World Film and Television Progress (1937-1938)

NEWSREEL RUSHES Paris, does the commentary take the word out of the title's mouth. Your commentary writers consistently fail to realise that film commentary is not a form of radio description to blind listeners. It is a vocal counterpoint to a picture — and as such should deal with the more general implications of a story — its meaning, its place in history. Only rarely need film commentary point out a rapid or unclear bit of action in the picture — and then the description must come a second or two before the action, to allow for time lag in audience brains. When there's nothing to say — rather than nopeless vocal padding, far better for commentary to give place to sound and music. Sound and Music Faster cutting, more informative commentary, will increase your speed 100 per cent. But your reel's final swing comes from music. Your sound units bring in thousands of feet of natural sound and music every week. But I don't believe you fully realise that ninety per cent of that track isn't sufficiently interesting to help build up your story. Certain sounds — the yells of the watchers at the Hindenburg burning, or the roar of the children at the Wembley Youth Festival — are tremendous in themselves. But the rest needs the artificial boost of added library music — music that is specially composed or arranged to provide atmosphere and rhythm. Your audience very soon reacts to the dullness of prolonged general traffic hubbub, or the continuous roar of a football crowd — yet these and similar sounds still play a regular part in your reel's make-up. Faster . . . Faster All my criticism points in one main direction — your reel is not fast enough. I believe you will find that the key to more speed is less repetition — in cutting, through the elimination of all but the absolutely essential shots — in commentary, through the elimination of all wording that is already covered by the picture — in sound, by the elimination of repetitive general hubbub. Yours sincerely, Glen Norris. Notes by the Commentator Frightful Film Biggest newsstory in America to-day, is the upheaval of labour, manifested in sit-dovvns, stand-ups, and all their variations. But during months of political tension, the American newsreels have found little dramatic material for their cameras. Fighting clashes have broken out too unexpectedly, and have been suppressed too quickly for anything but sheer luck to bring a camera within shooting distance. Last month luck smiled on Orlando Lippert, ace cameraman of U.S. Paramount News. Almost as if he smelled blood in the air, Lippert stayed behind in Chicago's steel suburb, while his rival cameras went off to the Indianapolis car race. Thus Paramount got a complete exclusive record of 1. Following tear gas and shooting, demonstrators break and run 2. Policeman seen here goes for a fallen striker one of the bloodiest labour-police battles in U.S. history. So clearly does the negative show police brutality that it was immediately confiscated by the U.S. government, and American audiences will never see it. A few of the less harrowing shots were released by British Paramount News in this country, and, although they are almost the least dramatic sections of the complete film, they are still amazing enough to qualify easily as the news pictures of the month. Shown: a shot of a policeman felling a man with a club, then continuing to strike the prostrate figure, before passing on to the next attack. Not shown : shots of the first line of strikers going down under a police volley, like grass under a scythe; a terrified girl clambering to escape over a heap of fallen men, then felled by a police club blow, later lifted into an ambulance, a crumpled, bleeding heap; a man shot through the spine and paralysed from the waist, unable to move his legs, raising his head like a tortoise and clawing the ground. In its report on the affair, the U.S. magazine Time quotes the comment of one man who saw the film: "Jt made me want to go out and bite a policeman." 3. ... and clubs prostrate Newsreel Cockalorum A train ran into a siding at Swanley Junction near London. The coaches piled up into a hideous mess — out of which doctors and nurses dragged the bodies of the dead and dying. Paramount News ' released the usual aftermath pictures — over them the commentator spoke words which Editor Cummins regarded as too obviously true to be controversial. General line of the commentary was that such a pile-up would largely have been avoided with steel coaches. But controversy raised its ugly head! The Association of Timber Manufacturers made a strong protest, implying that such propaganda as had been spoken by the Paramount commentator was likely to do considerable harm to the Timber Trade. If they were to continue to hold their own in a hard world, it was essential that timber should continue to be used for railway coaches. So far the obvious next moves have not taken place — but Paramount are daily expecting: a "revelation" that the commentator is really a big shareholder in a major steel company : a similar protest against damaging propaganda from the United Association of Undertakers and Coffin Builders. New Newsreel For years newsreel editors have been saying: "If one reel closed down, another would open up. There'll always be room for five." Apparently they have never discussed whether there is room for six reels — but this question is soon to be tested. The recent news of the resignation of long time Universal Editor Cecil Snape, was soon followed by the announcement of a new newsreel. National News, when it starts up in October, will be under the financial control of the Sound City studio group, headed by Norman Loudon, Sound City Chairman. Snape will edit — in the, to him, unfamiliar world ot natural sound. For unlike Universal, National News is to have its fleet of sound trucks. In a later issue of W.F.N, it is hoped to detail the policy of the new organisation. Meanwhile at Universal, Managing Director Jeapes adds the editorship to his executive burden. 31