The art of sound pictures (1930)

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YOUR STORY 115 vey one given effective expression through language; and in the same unit of time the sound picture must convey five to ten such expressions. This, to be sure, is theoretical. In present practice, no director achieves the indicated velocity of expression in dialogue, although here and there, in the high spots of Alibi, Bulldog Drummond, and Dynamite, we see the speed being approached. The critical onlooker may have trouble in sensing it, because the talk all seems so natural. But if he could see the printed pages of the continuity, the fact would stare him in the face. The dialogue is telegraphic to the extreme. It runs on, a rapid fire of monosyllables, grunts, laughs, and cries, with scarcely a well-rounded sentence anywhere. Here is a fair illustration of what has to be done to stage dialogue when you are translating it to the tempo of a sound picture. We have chosen at random a short passage from The Shannons of Broadway as the text to be recast. You see the original in the left-hand column. Opposite, in the right-hand column, is a suggested abridgment which might do for the sound picture. We could shorten it even more, were it necessary. As It Runs in the Stage As It Might Better Run in a Play : Sound Picture : Emma I ain’t insinuating nothing, but I know where you got all your elegant ideas for fixing the act up from. Mickey Well, they was good ideas, and I never got ’em from her. Emma Bah! Your ideas! Yours! Mickey Well, her old man’s, then. And good ideas too !