Music on British TV from US movies pitched up?????

[londontown]

Ok...strange question, but here's the thing...might be the wrong forum but hey, if anybody knows it probably would be somebody here.

I worked two years ago on a rather well known animated movie, wrote a song and some other music for it...
It was on telly over Christmas in the UK, and ended up watching for the amusement value, hadn't seen it for a long time...and, to my horror - EVERY music cue was tranposed up roughly a semitone. Every cue.

A second is surely a second, and the film wasn't truncated or shorter to my knowledge - I know the thing backwards. This is a US made film, playing on UK television (actually Sky).

What's more, everything else I then heard (now rather intrigued by this) that I've ever done for film that made UK telly this Christmas...is also up a semitone...I'm afflicted with perfect pitch alas, but double checked just to be absolutely positive.

There were three seperate, mainstream movies, with bits I know full well what key things are in...and they're all sharp when played on UK television.

Is there a reason behind this? Something in the NTSC to PAL transfer perhaps? I can't think what...

[petsematary]

Well, movies are a minute or two shorter in PAL broadcast than in NTSC. Or is it the other way around? Anyway, if the whole movie if "pitched" a tad bit because of the different frame rate, this should affect the sound as well, shouldn't it?
Never actually noticed it though.

[londontown]

Originally Posted by petsematary

Well, movies are a minute or two shorter in PAL broadcast than in NTSC. Or is it the other way around? Anyway, if the whole movie if "pitched" a tad bit because of the different frame rate, this should affect the sound as well, shouldn't it?
Never actually noticed it though.

Ah...okay. That makes sense in broadcast.

It did affect the sound, adversely imho but most wouldn't notice or care. There were a few cues here and there that had already been transposed up (eg. for end credits) which sounded pretty terrible (particularly solo vox).

It was just a bit of a shock!

[Berolzheimer]

If it's around a half step it's probably the difference between 44.1k & 48k.
FWIW the frame rates are:

NTSC 29.97 fps

American film 24 FPS

Pal 25 FPS

I think Euro film is also at 25. Anyone wanta confirm or contradict that?

[js1]

Film is 24 fps, North America, Europe, Asia, Antartica, etc...

js

[Berolzheimer]

I'm pretty sure I've encountered film projects that were shot at 25. Am I crazy? Is my memory shot?
Could be...

[Jay Kahrs]

Nah, this is happening all over the place & not just on TV or movies.

About a week, two weeks ago I was working at the Oxide Lounge (with Drumsound) and we heard a Jimi Hendrix tune on the radio...can't remember which one right now, maybe he'd remember. Anyway Tony noticed that it was pitched up about about a quarterstep and after seven seconds of active listening on my part he was dead on.

Shorter songs = more time to play commercials.

[LX3]

Film for the movie world is shot at 24fps.

PAL television (UK, Europe, Australia) runs at 25fps.

Anything shot on film at 24fps (basically, all movies) has to be speeded up to 25fps for PAL TV. This includes any broadcast television, DVD or VHS (remember that?) which is destined for PAL countries. It'll also be the case for high definition when it finally arrives in PAL territories.

When speeding up to 25fps the pitch obviously goes up... I think by just over a quarter-tone or so? (Try playing along on a properly-tuned piano - you can't!).

NTSC television (US, Japan) runs at approximately 30fps. However, conveniently, 24fps movies do in fact go into 30fps without any serious pitch change... because of a technique known as 3:2 pull-down

(30fps = 60 fields per second, so you make the first frame of film last 3 fields, the next one lasts 2 fields, then 3, then 2... giving you 24 film frames-a-second squeezed into 30 TV frames per second... ahh, Google for "3:2 pulldown".)

They do of course make some TV shows by shooting film rather than video. If you're shooting film for PAL TV broadcast, you typically crank the cameras at 25fps which means it transfers to TV frame-for-frame with no speedup.

I'm a UK resident and I hate PAL speedup - the whole of American Graffitti makes me wince, especially the end credits. The opening stab of Star Wars is just wrong somehow. Purple Rain on PAL is laughable - sounds like the band are in a rush to get off the stage! So I buy US DVDs, and I'm a lot happier.

(As you might guess, I'm a home cinema enthusiast as well as wanna-be Gearslut!)

HTH

Paul

[Prickstein]

I've been meaning to bring this subject up myself. I thought I was going crazy but I noticed that music in films always seemed to be sped up. Now I know. Thanks

[dbbubba]

LX3 is pretty much correct.

There are however situations where film is/was actually shot at 25 fps.
I can't recall why and it might be or might have been something to do with the telecine transfer.
Damn it! Now I have to research and find out why it was done that way!

The pitch variances you refer to are all due to changes made for PAL in the dubbing stage of the chain.
However, in film.. anything that works for picture is fair game.
Sound is WAYYYYYY down the list of priorities!

I used to be in that buisiness, but no longer and my brain only retains so many old types of minutea (like spelling that word!)

I used to write/record/produce hundreds of cuts for american radio/TV and everything was at pretty close to the same pitch as I recorded it.
I never checked very often, but nothing ever seemed wrong.
Hell! I was paid long ago, so I didn't/don't care!
Speed it up, slow it down, use the ALT version with the bad MIDI timing.. it's OK!

Danny Brown

[zimv20]

OT -- reminds me of the first time i had a can of coke in europe. i swore up and down to my american travelmates that it felt smaller; they thought i was nuts. turns out the euro cans are 350 ml while the US ones are 355.

[dbbubba]

They did that with BEER in New Mexico back in about 1980!!!!
There was some law passed that pertained to 12 oz. cans of beer.
The beer companies just made 10 oz. cans and got around it!
Those cans felt wierd in your hand!
tiny-ish!
(it's probebly how Gulliver felt when he was offered a beer by the lilliputians)

Anybody recall this?
(the 10 oz. N.M. beer cans... not the Lilliputians and Gulliver)

Danny Brown

[dolo72]

I ve worked alot of films/drama's shot at 25fps because the delivery format was PAL video. This is why films are shot at 25fps even though the true film rate is 24 fps it all depends whether youre doing the final print to, film shown on a projector or video for TV PAL or NTSC.

[Matti]

And You can use HMI lights without adjusting the shutter in the camera
if mains is 50hz , divides straight by 25 fr/sec. Not all cameras even have
adjustable shutters.
Matti

[Ol' Betsey]

Wow. Cool thread. You learn something new everyday...



R.

[petsematary]

NTSC is inferior to PAL quality-wise though. Gotta hate these different standards.

[Matti]

Nowadays European workflow is really complicted in the post because in practice all films are edited in Avid or similiar worstations ( so 25 fr/sec. ). So audio post
has to deal with this 24/25 fr thing ( approximately 4% ) to avoid this pitch change, too complicated to explain here. I have an impression that some
productions have versions for digital /video (25 fr) and theater (24 fr) distribution
without these pitch changes.
Matti

[Zeppelin4Life]

Yeah, the most obvious I've ever encountered is the Back In Black promotion ACDC put out in the early 80s. The video is a compete half step higher than the album. Supposedly, it would fit onto tapes that way..weird!

[Berolzheimer]

It's been complicated in the US for a long time, we have to deal with 30 frame, 29.97, 24, 23.976, sometimes 25, & the translations of sample rates- 44.1k pulled down becomes 44.056, pulled up it's 44.144, then there's 48, it's pulled up & pulled down values, drop frame time code where the first 2 frames are dropped at the top of every minute except at the top of each hour, zzzzzzz....... and of course our power runs at 60Hz, more or less.

It would be nice if everything was at 25/50, other the the fact that the flicker of 25 frame video drives me nuts.

[Matti]

We should go to ramps discussing standardisation
Matti