# Making a film, forget to use clapboard - movie completion impossible in 1972? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 24, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467 "2019-05-24T17:51:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Helmut\_Doork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e8c25b/32.png) [@Helmut\_Doork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helmut_Doork)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/1 "2019-05-24T17:51:35Z")
One of the main articles on the Wikipedia page yesterday was how novice director Syndey Pollak in 1972 was to film a documentary on the making of an Aretha Franklin album and for whatever reason did not use a clapboard, which supposedly rendered the film unsync-able until recently, and only possible now due to technological advances. My question for some kind soul in the know- why? I see how a clapboard helps in the process, but not how it is imperative to the process- I have seen stoned people sync DSOTM to Wizard of Oz in one or two tries, certainly it must be similar? Why 46 years on something that looks to me should take 46 minutes? I see it as, ok, we tried to line it up and the audio looks about five seconds too early, try again, get it closer, and closer until you get a match, repeat until all scenes are done? Clearly I a missing something, but what? Thanks all! ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/2 "2019-05-24T18:01:49Z")
> [@Helmut\_Doork](#): > > One of the main articles on the Wikipedia page yesterday was how novice director Syndey Pollak in 1972 was to film a documentary on the making of an Aretha Franklin album and for whatever reason did not use a clapboard, which supposedly rendered the film unsync-able until recently, and only possible now due to technological advances. > > My question for some kind soul in the know- why? I see how a clapboard helps in the process, but not how it is imperative to the process- I have seen stoned people sync DSOTM to Wizard of Oz in one or two tries, certainly it must be similar? Why 46 years on something that looks to me should take 46 minutes? > > I see it as, ok, we tried to line it up and the audio looks about five seconds too early, try again, get it closer, and closer until you get a match, repeat until all scenes are done? Clearly I a missing something, but what? Thanks all! I’m not in the industry, but maybe you’re missing the sheer number of shots that are used in a typical movie. Remember, there’s usually only one camera, so whenever you see two people talking with two different angles and one with both of them, that’s three different shots, minimum, plus retakes halfway through a scene, and so on. So, it’s not a matter syncing up a few shots, but probably hundreds, manually, and perfectly. That’s my guess. I look forward to the GQ answer. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/3 "2019-05-24T18:09:50Z")
It might not be “impossible,” just not worth the time and money. Here’s what wikipedia says: > [@](#): > > Amazing Grace was not released on schedule in 1972 due to difficulties syncing the audio tracks with the visual print, and was relegated to the vault at Warner Bros. until 2007, when producer Alan Elliott purchased the raw footage and attempted to sync it. The pared-down footage, now 87 minutes in length, was planned for a 2011 release. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/4 "2019-05-24T18:12:23Z")
Here’s a better article: > **[46 Years Later, Aretha Franklin's 'Amazing Grace' Resurrected by Modern Day Tech](https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a25014131/amazing-grace-aretha-franklin-documentary-audio-technology/)** > > After producer Alan Elliott bought the rights to the Sydney Pollack footage in 2007, he made an alarming discovery: None of the audio lined up correctly. Bolding mine: > [@](#): > > Clapping would presumably have been complicated during a live performance, but Pollack’s cameramen evidently just turned the cameras on and off repeatedly without any sort of time marker; **they ended up with thousands of disparate pieces of film, and no sync reference points for any of the shots.** > > Once they realized that, the original production team hired a lip reader—venerated Inglewood choir director Alexander Hamilton—in an attempt to help the editors get the sync, but after a couple months, they retired the project. According to Elliott, they got 153 minutes out of the 20-plus hours of footage, and that was it. ---
**Author:** ![Helmut\_Doork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e8c25b/32.png) [@Helmut\_Doork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helmut_Doork)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/5 "2019-05-24T18:22:37Z")
awesome, thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2019, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/6 "2019-05-25T01:44:41Z")
According to this article[the average number of individual shots in a documentary film was nearly 500 in 1997-2016](https://stephenfollows.com/many-shots-average-movie/) That’s the era of digital editing. In 1972, all an editor had was a [Moviola](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moviola), matching frames that were 1/24 second apart, and lots of background noise muffling sharp sounds like drum beats, that could be used for synching. And even with today’s technical advancements, they still had to get a lip-reader to help synch the film! ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/7 "2019-05-25T01:57:39Z")
As a digital video editor, I can sympathize with their problem. I spent several hours recently syncing some music footage from two cameras and knew that if I didn’t match the drummer’s hits, he would notice. I had to slide one take a frame at a time forward/backward in time until the drummer’s stick motions matched exactly (or within 1/60 of a second, since the cameras were not synchronized). It would have been much more difficult if I was matching non-percussive clips and/or non-digital ones. I also learned a trick – just keep the secondary camera(s) rolling at all times instead of starting and stopping. That way, if you line up the footage with the main timeline once, it will be aligned continuously from then on. Then the syncing time is eliminated and all you need to do is decide which shots to use. This only works if the cams are running at nearly the same speed, much easier with digital. With film, this would have increased the cost of film stock significantly. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2019, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/8 "2019-05-25T02:21:27Z")
If I’m understanding right–since they had to hire a lip reader-- it’s not so much just that they had a bunch of audio and video they had to sync, but they had audio and video that was absolutely not catalogued in any way, such that you didn’t know what audio went with what video? I mean, that’s the only way it makes sense to me. I mean, if you have a thousand clips with audio and video, but you know which audio goes with which video, synching it will be tedious, but shouldn’t be _that_ much a problem. But here’s a thousand clips of video/film, and here’s a thousand audio tracks – yeah, that seems a major PITA. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2019, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/9 "2019-05-25T02:25:03Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > it’s not so much just that they had a bunch of audio and video they had to sync, but they had audio and video that was absolutely not catalogued in any way, such that you didn’t know what audio went with what video? That’s how I understand it. Just tons of difficult to distinguish clips and no ones or other record keeping. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2019, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/10 "2019-05-25T06:17:33Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > If I’m understanding right–since they had to hire a lip reader-- it’s not so much just that they had a bunch of audio and video they had to sync, but they had audio and video that was absolutely not catalogued in any way, such that you didn’t know what audio went with what video? I mean, that’s the only way it makes sense to me. I mean, if you have a thousand clips with audio and video, but you know which audio goes with which video, synching it will be tedious, but shouldn’t be _that_ much a problem. But here’s a thousand clips of video/film, and here’s a thousand audio tracks – yeah, that seems a major PITA. You’re right. Syncing without a clap mark isn’t such a big hurdle. The problem here is having a large number of clips that all more or less sound the same (music), and many shots of the essentially same thing (someone singing), without any labeling. If it had been a dramatic film, they would have been able to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2019, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/11 "2019-05-25T08:02:28Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > If I’m understanding right–since they had to hire a lip reader-- it’s not so much just that they had a bunch of audio and video they had to sync, but they had audio and video that was absolutely not catalogued in any way, such that you didn’t know what audio went with what video? I mean, that’s the only way it makes sense to me. I mean, if you have a thousand clips with audio and video, but you know which audio goes with which video, synching it will be tedious, but shouldn’t be _that_ much a problem. But here’s a thousand clips of video/film, and here’s a thousand audio tracks – yeah, that seems a major PITA. Minor point: If there were a thousand video clips, there were probably scores of audio tracks. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2019, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/12 "2019-05-25T11:07:46Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Minor point: If there were a thousand video clips, there were probably scores of audio tracks. I’m pretty sure **pulykamell** meant picture and sound. Obviously it was shot on film. But I think we’re talking about audio recordings (transferred from a Nagra) here, not tracks in post production. Why would there be fewer audio recordings than film shots in a documentary about music, which was shot on single camera? ---
**Author:** ![joema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@joema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joema)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2019, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-a-film-forget-to-use-clapboard-movie-completion-impossible-in-1972/834467/13 "2019-05-25T11:47:12Z")
Each film camera used in the movie was apparently 16mm and evidently also recorded on-camera “scratch audio”. Quality audio was recorded separately. When shooting long-form events in the film era, it was typical to start/stop due to film cost or to change film magazines every few minutes. Audio recording was less constrained and could run continuously, although I don’t know if they did that on Aretha. Digitizing the film produced an A/V file per film canister. Likewise digitizing the audio mag tape produced a file per track or a polyphonic file with multiple tracks. In the digital era it’s common for cameras and audio recorders to also record SMPTE timecode metadata which aids synchronization. In that case hundreds or thousands of clips can be synced in post production, and the clapper board is only a contingency if something in that procedure fails. Lacking timcode or a clapper, with hundreds of separate A/V clips and many audio-only clips, it is almost impossible to match them up. In recent years, software has enabled matching by audio waveform. We use a product called Plural Eyes which can search hundreds of audio and A/V clips and match them: [https://www.redgiant.com/products/pluraleyes/](https://www.redgiant.com/products/pluraleyes/) Similar capability exists in Avid Media Composer, used to edit Aretha and about 95% of all Hollywood movies: [Video Editing Software - Media Composer - Avid](https://www.avid.com/media-composer) It also is built into Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro and DaVinci Resolve. It doesn’t work perfectly but can often sync most of the clips. In some cases the clips may require pre-processing with iZotope RX7 to de-echo them before trying the sync: [RX 10 Background Noise Removal & Audio Cleanup Software | iZotope](https://www.izotope.com/en/products/repair-and-edit/rx/rx-advanced.html)