The Story of THX and its accomplishments:
A week after the debut of “Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back”, George Lucas decided to hire scientist, Tomlinson Holman, to plan the sound mixing amenities at his Skywalker Ranch located in the northern part of California. To start this project, George gave Tomlinson Holman 1 year to inspect film audio all through the whole production chain, from the theater to the set, and everything that fell in between.
Holman’s goal was to locate a way to advance cinematic sound creation and create terms to design the high-tech sound mixing rooms which would ultimately become Skywalker Sound.
As time progressed, Holman was stunned to find out the state of most of the commercial cinemas. Although Dolby Laboratories had contributed in a major manner to the ways of recording sounds and how they would be played back on film, no one had any sort of power over what actually took place on the production set or in the theater itself. Holman realized that most of the commercial theaters hadn’t witnessed significant improvement in technology since WW II. Viewing angles were bad, insufficient levels of light made images indistinct and the qualities of auditorium acoustics and sound systems made it impossible for anyone to hear the dialogues. To expect one to experience the filmaker’s vision was illogical.
Once the Stag Theater and the audio facilities for Skywalker Sound were completed, Lucasfilm started getting requests from Hollywood studio executives and commercial theater owners to slip in the Ranch’s performance standards into their own cinema auditoriums and old mixing rooms. Lucas realized that this might alter the way moviegoers were experiencing films. Hence, he and the THX team planned a certain certification program better than Skywalker Ranch. In this way, THX was formed. It was made accessible to film audiences at the time of Lucas’ next release, “Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi”.
From a technical point of view, THX Cinema Certification conditions consolidated presentation technologies from a number of different sources into a single set of design standards. These standards expand the frequency range of all the cinema loudspeakers, resulting in a smooth distribution of sound all through the auditorium. They also permit sound designers to expand the vibrant range of sound effects and produce a more pervasive presentation.
THX also sets procedures for room acoustics, echo time and backdrop noise, and noise segregation to ensure that each and every detail of the sonic presentation is perfectly delivered the way the filmmaker planned. THX also sets various principles for viewing angles, projectors and levels of onscreen lighting, to ensure that the most likely image is always shown.