The art of sound pictures (1930)

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204 the art of sound PICTURES both of the singing and the talking voices, but it is more marked in speech than in song. It is not due to any imperfection in the recording or transmitting instruments; rather is it a peculiarity of acoustics. We usually imagine that high voices, even screeches, are more penetrating than deep voices; but this is not correct. You can make yourself heard more clearly and at a greater distance if you talk at low pitch. For the writer of sound picture stories, this means that he will gain something by making his major characters all people blessed with low-pitched voices and by giving the important singing parts to altos and baritones, or basses. This is a minor trick of technique that is peculiar to this new art. Many technical difficulties with sound are temporary and may disappear before this book has been read by you. The mechanics of reproduction are still far from perfect. They give rise to sundry nuisances that bring tears to the director’s eyes and drive the poor author insane. Consider, as one of many, the psychic effects of amplification. It is impossible to make the human voice come out as softly as a living actor speaks in his tenderest passages. What is pianissimo in a conversation between lovers tends to rise to a forte as it comes out of the machine. So it happens, only too often, that, when your hero sighs, “Darling, I love you, I love you,” the audience hears all the bulls of Bashan bellowing — and straightway giggles. The emotional effect is lost. As matters stand to-day, the best you can do is to pick your dialogue with great care, shunning tender phrases which have to be toned down. Silence is infinitely better