The art of sound pictures (1930)

RHYTHM 125 And so on. This often moves nearly as fast as the preceding pattern. It is usually the most effective of all designs, largely because it contains, within the rhythmic unit, the greatest variety of impressions: namely, talk, ejaculation, gesture, and silence. In order to make a richer pattern, we usually have to go outside of the dialogue situation and add effects from other characters or from the setting. That is to say, we must build into the total movement the interjections, or gestures, or bodily movements of bystanders; or we must make a similar use of physical objects to which attention may shift. Once we do this, the variety of rh5rthmic patterns becomes almost infinitely rich. It is pointless to attempt illustrations. Let the student observe for himself, simply by adding various objects or minor characters, being careful to use them in a recurring action pattern. If the latter does not recur with considerable evenness, the effect of rhythm is not produced. One more general fact about the simple dialogue rhythms. The final esthetic effect of a given design will vary enormously, according to the tempo of the talk, silences, and gestures. One and the same content here may yield startling differences, precisely as in ordinary conversation. Nobody can make positive predictions as to the precise shading which results from a given velocity. You should experiment with your own dialogues, to make certain. As methods of sound reproduction improve, we may expect that dialogue will move at tempos much faster than are possible on the stage. The carrying power of articulate sound out of the mechanical speaker is already much