Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

Synchronizing Music With Pictures AMERICA'S first practical and sys**• tematically developed movement for the uplift of the music in our "movies," and through them for the musical uplifting of the people in general, was begun lately in New York. The genesis of the movement lay in the agreements made by a prominent musician with a leading American music publisher and with three allied film companies. The musician is George W. Beynon ; the publisher, G. Schirmer, Inc.; and the film manufacturers the Famous Players, the Lasky Company, and the Oliver Morosco Company, which are component parts of the Paramount Film Company. Here is the plan adopted : Mr. Beynon and his assistants are to put together orchestral settings for the feature pictures issued by the Famous Players, Lasky, and Morosco ; these orchestral scores are to be published by the Schirmers, and they are to be supplied to the motion-picture exhibitors by the Paramount Company and its film exchanges. Mr. Beynon sketched out his method of action recently in the orchestra department of Schirmer's. He said : "In the past, with the exception of a few pictures for which some musical suggestions were made by the publishers, the orchestra leaders in the 'movie' houses had to rely on a 'dope sheet' of their own making. That is, when a picture was booked for the theater, the leader looked through his library, picked out music that he thought might fit the picture, noted this down in his 'dope sheet,' and went ahead. In New York, where they had the advantage of an advance rehearsal, this might have worked out fairly well, but on the road, where the film may have reached the theater only two hours before it was run, the music at the first performance was probably nowhere near appropriate to the picture. "Now, I had been studying out this problem, but when I approached some producers on the matter about a year ago they pointed out some impracticalities, and I could not meet these objections at that time. Since then I've been testing out my scheme in a practical way, and was able to apply it in theaters of various cities. "While we wer.e singing in Worces ter, the pictures 'Hyprocrites' was on the bill, and as I had seen it at the Longacre in New York, I persuaded the manager to let me handle the music for this picture. At the end of the film I used the Bach-Gounod 'Ave Maria,' and with this I was able to prove that it is absolutely practicable to synchronize the music with the pictures. "I had the 'Ave Maria' sung by Caroline Cassels, the contralto of my quartet. She was to begin singing at a certain place in the picture, and I had so timed it that she was to finish just as the film ended. And, although she did not once look at the picture while she was singing, she sang the 'Amen' every single time just as the film finished. The audiences don't know to this day how it was done. This is the way : Near the end of the film there was one place where the red lights were gradually raised and lowered with beautiful effect. When these lights came on, Miss Cassels knew that she ought to be at a given point in her music, and if she had not yet reached that point, she knew that the rest of the music had to be 'speeded up' a bit. The manner of arranging music for the Paramount pictures is that some two months before a film is released to the exhibitors, it is run over for the inspection of Mr. Beynon and his aids in the New York projecting room of the Paramount. They make notes of such music as they think will suit the spirit of the various scenes, and their memories are amplified by a consultation of the vast orchestral library in the Shirmer department. "We then put together the music as it accompanies the picture," stated Mr. Beynon, "carefully timing each part so that it is synchronized exactly with the scene which it illustrates. I have observed the rate at which the pictures are run in most houses, and our timing is based on this." "But suppose that the operator runs the machine unduly fast, to hurry up the show ?" he was asked. "I have provided for that," was the reply. "In the conductor's part, the piano, the organ, and the first violin we reveal each step in the action, and the 'inserts' and the 'flashes,' in conjunction with the music which accompanies them. Thus the conductor or pianist can discover if the picture is ahead of him. and he will heighten his tempo according 1 And in cases where the picture is cut, i will notice that also, and will speed in the same way. "We do not use any of the cut-an dried 'hurries' such as are published f \ use with motion pictures, but inste. employ real music — Beethoven, Bac Mozart, Wagner, and others. We doi bother about little details, but follow tl broad sweep of the action, making tl music heighten the atmosphere — that the important thing." Just how widely the movement wi benefit both general public and mus cians was outlined by Mr. Beynon. "?T present when an orchestra leader ail plies to a motion-picture theater mai l ager for a job, the manager will as j him: 'Have you a library?' He prol I ably has arrangements of a hundre pieces of various sorts, and when h gets the job he will use these same oil hundred pieces for all the pictures unti the theater's public is sick of them. "The manager, who probably know nothing of music, doesn't realize that hi house is handing out music that offend: the patrons, and he also doesn't realiz< that his orchestra leader is not a thor ough musicion. But when the managei gets musical settings of the feature pictures, they will enable him to have gooc musical judgment of the leader's abilitv and of his library. When the leader applies for a job, he will not ask him. 'Have you a library?' but 'Can you play this?' "In this way the manager will not only become a critic of the music in his house, but will also begin to build up a library. And the manager will be able to buy cheaper than his leader could get the overtures which he tried to fit to the pictures. They will be published for large orchestra, small orchestra, piano, and organ. The organ part will be arranged so that it can be used for the orchestral organs. Looking at it from every possible angle, it seems that choosing appropriate music to be played with pictures is another step toward the improvement of the silent drama. It is a known fact that the orchestra can play an important part in having the picture make an impression on the audience, and this innovation should serve to make that impression a favorable one.