Hopscotch Sound Recording

Hopscotch Sound Recording

 

Patent Pending

 

     This is a technique for recording sound on “silent” film.  Two offset monaural sound tracks are optically recorded within the width of the perforations (sprocket holes), to hop over the perf holes.  

     Super 8 film works well for this technique because the perf holes occupy only 27% of the frame pitch, leaving 73% of the area to lay down sound tracks.

Hopscotch camera

 

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Hopscotch projector

 

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Controller:

       The controller switches back and forth between the left and right sound tracks to compile the original sound.

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Advantages of hopscotch optical recording:

• The sound track is recorded optically, without the need of the magnetic stripe, turning less expensive silent film into “sound film”.
• Film without the magnetic coating is thinner and can be wound on a smaller spool allowing for a longer-running film supply, or a smaller film spool and smaller camera.
• If creating a new format, the image can be widened, making use of the area currently used by the mag stripe.

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Comments:

• “why didn’t someone think of this before?“, Rick Steenblik, March 27, 2024
• “Placing the audio track between the perfs.  Very clever”, Don Iwerks, Engineering Mgr., Walt Disney Productions, January 8, 2024

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Hines’ lab notebook #2:

p. 76

 

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For questions, please contact Steve Hines at: