World Film News and Television Progress (Apr 1936-Mar 1937)

The B.B.C. Recording Van on the "Ro>al SuMrtign" Battleships and Broadcasting By LAURENCE GILLIAM During Nai-j V\cek the B.B.C. Feature Department broadcast a programme dealing with a routine day on board a battleship. This actuality programme represented a great advance on previous efforts in treatment and dramatisation of material. The sequence show ing the handling of the ship in battle-practice was perhaps the best piece of creatively constructed sound the B.B.C. has yet done. In this article. Laurence Gilliam, the producer of the programme, outlines w hat was involved in its making and indicates how the new production methods may be developed in future actuality work. Every producer knows the difference between a good natural subject and one which he has to twist and torture to the demands of his medium. What made a battleship a good "natural" for broadcasting was, first, the appeal which things naval and mechanical have, and, more important, the complete and self-contained character of the ship — a quality which maintained the unity of the scene in spite of the many perplexing technicalities. As an instrument a battleship is so precise, so ordered to the demands of its job, that any exposition of it, either in sound or in pictures, acquires a satisfactory shape if it can remain faithful to the original. The theme of the programme was a simple one — a picture in sound of a day in the life of a battleship. The script made provision for a possible, if not a normal day, covering the ship's routine, calling the hands at five-thirty, preparing for sea, leaving harbour, then a middle section of battle practice, and finally, the return to harbour. Five days were allotted for recording. The first two were spent in reconnaissance and tests, and "shooting" was to continue for three days. Our unit numbered seven; there was Woodroffe. the commentator, two recording engineers, two assistants, the van driver, who acted on board as an additional assistant, and myself. 28 The recording van, equipped with double turntable disc recorders, was hoisted on board and lashed to the boat deck. The boat deck was chosen as the most convenient central and stable position, as we intended to record both in harbour and at sea. The general plan for each day's recording was worked out on the previous night with the Commander. The van's resources allowed four microphone positions to be operating at any one moment, but in practice we found it simpler to run the leads out to each position in turn. In this way we covered the main scenes — the quarter deck, the mess decks, the fore bridge, the gun turrets and the fo'c'sle. The Admiral's sea cabin became a permanent studio, ideal in acoustic until we discovered that the crank of the helm from the fore bridge to the engineroom passed right through it. Looking back on it now. it all seems rather queer and strange — being called in one's cabin with tea about five o'clock, getting into a curiously miscellaneous uniform of flannels, sea boots and muffler, and stumbling up on deck to meet the strange contours of a battleship in the light of early morning. One of our first sequences was the recording of 'the hands' being called. We had concealed microphones in the mess decks and hoped to get some authentic free-and-easy "wild track." We were not too successful, although we tried every morning, getting little beyond an assortment of early morning coughs, or the rattle of a tea-can ; the Navy, we found, were distressingly silent at this time of the morning. We had better luck with other parts of the routine. "Hands falling in" yielded little apart from a brisk succession of orders, bugle-calls and doubling feet; but with the ceremonies of "Colours" and "Divisions and Prayers," the microphone had something to bite on. The quarter deck at "Colours." with the ranks of the ship's company in the rig of the day, the Royal Marine Band, the officers in blue and gold, the lively airs and the slow hoisting of the White Ensign had a formal quality well suited to a sound description. "Divisions and Prayers" an hour later had the same static ceremonial quality; a little startling to the unaccustomed ear when the final "amen" was followed after about one second's pause with the brisk order: "Divisions — 'shun" from the Commander; you can watch and pray on a battleship, but not for long. The next episode, "hoisting the cutter." had much more movement about it and in spite of technicalities gave scope for a real sound picture with the orders repeated in the bell-like voice of the bos'n, the tramp of the feet of the hauling party, the sound of the "falls" as the cutter was hoisted up to the davit head. Commentarj' over this, explaining each order and its effect, added perspective to the scene. Our next sequence was designed to show the battleship in action. Here again it seemed most effective to recapture the ship's actual routine. The sequence started with the report: "Enemy in sight." The reaction of the Flag Ship to this information was traced at three points. First, in the fore top, where the spotting officer and his assistants, searching the horizon through binoculars, passed their comments through voice-pipes strapped to their chests down to the transmitting station. Second, in the transmitting station, four decks down, where the information was correlated by mechanical range-finders and passed back to the fore top and the turrets. Third, in the gun turret, the most dramatic place in the w hole ship ; a circular steel tomb, crammed with sixty-odd men, gathered round the gleaming breeches of the fifteen-inch guns. It sounded like hell with the lid off, with an incessant din Oi' orders repeated and shouted against the clang and roar of loading and reloading the guns. In this firing sequence, the whole complex organisation of the ship, human and mechanical, was concentrated on one subject. By crosscutting the different scenes in the process, one was able to give a cross-section of a battleship in action which was practically self-explanatory and indeed one which few whose whole Uves are spent on the job ever get so completely. Then came the aircraft attack. Here again the sound scheme was simple enough ; after the report "enemy aircraft bearing red six five" the microphone swung from approaching aircraft to gun stations. As the aircraft drew nearer, the ship opened fire. First the anti-aircraft guns, then, as bombers zoomed down, one by one the rest of the ship's armament, pom poms and machine guns, came into play. So from these two distinct sound elements, zooming aircraft and gun fire, one was able to build up a picture of the aircraft attack which spoke for itself. We ended the programme by contrasting the grimness of the battle practice with some of the aspects of the unofficial life on the ship — recreations, personalities and types peculiar to the battleship. We grouped them together in a "Dog Watch" sequence. Here we were up against more familiar problems of microphone interviewing and reporting. Such things as the ship's unofficial band with its experts on drums and spoons, its tap dancer and its announcer, the sounds of physical training and games on the quarter deck, and the contrasted voices of such odd job men as the wardroom attendant, the temperature man. the ship's barber and the tailor, enabled us to reflect the very real change that comes over a battleship after the "Stand easy" has been sounded.