Talking pictures : how they are made and how to appreciate them (1937)

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Sound Recording The two of you wrangled furiously, and yet the noise around you was so great that no one heard a word. But if that quarrel were important in the development of a talking picture plot, theatre audiences would need to hear every word. The audience in a theatre unconsciouslv take a part in a motion picture far more than they do in a stage play, in which, more often than not, they merely observe other people act. In pictures, however, because the technique is so much more intimate, the audience tend to think the thoughts of the actors themselves, and often experience the same emotional reactions. This method of adding dramatic values by appropriate music played quietly under dialogue helps to intensify the attention of an audience. This would be impossible without the special sound recording technique just described. Recall the scene in May time in which John Barrymore speaks through a closed door to Jeanette MacDonald, telling her that Paul Allison (Nelson Eddy) is to sing opposite her in her first x\merican opera. Just before Barrymore speaks Allison's name, there begins, very softly under the dialogue, the "Sweetheart" song. Eddy had sung this to Miss MacDonald in their love interlude of a day seven years before. The song sets the emotional values of the scene instantly and builds its dramatic power, and yet the technician has manipulated the knobs so deftly that the music never for a moment disturbs the dialogue. Every' word is distinct. The music is just a murmur but quite clear enough to accomplish its emotional mission. [ 203 ]