Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1952)

MOVIE MAKERS 253 stop both the camera and the recorder. The camera was then set up at a new viewpoint, the tape wound back slightly to give the boy an overlapping cue on the playback of the music and a second section of his simulated piano playing was filmed. This procedure was followed through the entire chorus. Later, by careful editing of the film footage to eliminate any pictorial duplication of action in relation to the continuous audio recording, I was able to maintain good synchrony throughout. CUSHION OF SILENCE To make this recording and synchrony problem slightly easier, I purposely had preceded the piano sequence on the screen with 7 seconds of action which called for no sound at all — the boy shuffles through some musical scores, selects a piece and places it on the piano rack. This I knew I could take care of later (and did so) simply by splicing in 52% inches of blank tape between the end of the previous scene and the beginning of the piano recording itself. This cushion of silence treatment at the beginning of key scenes in your sound pattern is a good technique to keep in mind. Even with as simple a recording as narrative, the cushion helps to assure that your sound will play back in acceptable relation with the pictures on the screen. TWO TABLES NOT NEEDED Following the rather exacting demands of the piano-playing sequence, my scene timing sheet called for a simple 5 minutes and 2 seconds of background music before the final theme music began building to the end title. It was not possible, of course, to play this much music without a break on a single turntable; there were three different records in all. So I simply faded one out, stopped the recorder, began another record and then faded it in. The final results, with the stopping clicks on the tape edited out, were quite acceptable. Behind the closing sequence and the end title I recorded a passage of Time On My Hands, which had been carefully pretimed to come out on the button from where we picked it up. And thus the recording was completed. Although I actually own two turntables, I wish to stress again that on this fairly demanding job I chose to employ only one. And any other amateur with only a single player can do just as effective a job. This is possible because it is so easy to edit tape, cutting out all of the clicks caused by starting and stopping, and shortening, lengthening, rearranging or deleting parts of the recording as desired. SPLICING TECHNIQUE IMPORTANT But in this connection, I should like to say a word of warning abouv the technique of tape splicing. This operation is, frankly, one which should be carried out with the same care and correct tools as you employ in making a good splice in your film (see Fig. 5). The chief source of difficulty seems to be the use of improper adhesive materials to join the two ends of the tape. Such everyday stick-um tapes as Scotch cellulose or slide-binding tape should not be used in splicing a magnetic tape recording. For sooner or later their adhesive oozes out at the edges and is picked up by the record and playback heads — where it promptly begins to gather dirt. For magnetic tape splicing use only the specific adhesive material recommended by the manufacturer, such as (for example) the Scotch splicing tape No. 41 made by Minnesota Mining. PREPARING FOR PLAYBACK With your primary splicing completed, you are now ready for the first test playback of your film and tape for synchrony. This (and all future screenings) involves three routine operations: (1) check your projector to be sure it is operating at 16 frames per second, if that is the speed for which you timed the tape; (2) dry-run both your projector and recorder for several minutes to warm them up, and (3) arrange for and adopt some kind of startmark system between your film and tape. Let's examine each of these operations singly. CHECKING PROJECTOR SPEED A simple but sure way of checking projector speed is to splice together a loop of leader film which contains some handy multiple of 16 frames — say 32 or 48. At each sixteenth frame punch a hole between the perforations, and then thread the loop in your projector and start it running. At the first white flash on the screen, trip a stop watch (or note the sweep second hand on a clock) and begin counting the number of white flashes until you reach 30 or 60. You then check this point against your timepiece to find whether the projector is running at 16 fps or whether its speed needs adjusting up or down. In this connection, it is necessary in synchronizing your film and tape during playback (by whatever system of syncing you may use) that your projector have some form of adjustable speed control. The majority of silent projectors have such a control in the form of a rheostat. But, on the other hand, the majority of sound projectors are governor-controlled and offer (via a two-place switch) only the fixed speeds of 16 and 24 fps. This was the case with my 16mm. sound projector, so that I found it desirable to install a rheostat on it, as shown in Fig. 6. You may wish to do the same. Operation No. 2. the warm-up runs of DUAL SPEED REWINDS The newesif design of fhe famous Baia Qualify Line allows precise examination of viewing speed and instanl shift to high speed for winding. Positive, but gentle broke. 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