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way. The results have been pretty good — and the sound adds about 100 per cent to the effectiveness of the picture. In addition, improvising battle sound-effects and recording them was fun, though strenuous.
The first step was to provide a definite marked starting-point on the film. With black drafting-ink I "blacked out" a whole frame on the white leaderstrip, leaving in white letters the word START. Between this starting-frame and the start of the picture, allow enough footage so both projector and sound-turntable can come up to speed before the actual beginning of the picture and recording; this of course will vary according to the equipment used. In my own case it was 21 frames.
The foundation of our sound-effect 'record was a general mutter of battle
Above, frame enlargements of successive phases of
two of the miniature airplane crashes in Voigtlander's
film, showing fire and explosions. On opposite page,
two shellbursts from the "bombardment."
noise in the background. This we got from an old radio sound-effects record Matt had: believe it or not, it wasn't anything like a real battle — it was a recording of city traffic, luckily without auto-horns or street-car bells. It served our purpose perfectly. We kept this background-noise going all through the picture.
For heavy shell-bursts, we bounced a big rubber ball on the table behind the mike, trying to synchronize reasonably well with the pictured explosions of our firecracker "shells," and keeping an uneven beat rather than a regular bump-bump-bump. For closer shell-bursts we would slam a book closed,
or sometimes drop a book behind the mike.
Machine-gun fire was imitated by dragging a pencil across a washboard. The airplane noises were made by vibrating a vase between my fingers, moving nearer to or farther from the mike according as we wanted the plane approaching or receding. For the planecrash, we slammed a book, and at the same time added a special sound-effect made by dropping a sack with about 200 pennies (from a penny bank) in it on the floor. When the sack broke and the pennies scattered the mike picked up an excellent crash-noise. The sound of the fire was made by crinkling a sheet of ordinary cellophane wrappingtissue.
It is very important to establish a (Continued on Page 399)
American Cinematographer
August, 1941 377