British Kinematography (1950)

May, 1950 151 The papers were illustrated by the projection of sequences from : " Whisky Galore" " The Overlanders" " The Loves of Joanna Godden" " Scott of the Antarctic" and " Train of Events." REFERENCES 1. Brit. Kine., 15, No. 3, Sept., 1949, p. 86. 2. See Brit. Kine., 11, No. 4, Oct., 1947, p. 117. DISCUSSION 3. See also /. Brit. Kine. Soc, 2, No. 1 Jan., 1939, p. 47. Mr. R. H. Cricks : Do the authors regard it as desirable to have background music behind dialogue ? By the time the print has reached a late run, the intelligibility of the speech is seriously affected. Mr. A. W. Watkins : If it sounds good in the West End, there is no reason why it should not sound good in the Provinces. But I do think it is about time that the B.K.S., with its consultant Mr. Cricks, carried out a little research into these matters. If the standard of projection, whether of picture or sound, were raised, the work of the studio would be shown to better advantage. Mr. Irving : The question of incidental music behind dialogue is highly disputable. Often the real reason why music behind dialogue is not successful is that it is the wrong kind of music. The audience cannot listen to a tune and to dialogue at the same time. Often the sound is run at too high a level. Music behind dialogue is always arguable unless you really need atmosphere which cannot be suggested in any other way. I should think it outrageous to put music behind the words of Shakespeare except where it can be reasonably deduced that he himself used it. Mr. W. S. Bland : Background music for news is, owing to the time factor, always taken from the library, and cannot be scored to fit the commentary. In regard to the level of reproduction, I think the main factor in unintelligibility is not wear and tear of the film, so much as the fact that the ear does not act in a linear manner, so that balance is disturbed when the level is altered. Newsreel commentaries are usually delivered fairly forcefully, and if the tracks are not reproduced at a similar level in the theatre, but at feature dialogue level, the desired effect is lost. Mr. Clive Donner : What is the opinion of the authors in regard to the use of a small ensemble ? Mr. Irving : If you want the effect of a big orchestra, you must employ an orchestra of that size. We usually employ about 60, but there is seldom necessity for more. Mr. Mathieson : Basically the problem is that in the orchestra you have three or four sets of sound — wood-wind, two lots of bass, and strings. In the wood-wind, the normal way of writing is for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, and two bassoons. If you cut down any of these, you get a crude effect of four instruments making a chord. In the same way, you cannot get tone with one horn, nor even two : you need four. The same thing applies to brass tone. Then you need percussion. If, of course, your sound engineer could make the sound of a quintet balance with the rest of the players, then you could produce a full orchestra sound with 23 players. But it does not work like that ; you need 45 or 50 players to make a full symphony orchestra sound. Mr. C. Donner : What I meant to suggest was that a small ensemble should be used for its own sake, not to sound like a full orchestra. Mr. Mathieson : Any small arrangement will always sound like a specialised group of instruments. Mr. Peter : Does Mr. Irving find it better in recording vocals to record a play-back with piano and add the orchestra after, or does he think it better to record with the full orchestra? Mr. Irving : I value very highly the interaction between the orchestra, the singer, and myself. Unless I am compelled for technical reasons, I do not like to record two tracks separately. It is not so bad with rhythmic numbers, but for any music with emotional content the singer and orchestra should be able to hear one another. Mr. Mathieson : I normally shoot them separately for convenience in cutting. If the singer and orchestra were kept in one shot all the time, there would be no problem ; but when going into close-ups, obviously the perspective between orchestra and singer must change, and I have found the only way of doing that is to shoot the singer first with a piano accompaniment, and then put in the orchestra. Mr. L. Knopp : The aesthetic value of a picture and its accompanying music is determined by the producer in the intimate confines of the theatre in the studio. Is it considered what would be the background noise in the average kinema seating between 500 and 2,000 people? Quite apart from the value of the music from its dramatic point of view, a certain level of sound is necessary to overcome the noise of the audience. Mr. Irving : You may want silence, but you will not get it. Silence means simply people opening packets of sweets and coughing, and the noise of the projectors. If I wish to express silence, I always try to get a loud noise and then a very low noise, which gives much more the effect of silence than if you had no noise at all.