Talking pictures : how they are made, how to appreciate them (c. 1937)

Talking Pictures When practical picture sound recording started in 1927, sound engineers had little more than a method of synchronizing sound and sight. The system was so inelastic that, if a player were seated, he could not stand up and walk away in the same scene. The camera would have to cut away from him while the movement was accomplished. The microphone was almost immovable, and the camera was placed, with the cameraman, in a half ton ice-box arrangement, making it impossible to follow a player in even such a simple maneuver as walking upstairs. Photography was impaired because the camera "shot" through a plate-glass window. To go outside the studio for the exterior locations which made silent films so pictorial was at first impossible because of the bulky equipment. But the film industry rose to its opportunities in a manner which has been highly commended. It put clever scientists at work solving the problems stated. Then, when a research worker in one studio discovered a simpler and more effective means, that discovery was not held back, but given at once to all the studios. Cutthroat competitive methods, by which progress has been held back in some industries, were sedulously avoided by the picture producer. By co-operative and inventive effort they carried the new art of the talking picture forward certainly twice as fast as would have been possible had there been competitive fighting between plants for various important scientific discoveries. The original sound heard in theatres had deficiencies which irked ambitious picture producers. It reproduced rather well over a middle range of tones, but low [ 204]