Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1949)

176 FIG. 1: Sound effect records, suggests the author, often can be exactly synchronized with action by cutting or adding required footage. Here, an added closeup of the plane's pontoon spun out landing scenes to timing of effect record. SOUND CAN BE SIMPLE A level headed amateur looks at home scoring — and finds it as easy as you want to make it . WALTER CHAPPELLE, JR., ACL yOU got a phonograph in your home? Or a radio? Or a combination of both? Then you have got the makings of sound with your movies. ... It can be just as simple as that — if you want to make it so. One movie maker we know just pushed his radiophonograph set down to the end of the living room one night before a screening. He then set up his screen in front of the radio, put a stack of appropriate records on the changer and had music with his movies. The playing time for four records is just a bit longer than the running time for a full reel of film. The extra music gave a nice leeway, continuing to entertain his guests while FIG. 2: Left to right, the first two strobe discs above are for 8 frame sprockets running 16 and 24 frames per second. Third disc combines 16, 20 and 24 fps on 12 frame sprocket. FIG. 3: The rubber eraser cap from an ordinary pencil provided author with the simplest kind of strobe disc mounting. the projector was stopped and the room lights turned up. What could be simpler? That arrangement, to be sure, was intended only as an experiment. But he found that music with his movies was a big improvement. So, after biting off that much, our movie maker went a bit further. He bought an inexpensive microphone for the radio. A radio service man hooked it up for a very nominal fee. This addition now made it possible to give a few words of commentary while the changer dropped another platter. That's about as far as he went — and he liked it. Although, come to think of it, he did work up a few "one-record reelers," as he called them. He had one reel of autumn scenes which, with a little cutting, just fitted a recording he already had of Trees, by Kilmer-Rasbach. Another reel was a beautiful series of garden scenes and closeups of flowers; this was shown with a recording of Tschaikowsky's Waltz of the Flowers. It wasn't long before this movie maker realized he was having more fun with his films without much additional expense. So can you. For so far, certainly, there is nothing difficult about disc sound. You could stop right here (as my friend did) and still greatly improve your shows. But, let's go on and examine some of the further possibilities for those who want a bit more polish in using music with their movies. Like this, for example. . . . Suppose you place a separate turntable right next to your projector, so both can be controlled from the same spot. Then you can select only the most desirable parts of the records and vary the length of the commentary between musical selections. The simplest low-cost electrically operated record player with electric pickup is all that is needed. Or, if you are handy around a work bench, you can buy a turntable and pickup for a nominal cost and assemble them yourself. No amplifier will be needed. For this separate record player can be hooked into your regular radio. Dual turntables, of course, will give a smoother show. There are one or two excellent factory made outfits on the market. Or the Amateur Cinema League has a clearly written booklet which tells how to assemble such an arrangement. But, except for mentioning them in passing, we do not intend to discuss [Continued on page 189]