The era of watching VCDs has passed. Even ten years ago, there were still people selling VCDs, but now if you throw them out, no one would pick them up. DVD-9s are also becoming increasingly rare, everyone is watching Blu-ray discs, while the younger generation directly downloads from the internet by bypassing firewalls, no longer playing the “disc” game with you. Movies are changing at a rapid pace. Although I don’t like watching discs, I have still watched countless discs, because there are too many classic films that I cannot see in movie theaters.

Discs and movies are two different media; the loss of disc quality has a fundamental impact on films. The most important aspects of a film are the images composed of light and shadow, and sound, with both having equal impact at 50-50. Current films generally use 5.1 surround sound to complete the audio, consisting of 6 stereo channels, but after DVD compression, only two channels remain. The sound effect not only becomes flat, but some channels’ audio simply disappears. This ultimately leads to a significant reduction in the film’s impact. Why does sound have such a great effect on films? Because eye training is always faster than ear training – the former can spontaneously adapt gradually, while the latter requires specialized guidance. However, good sound constitutes half of a good film.

A film cannot exist without sound. During my film studies (1978-1982), Chinese cinema did not emphasize sound, due to many contributing factors. In the last century, before the 1960s, China had many illiterates, so films did not have subtitles. When encountering foreign films, they would use Chinese dubbing with international soundtrack effects, completing the mix. Particularly in that era, due to national economic conditions and relatively poor audio equipment and functionality, ear training had no way to proceed synchronously with visual training. In Chinese film history, early Chinese films were in line with the world. After America began filming talkies, Chinese cinema in the 1930s and 1940s quickly began using synchronized sound recording. Even Chinese films of the 1950s were still produced with synchronized sound, only until the 1970s, with the rise of model operas, did post-production dubbing begin, continuing until the 1990s. Therefore, during my education at Beijing Film Academy, film image consciousness was established, but sound education was backward, only to be thoroughly established when studying film in America. Only then did I realize that the relationship between sound and image is 50-50.

After realizing the importance of sound, then in life, when you observe a character, you not only watch their behavior, but also prick up your ears to listen to how environmental sounds influence the character’s behavior. This way, when filming, you will have good sound design. For example, in a noisy environment, if you need to clearly express character dialogue, you need to specially process the environmental sound, first considering completing the dialogue recording! For instance, in “Please Remember Me,” for the tugboat sound, we would record it on location using stereo effects, then based on the tugboat’s direction of travel, create stereo motion effects. This way, not only can you hear the character’s dialogue clearly, but the tugboat sound also enhances the sense of environment on scene. The feeling that this character comes from a small place is expressed clearly through both image (intuitive) and sound (subconscious). This time, many students have seen the film “Please Remember Me” in movie theaters. In a few days when you watch the projector screening, the sound becomes two-channel, and you will clearly feel what kind of loss the entire film suffers when the sound is weakened!