DIFFICULT WORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20768, 10 January 1931, Page 11 (Supplement)

DIFFICULT WORK.

"TUNING" CANARIES. PROBLEMS FOR DIRECTOR. " Tuning" canaries for interior scenes, " tuning out" suburban trains, steam shovels and barking dogs, and shooting " walking-talking" scenes were all part of Robert Z. Leonard's task when ho directed Norma Shearer in " Let Us Be Gay," her new Met ro-Gold wyn-Mayer picture.

The canary-tuning episode happened when the breakfast-room sequences in the last part of the picture were being filmed. To add cheeriness to the sun-streamed room, Leonard had several canary cages placed about. When the scenes were recorded, however, tho obligato of chirpings was not only discordant, but quite disconcerting. In an effort to " tune" the birds to an even pitch, Leonard sang, whistled and ran his hands over the piano keys, but to no avail. Eventually a musician was summoned, and by trilling his violin strings at a high pitch ho persuaded the birds to follow the kev in unison.

" Tuning out" suburban trains and the other technical difficulties presented themselves when Leonard filmed the outdoor garden scenes in a terraced park, near which an electric railway lino operated. The trains ran on a seven-minute headway schedule, and Leonard had to time his shots so that he could " tune out" on the microphone to miss the clangor and shrieks of tho air whistles. Off in another direction from the park setting excavations for tho foundations of an apartment building were being dug by steam shovels, and in still another direction a dog kennel set up weird howls as dinner-time approached. Diplomacy served its end in winning the steam shovel operator to respect the warning whistle when a scene was about to be " shot," but it required 1011). of luncheon sausage to pacify the hungry hounds.

" Walking-talking" scenes of Miss Shearer and Rod La Rocque, her leading man, required considerable technical ingenuity, tho entire sequence of the couple strolling through the garden, conversing, being screened in one continuous shot of some 1200ft-., the limit of film in camera magazines.