How to add sound to amateur films (1954)

To avoid accumulating timing errors, play the tape back now, and time it as you run through to the 40-second mark. Then you can stop the recorder and get ready for recording the second passage of commentary. Working in this way, you record no projector noise, since the projector is not running. You can rehearse, record and correct each piece of commentary separately. You can also change discs at leisure since the tape is arrested in the meantime. On the other hand, even this method is unsuited to complicated recordings of considerable length. If you want to avoid cumulative timing errors, you must repeatedly play through from the start to ensure that the timing agrees with the cue sheet. Moreover, because they were timed with a watch, neither the cue sheet nor your recording times are likely to be accurate to better than one second. Yet in some cases you may want to synchronise more accurately than this. Pilot Commentaries You can combine the advantages of both the previous methods, without their disadvantages, by first making a pilot commentary. While projecting the film at the correct speed, you record a spontaneous commentary describing each shot in turn. This is for your own use only and bears little relation to any commentary the audience will eventually hear. In the example already quoted, the pilot commentary would begin: Title, "Family Circle Films Present — " Title, "If it be thus to dream . . ." Fade-out. Fade-in. Clouds, tilt down to beach. Girl throws beach ball. Other girl misses it. Dad jumps up. Dad returns the ball. Fade-out — and so on. The pilot commentary will, of course, be mixed with projector noise. This does not matter at all provided the 77