Radio Broadcast (May 1928-Apr 1929)

Sound Motion Pictures Volume Control in the "Talkies SOME years ago an eminent progressive, being asked in a locality noted for repeated industrial warfare what he thought of law and order, answered to the effect that he thought it would be all right, but he had never seen any. Exaggeration often points the way to truth. The truth about volume control in the sound-movie field is that in most theatres there isn't any. This is probably the most serious defect in the technique of audible photoplay reproduction at the present time. The theatres, in this matter of gain adjustment, are now at the stage in which broadcasting was in 1923, but the effect is worse, because the combination of sound reproduction with pictorial action presents more difficult problems than sound reproduction alone. The principal faults may be summarized as follows: (1) General level of speech reproduction too high. (2) Failure of volume to follow the action or to maintain a natural proportionality. (3) Abrupt jumps from one musical selection to another as scenes change. (4) Inability to adapt sound reproduction to audience reaction in special cases. Under the first count of the indictment, I may say that I attend a good many sound-picture showings in various cities and different sizes of theatres, and very rarely encounter inadequate volume of either speech or musical accompaniment. Excessive loudness of synchronized musical accompaniment I hear sometimes, but not often enough to write an article about it. Unnaturally loud speech reproduction, however, is rampant. This generally excessive level of speech reproduction is caused by failure on the part of the recording experts, projectionists, theatre managers, and other functionaries to appreciate the simple fact that speech is usually not as loud as music. So, in changing from orchestral accompaniment to speech, during a picture, they ought to drop the level, perhaps 10 tu. But in most pictures which have talking portions alternating with music nobody does anything about this. The result is that even in the top gallery the speech is absurdly loud. The setting should be such that in this location conversational speech from the sound movie machine is loud enough to be comfortably understandable. In a house with good acoustics this will not be much louder than speech of the same sort from an actor on the stage. Even when this rule is followed the speech may be too loud in the front of the orchestra, but it will not be as bad as when the level is excessive up above. TOO MUCH VOLUME THIS chronic tendency to oversupply volume leads to a number of corollary defects One is a distortional change in voices. An actor playing a love scene, for example, and talking to a girl at close range, naturally speaks in a low voice. His low voice is not the same, in distribution of overtones, fundamental pitch, and other characteristics as if he were talking loudly. The recording operator, perhaps, brings up the gain control to get above the noise level of his equip ment. Then in the theatre some more amplification is piled on, and the voice issues from the projectors a few million times louder than at the beginning. The ear recognizes the fact that CT'HIS is the first of a series of articles ■*■ dealing with sound motion pictures. Radio Broadcast was first and alone in its field to provide intelligent and authoritative articles on the engineering aspects of broadcasting and we are happy to be first now with authoritative articles on sound movies. The latter field is so close to broadcast engineering that it is proving of absorbing interest to almost everyone in radio. Pages in this magazine will regularly be devoted to this subject. — The Editor. something adventitious has happened to the man's voice. Quiet speech sounds natural only when it is reproduced at a relatively low intensity. Furthermore, dramatic contrast is lost when even moderately loud sounds are reproduced heavily. If you deafen the audience with the amorous murmuring of the lovers, what more can you do when they begin to shout at each other, or when the hero pulls a machine gun out of his trousers and shoots one of his fellow gangsters? If you are working at plus 10 for sounds of low volume, and you emit 100 times as much energy for a louder sound, the effect on the ear goes up to plus 30, an increase of 200 per cent, as far as the ear is concerned. But if you are already working at plus 40 the same ratio of increase only brings you up to plus 60, an increase of 50 per cent, to the ear. The audiences, even though they don't know much about logarithms, have ears which act logarithmically. Part of what has been said also has a bearing on the second point listed above. Fundamentally, the failure to correlate volume with the action of the play is a fault in recording. Skillful gain variation in the theatre can make up for defects in recording, but what we frequently get is mediocre recording to begin with, aggravated by bungling in reproduction. One of the faults frequently mentioned by critics of talking pictures is that when characters go backstage after a close-up there is no corresponding diminution in the level of their speech. This is something which should be taken care of in recording, but usually isn't. The close-up is one shot and the movement backstage very likely another. By the time the recording engineers are taking the latter they have forgotten the initial volume, but the audience, getting the two close together, notices the incongruity. The remedy lies in recognition of such defects, more utilization of instruments, and standardization of technique. Similarly when an actor turns away from the audience there is not the change in his voice which one would expect. The reason usually is that a second microphone was used to pick him 182 up when he turned away, and the recording expert neglected to bring down the gain control somewhat on his transmitter to take care of its direction with respect to the future audience. Some of the troubles discussed above involve refinements in technique and training of skilled personnel, which cannot be accomplished overnight, but such scandalous defects as abrupt changes in musical selections are inexcusable. As long as audiences tolerate such barbarities it seems there will be producers and exhibitors foolish enough to perpetrate them. In the meantime other producers will refine their technique and sell the product to the more far-sighted theatre proprietors, and when the public becomes critical the latter will get the business and the former will be left wondering why their seats are empty. As yet, unfortunately, the public, has not become discriminating, and one sees audiences sitting through synchronized pictures in which, as the scenes change, one musical selection is abruptly broken off and another starts with full volume in the middle of a bar. These are the subtle operations of the cutting rooms on sound film. As originally scored, the picture has appropriate musical selections fitted to the various scenes, with suitable transitions and pauses as scenes change. Further changes being decided on, pieces are chopped out of the reel. This may improve the picture (sometimes the more that is cut out the better the picture becomes) but unfortunately the sound track goes with the picture, and with it the artistic transitions arranged by the musical director. Of course these portions might be re-orchestrated, but the productions have to appear on schedule, and some of the producers are willing to send the stuff out as long as they think there is a chance that the audiences will not get up, throw the chairs at the screen, and lynch the house manager AUDIENCE REACTIONS ANOTHER difficulty, for which the producers cannot be held responsible, lies in the uncertainty of audience reactions. In one instance which I witnessed the victim was the illustrious Martinelli, singing Va Prononcer Ma Mori, from La Juive, one of Vitaphone's operatic shorts. The tenor appeared in street clothes on the screen after being divested of his costume and Hittite nose. A small audience on a warm Sunday afternoon applauded only moderately and when the shade of Martinelli implacably offered two or three bows and synchronized smirks after they were silent, naturally they laughed. In this case the projectionist was caught flat-footed. He should have doused the grateful artist as soon as the audience indicated that it could bear to let him go back to the rewinder. Too few bows are always better than too many. A much harder problem is encountered in connection with loud laughter from audiences during comedies. In a stage comedy when the audience laughs loud enough to drown out the succeeding dialogue the actors pause and wait for the roars to die down. In vaudeville they can laugh with the audience. {Concluded on Page 200)