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Greener film soundtracks win Academy Award.
As the film world awaits the tearing of envelopes at Sunday's Oscar ceremony, some are already clutching their Academy Awards. Among them are the 12 technicians who, in the name of reducing pollution, have de-silvered the silver screen for good.
The team worked to replace the silver used in soundtracks with cyan dye, reducing the need for harmful chemicals and saving 2,000 kilograms of silver and more than 150 million litres of water each year.
Black-and-white films were made with silver printed on celluloid. The soundtracks ran alongside the frames as a silvery strip of varying thickness. A tungsten filament light shone through the soundtrack, and a photocell on the other side captured the light, and converted it into sound.
