

It goes without saying that cinema is image and sound, and that in addition to the dialogues of the actors and those wonderful themes composed by John Williams, there is what is known as sound effects. A territory within post-production that comes to fill the gaps left by filming on set, where it is often not possible to capture that noise that the director wants to be highlighted within the scene.

Today, almost all films go through the sound process, where practically the entire sound track is reconstructed where the footsteps go, the doors that open and close, the explosions and that noise of lightsabers when they cross each other in the air. More if possible if spatial effects are applied later and each one has to be located in a certain place within the 3D stage of the scene.

Ben Burtt, for example, is one of the benchmarks in the industry from his enormous work in the whole saga Star Wars since 1977 or their subsequent participation in In Search of the Lost Ark o Wall-E. He has participated in dozens of first-rate films that he has brought to life through a universe of completely unique effects that, in essence, they are still obtained in the same way that Disney did 81 years ago.