How to add sound to amateur films (1954)

own cue mark, and you can often speak for half a minute without having to look at the screen. There are exceptions, of course. If you word your commentary to read: 'This Latin inscription calls on St. Augustine. . .'* then you must time this to the appropriate shot. When there are several sentences immediately preceding the critical one, careful rehearsal is required. With the magnetic stripe system, timing must be perfect during recording. This costs no more than a little patience, since unsuccessful attempts can be erased and replaced without further expense. With direct disc recordings each fault means a disc wasted and a considerable addition to your costs. Using magnetic tape or optical sound negatives the timing can be readjusted by cutting tape or film in or out as necessary. Using either disc or tape, you must word the commentary so that it demands no greater accuracy of timing than you can obtain during playback. In the church bell sequence, six shots accompany 24 seconds of commentary, an average of four seconds per shot. Your synchronisation may provide an accuracy of plus or minus two seconds on playback. This is quite good for a long film, yet it allows insufficient time for reference to any specific four-second shot. Therefore, you cannot refer particularly to the shot showing the inscription. Either you must extend your important shot, duplicate it with similar shots, or comment less critically. Tense You will have the greatest difficulty with comic sequences. Here the comments usually require accurate timing. Suppose you show a slapstick incident in which Father repeatedly trips over the doormat. The commentary might be in the past, present or future tense. But if you use the future the edge is taken off the humour. ". . . He will do it 119