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Show Film Sound Trickery Gives Way to Reality Studio sound departments no longer long-er can be classified under the heading head-ing of magic. The time was when trickery had to be resorted to in almost al-most every effect. Today, sounds, like everythng else in a picture, depend de-pend on realism. If a landslide is wanted, sound engineers go out and create one for their microphones. If it's the buzz of a mosquito, that's what it really is. Sometimes, when sounds are required to be unusual for certain effects, magic comes in. But, nothing is too great to be tackled, nothing too small to take time. In the early days the microphone micro-phone could not be moved and, If actors moved, there was a microphone micro-phone at various places and the actor ac-tor was cautioned not to move from one mike before he had finished a speech or to start talking until he got directly under or in front of another. Mikes were hidden in bouquets, bou-quets, in lamps, under tables, just about everywhere. Ten years have done a lot to sound recording and the story of the progress prog-ress is too technical to Interest the layman. Today, the microphone does move, on the end of a swinging boom. Sound progress has made many things possible. Not so long ago it was necessary to have special cartridges car-tridges for gun shots; they made much smoke but little sound because sound valves might be shattered by the explosion. Today, a cannon shoots off under a mike with no 111 effects. But difficulties also have arisen, most of which have been licked for years. Long ago it was learned that deadening a window sill with blotting blot-ting paper prevents rain falling on it from "popping." Silk has a tendency to crackle, so it's usually lined with linen. Newspapers must be dampened or they'll rustle too loudly. Typewriters must have soft rollers for keys to strike. It Is now a strict rule that every extra have rubber heels. Actors have been known to ruin scenes merely because be-cause of jingling coins in their pockets. pock-ets. And, in orchestral recordings, in productions like "Strike Up the Band," conductors have caused strange disturbances by swishing their slender batons too vigorously in crescendo passages. All simple problems, but they keep cropping up. Sometimes they take hours to locate. These observations were recenty made by Douglas Shearer, director of recording for M.G.M. |
