Star-dust in Hollywood (1930)

Hollywood — The [Madness of [Movietone normal set. It seemed a ceremony almost religious, churchlike in a sense of awe that oozed from the operators. I could never imagine the script-girl here perched on the director's knee. The influence of " Silence " seemed to have turned even the stage-hands into ghosts ; the director spoke his instructions in a lowered voice, not a megaphone on the premises. The superior publicity gave us information under his breath. No gay music burst out to stimulate the stars to an emotional brilliance ; they must suck it all from their own entrails ; the silence became so intense that we might almost have heard the music of the spheres instead ; the yellow ' inkey ' lights did not murmur with a cheerful sizzle; the * juicers p stood frozen in rigid attitudes ; not a joint creaked. The star strode on to the set and began his speech, but suddenly the director holding up his hand cried : " Cut ! " A faint, booming whir pierced the roof and defied the sounddeadening curtains hung above. We waited as an aeroplane, all unconscious that its passage was costing the Paramount company a large sum in dollars, passed over and carried the noise of its engines into the untransmitting distance. Once again the star strode into the ' inkey's ' glare. The cameras, which were muffled in leather sound-proof mattresses as though they were just about to try for altitude records, watched him noiselessly. We were at first astonished at the quiet voice in which the actor spoke. But no voice production like that for the stage was necessary, here was no deep theatre to fill, no back seats that might make rude remarks on inaudibility. He had only to tickle the sensitive ear of the microphone which dangled over his head, from a gallows' arm just above the camera's vision. In a sound-proof gallery sat a man with earphones, the mixer, whose duty was to regulate the precise volume of voice recorded on the sound tract, for, under normal circumstances, as the star moved [279]