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

Talking Pictures For some musical scoring, the microphone is the same as that used for dialogue. Three or four special microphones, somewhat different in appearance are also in operation. Each of these does one special task particularly well. One such microphone does best with a singing voice, another with a large orchestra. To the right of the orchestra there is a motion picture screen. When the photoplay is flashed on this screen, the leader, his score in front of him, directs his musicians. Before he raises his baton, however, there have been hours of hard work. He has read the scenario of the picture, perhaps many times. There have been conferences with the head of the music library, and with original composers. He has consulted the research heads to gain the benefit of their deep study into customs and manners of the given time. He has talked at length to special research experts in his own field. He knows he cannot use a piece of music in a motion picture score which musicians will recognize as having been composed after the period of the story. He could scarcely use a contemporary song in a picture of eighteenth-century locale. Above all things, his training in a motion picture studio must have been long enough to develop as second nature his ability to fit dramatic scenes into the musical number which, psychologically, best supplements action and words in its efforts to create a special emotional response from an audience. It requires hard rehearsals and careful adaptation to fit a number into the exact time required. Directors of underscoring are often successful composers in their own right. Because difficulties frequently arise which [212]