Movie industry term - "thumper"

[Nanoda]

An audio or actor synchronization device involving a subwoofer is what my friend belives it to be, but perhaps not.

More specifically - it could be something that actors may listen to. He was told he could make a “thumper” with a subwoofer, cutting out all high frequency audio, but as to what it would be used for, well, that’s my question.

So does anyone know what a thumper is, who uses it, and what you do with it?

[JimOfAllTrades]

A “thumper track” seems to be a very low frequency beat played on a movie set that provides a beat to keep dancers or musicians in time, but which doesn’t interfere with the dialog, and then can be removed during post-production. The thumper is the speaker or speaker array that provides the “thump”.

From this website:

http://www.bagend.com/bagend/dannymichael.htm

“In film sound often times, we need to use what we call a thumper line,” Michael explained. “It’s a very low frequency – usually around 37, 38 cycles – thump that duplicates a musical beat. The ‘thumper line’ provides the actors with something to key on that they can almost feel rather than hear. Thus, they can stay in time with the music, even though it’s really not there.

“Let’s say you have a scene where two actors are talking but there are a number of people in the background dancing to a piece of music,” he said. “If the music were played at the same volume you hear it in the movie theater, it would ruin the dialog. So we need a clean way to play the music beat for the dancers while not destroying the dialog that we are trying to record.”

“The ‘thumper’ is played at a low enough frequency that it won’t interfere with dialog so we can record clean, live dialog,” he added. “Then in post-production, the ‘thumper line” is used as a guide to lay down the actual music track and then easily removed from the sound track.”

From this site:

http://home.comcast.net/~valkilmeronline2/entertainment.html

Because Stone wanted to include swooping, 360-degree camera moves, a way also had to be devised to keep the extras in the “audience” dancing to the missing beat. The solution was a “thumper track,” a very low frequency tone that was synchronized with a prerecorded track and piped in so the audiences could sway in rhythm. Later, in postproduction, the thumper track was electronically removed.

[Nanoda]

Well thanks!
I don’t think he’ll be making a movie anytime soon, but if he does I’ll mention you for a bit part.

[Sunspace]

Good thing it was a thumper and not a fluffer…

[astro]

A thumper? It calls the great worms from the deep desert.