British Kinematography (1948)

80 Actual Recording Every possible positioning of the instruments has been tried in recording ; in order to facilitate the positioning of the instruments I have composed a special piece of music, entitled " Balance," in the orchestration of which occurs every possible combination. III. DUBBING W. S. Salter, M.B.K.S. WHEN all the missing tracks are provided, there remains the important task of modifying the characteristics of these tracks. This may necessitate re-recording under strange conditions, for instance as telephone speech ; echoes are simulated by means of the reverberation chamber. The actual process of dubbing consists broadly of blending individual tracks, each reproduced upon a separate dubbing head, the outputs of the various heads being controlled by a mixer console ; the combined sound output then passes to the sound camera. The console should be placed in the main theatre of the studio. Equalisation Each of the faders will in all probability have in its circuit an equaliser. Equalisation means the deliberate alteration of the recording characteristic, necessitated by several factors. One is the desirability of not having a large difference of bass content between different voices ; a voice tending to shout loses a considerable amount of low-frequency content, and an intimate conversation contains an excess of low-frequencies. Errors on the floor due to perspective and microphone placing can within limits be corrected. Simultaneously with this work the imaginative side is progressing : cues for music to be faded in or out, crescendos or dimuendos worked out to a split second to get over certain words, the arrangement of effects and fillings, all of these have their changes in level and equalisation. A recent problem is the pick-up of mains noise due to the increased lighting intensities needed for colour. An electronic filter has been produced which will suppress such frequencies, leaving dialogue unimpaired. The noise from the flames of arcs cannot be suppressed. Yet another adjustment may be a compressor circuit, used possibly to compensate for errors on the floor or to obtain certain dramatic effects. The paper was followed by the projection of a reel from " The Magic Bow," in course of which Mr. Salter explained the many examples of dubbing found in it. DISCUSSION Mr. T. S. Lyndon-Haynes : Mr. Byrd has with the original background track to it. told us that a stronger appeal is made to There is a loss of realism in any production the emotions through the ear than through in which that sort of thing is used, the eye. I have found rather the reverse. Mr. Bretton Byrd : Tracks used for Mr. Bretton Byrd : As an example, I playbacks should be separate tracks, would give the effect of the sight of a If you have a singer accompanied by an bomb dropping with the accompaniment orchestra, obviously in a close-up picture, of the roar of the explosion, the noise of the singer will stand out predominantly, falling debris and women's screams. That Mr. Tomrley : I would like to refer I am sure would have a far greater emo to something I said about courageous use tional effect than the mere sight of a of sound. I remember an effect by Hitchbomb falling. cock in " The Thirty-Nine Steps." There Mr. C. Wheeler : The first real use of was a scene in which a woman came in playback was in " One Night of Love." and opened her mouth. But no scream Playback went through everything. There issued from it. We used the shriek of a was a close-up of a diminutive figure, but train's whistle as it came out of a tunnel.