The world film encyclopedia (1933)

450 Sovmd Recording phone, similar to the type used in broadcasting, is suspended from a long crane just out of the picture ; the director places his people and the inevitable " Quiet, please ! " is called. In a soundproof booth the " mixer " watches through a window. Before him is a row of dials and meters. As the sound is picked up by the microphone it is sent through the mixingbooth as a fluctuating electric current, while the "mixer" studies its quality and strength. In this booth the current is amplified 1,000,000 times, so that it will record more clearly in the recording room. The "mixer" is in constant communication with the man at the microphone, and lets him know at once if the " mike " is not picking up the sound properly. The recording room is in some outof-the-way corner of the sound stage. Here, over a loudspeaker, you can hear every whisper on the stage outside. And here a very busy young man has numerous things to watch. Before him is the sound recorder, loaded with raw films. This machine is controlled by a motor that turns it at exactly the same speed as the camera on the set. The sound comes over wires from the mixing-booth. The recorder is, briefly, a machine Vvhich transforms the vibrations of electric current — received from the microphone — into a photographic picture of tiny sound waves. This is the picture, known as the " sound track " which I referred to above as being like a " very irregular Jacob's ladder." It is afterwards incorporated with the film and eventually projected with it when the film is screened. In a phrase, sound is recorded by a photo-electric process The assistant recordist, who watches over the recording machine, is about the busiest man in the studio during the shooting of a scene. He must see that the mechanism is running smoothly. After each " take " — as the filming of a scene is called — he must select one of a row of ticket punches and punch the number of the scene on the film. This enables the cutter later to match the sound track with the picture of the same number. He must then fill out a report sheet on the recordings that are made. If he fails to do one of these things, trouble is sure to follow. If the machine falters in speed for a moment it will produce what is called a " wow." A wow is a jump in pitch, more noticeable m music than in recording the voice. As this would not be discovered otherwise until after the film has been developed, the speed of the recording machine must be constantly inspected. The recording of sound on a separate film is one of the features of the Ph otophone system. When the final prints are made, the sound track and picture negativ-es are printed compositely on positive film. Similar copies are made and sent forth to the theatres. This dual film method facilitates the development of both picture and sound records. Avoiding Echo Reproduction of sound from the fi.lm is accomplished through a reverse photo-electric process to that described above. I do not intend going into the technical details of it more deeply, or I should fill a volume twice this size. With the wax record system it was customary to run a " playback " of each take. The director heard the scene over a loud-speaker on the set immediately after it was shot. Now, however, it is left to the man in the mixing-booth, whose judgment is accepted. His " okay " signifies that the take soimded right as it passed through his booth. Many other forward steps have been made during the short life of sound-pictures. The ponderous camera booth is no longer used. Instead, a soundproof " blimp " covers the camera mechanism, tho noise of which would otherwise be picked up by the sensitive microphone. It is made of cork and sponge rubber, found to be an effective combination to deaden sound. The making of sound -pictures has been one steady march against trouble. Even the scenery has to be built of different material now. The old hard wallboard materials used to throw back an objectionable echo. Now some of the walls are made of cloth and other dead materials, which absorb sound instead of reflecting it. The arc lights, which spluttered, are electrically filtered in order to silence them.