The Cine Technician (1935-1937)

The Journal of the Association of CineTechnicians May, 1933 From the Cutting Room Sidney Cole Convention in Films There is a question we too rarely ask ourselves in films — "Why ? " We continue to use the same methods until they lose whatever dramatic force they had when they were new and first thought of, and become mere conventions. Wipes, for example. I am more and more convinced, by hearing the opinions of non-technical people, that the majority of the more elaborate wipes available to-day are disturbing or irritating to audiences. They too often interrupt the pictorial flow and so make the audience conscious of the mechanics of the film. And at bottom most of them are a clumsy means of covering up bad script construction. Their job could be better done by a mix or by more imaginative cutting — which means more imaginative scripting. We have lost, I think, the convention of always starting in long shot, coming in to mid-shot, and then to close shot. But the convention of the establishing shot still lingers, though audiences don't really care whether they see the entire Albert Hall or not unless the shot means something. "Crime Without Passion" showed how little was needed to establish a definite locale. A restaurant, for example, was indicated quite thoroughly by a large settee with a table before it, a waiter who brought tea, and light tea-time music on the sound track. More imaginative — and cheaper. We are becoming less literal about the use of sound, which seems to me a good thing. At one time, directors would insist on re-recording together with their music and dialogue, all the natural sounds that would be going on in real life in the sequence shewn in the mute. The objection to this was that the result was not real at all. It was chaos. In real life, the ear is selective and rarely hears anything like the hullabaloo produced by re-recording eight or nine tracks together. The microphone is learning to be like the human ear, to select sounds — not just to record them. In many recent American films where a sequence is covered by music, no other sound is used. In "No Greater Glory," for example, this was so, even in scenes where a boy was chased and then ducked into the water. In "The Gay Divorce" the opening cabaret sequence was played without background atmosphere. If you can get all your points over by music, why blur them by doing them twice, with effects as well ? After all, it is cheaper not to have to re-record. We could vary our effects, too. The veteran noise of tearing cloth, for example, might be pensioned off after its long service-. The Censor has already made us say good-bye to the raspberry, so that we haven't to think of substitutes for that. Our new effects may not be any funnier in themselves but they will gain by coming just at the moment when the audience is getting ready for the customary effect. (By the way, why does the heroine so often have to say "But you don't understand . . . ." or "I ha\c something to tell you " Pcrliaps the Censor could do something about tliat, too). Couldn't we think up some new symbols for tlic passing of time, and so on, too. We have the leafless tree that dissolves into blossom — or vice versa — the calendar block whose leaves whirl away, the candle that burns down, the empty ash-tray that fills with cigarette ends, the soupplate that dissolves to dessert, the hand that moves twice round the clock-face. Even the audiences are beginning to get tired of them, to feel bored when they see them again. With a little ingenuity, fresh transitions could be thought up, especially if they were regarded as important, and not casual, parts of. the script. Audiences are getting a little tired, too, I think, of some of the old parallels in cutting. You know — fat man eating, cut to pig snuffling in trough ; man washing, cut to elephant washing. Some of them still get a laugh, it's true, but even that doesn't justify us not thinking up new ones. We ought to aim at keeping always at least one ahead of om" audience. If we use the same tricks too often, the audience will catch up with us. And if they catch up, they may go beyond us and stop going to the cinema at all. The only way we can prevent that is by asking ourselves continually, "Why am I using this particular method" and not taking "Because we always use it" as a satisfactory answer. SPECIAL. MOTORS, 12 volt, drive. Any Motion Picture Camera £3 each. LIMITED NUMBER ONLY. 16nim. Rotary Printer £8 ONLY YOUR INSPECTION INVITED. Mu^tta Cnterprisfes; KINEMATOGRAPHERS 159 WARDOUR STREET, LONDON. W.l (();,;),«,(.' Film //(WIm) liinm <iKUli.lRI> C