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while in the taking and making, without interrupting or spoiling the musical accompaniment .
The footage of each single photograph must, from the very start, be made to correspond perfectly with the music. All those taking part in it — authors, scene directors, composers, and photographers — must arrange in advance all the details of each scene. The most efficacious and concise form of the future film must be settled in the scenographic section before any start is made to photograph the scenes.
Another important factor in artistic cinematography has to be re-tackled afresh : the architecture of the cinematograph. Aesthetic considerations are no longer the only ones to be borne in mind; acoustics have become a matter of yet greater importance. Innumerable artistic difficulties have arisen which I have not the space to go into here, but which I shall deal with at length in my forthcoming book « Hollywood, City of Illusions »..
The General Staff of the Cinema is busy re-estimating all these values. Hitherto the scene director has been monarch of all he surveyed. Things are different with the sound film; the scene director has to abdicate much of his powers in favour of new collaborators. And the author, with whose work so many liberties have been taken in the past, is now beginning to assert his rights and to come into his own.
The composer and the director of the orchestra now take their place beside the scene director as artistic partners on the same footing as himself; their opinion is of the greatest importance and must be consulted in preparing the scenes. Then a quite new figure has arisen in the staging studio: the director of the musical film who, from his cabin, well removed from noise, its walls padded with several strata of thick wool, directs the scene from behind thick glass panes. The scene director first stages the scene in the studio ; but it is not photographed until the musical director has examined the vocal effects by means of a telephone.
In time, there is no doubt that the scene director will himself have to learn to take charge of the sound and talking features of the scene as well. According to the latest information from Hollywood, some scene directors, such as Cecil De Mille, Ernst Lubitsch, and his countryman, Friedrich Zelnik, now also at Hollywood, have acquired by now such competence in the matter as to be able to take charge of the sound as well as the visual direction. Since absolute silence must reign throughout the studio during the taking of sound films, luminous electrical signals, similar to those used on the railways, are now employed to direct the rehearsals. By these means the sound director signals his instructions to the actors from his cabin: « Speak up! », « Come closer up !» and so on.
It is obvious that in these circumstances cinema actors must rehearse their parts with the same care as dramatic actors, and must indeed commit their roles to memory with all the greater care owing to the disadvantage they are under of not being able to look to the prompter for a reminder.
While the new art offers a vast field of action to dramatic actors, who for years have been accustomed to speak for hours at a time, it is clear that it does