The art of sound pictures (1930)

Record Details:

Title:
The art of sound pictures
Date:
1930
Publisher:
New York : D. Appleton and Company
Volume:
The art of sound pictures
Leaf #:
000222
Language:
English
Collection:
Books and Hollywood Studio System
Format:
Books
Contributor:
Media History Digital Library
Sponsor:
Media History Digital Library
Coordinator:
Media History Digital Library
Description:
Date Added:
March 21, 2024
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CHAPTER VIII SOUND EFFECTS The addition of sound to the motion picture both helps and complicates the story writer’s problem. For sound is almost as plastic and adaptable as language, and no one has yet sufficiently mastered its art to recognize its infinite possibilities. Do not think for a moment that a sound picture is nothing but a mechanical combination of a silent movie and a stage play. One day on any studio lot is enough to expose this error. The talkie is a new art. It is as distinct from the silent picture as the silent picture is distinct from a stage play. It is capable of producing effects unknown to all other arts, and its technique, still largely unknown, is vastly more complex than any other. Were Leonardo da Vinci alive to-day, he would waste none of his precious genius on the arts of painting and sculpture. He would not be content with the clumsy mechanics of the theater. But we may be reasonably sure that he would find inexhaustible delight in sound pictures, because the mastery of their technique requires a unique combination of art and engineering. People who do not understand the essential newness of the talkies are saying that any clever dialogue writer on Broadway can go to Hollywood and achieve fame by making sound pictures. Well, they have not done it. And there is every reason to doubt that they ever will. 194