Originally Posted By: olly
Don't mind at all Jackie,

A Split
refers to a split edit where the video from one shot is used under the audio from another shot there are lots of variations of split editing.



And I always contributed this to the limits of the technology because in the mechanism of editing, especially before computers, one or the other had to come first: either the video or the audio. In the arc-light 35 mm movie projector, the video is always first and the audio last and are separated by about a foot or so of film: the video also took up the larger portion of the 35 mm film whereas the audio was a very thin strip along the edge near the sprocket -- wasn't it the outside one? It's been 55 years since I worked regularly as a projectionist in the JOY Theatre and sometimes in the GEM.

By the way, the audio corresponding to a particular video frame was actually first, physically, toward the lead end of the film; but they were always coordinated so as to occur simultaneously. But, then, if the projectionist made the bubble too big or too small, the result would be a mismatch between the video and the audio. On the 35 mm projector, there was a small wheel (knob) adjustment that could be made while the film was running, whereas on the 16 mm projector, there was no bubble so that the tracks were usually coordinated.

When I go to the movies today, as infrequently as I do, I still see the change spots in the corner of the video even though most theatres today use large horizontal film decks so as to splice all the film into one continuous whole and use only one camera so there is no need for the projectionist to make a change.

Last edited by PastorVon; 06/21/2009 11:53 PM. Reason: add 2 paragraphs