TALKING PICTURE TECHNIQUE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18352, 24 August 1929, Page 16

TALKING PICTURE TECHNIQUE

BLENDING OF STAGE AND SCREEN. A blending of the technique :;tage and screen is essential to the success of the talking picture, according to A. H. Van Buren, now stage director of talking picture at Fox-Movietone City in Fox Hills, California. Mr Van Buren, who passed many years as a leading man on the legitimate stage in New York, turned to directing stage productions, where he gained fame as the director of “Aloma of the South Seas,” “The Trial of Mary Dugan,” “Past Life,” and “Crime,” which he produced in both London and New York. From this vast experience of the theatre, Mr Van Buren has gained a knowledge of dramatic technique surpassed by few.. “People who think that, because of their experience on the legitimate stage they can go into talking pictures with no difficulty, have a very wrong impression,” Mr Van Buren says. “An actor in the legitimate theatre plays his performance with# the fact in mind that he must make as good an impression vocally and £n his movements and gestures for the back row as for the front row in the audience. The result is that an actor with this training immediately begins to send his voice out to the imaginary back row audience before the camera.

“This does not register well in a microphone, before which only a natur-ally-modulated voice will give a good effect. Before the microphone and camera, the whole audience is in the front row. Due to the marvellous controls on sound pictures the volume of the voige may be regulated in the projection of the picture to suit the size of the theatre. “In his acting as well, the stage actor must make himself aware of the peculiar requirements of the screen. The camera lens, which magnifies every human face many times in projecting it on the screen, requires a very careful study of facial expression. A stage actor may rely a great deal on his gestures, how he holds his body, and his large movements. A screen performance requires a meticulous study of the detail of these things. “A stage agtor in the legitimate theatre has weeks of rehearsal to make his part perfect before he offers it to the audience on opening night. He may go over and over it, perfecting and polishing it carefully. The screen actor has no such advantage. Once his performance is on celluloid, it is done for all time. The stage actor, then, must develop a rapid judgment of the values of his role, for his chance

to change his performance is gone a? soon as the camera has finished clicking. He must adapt himself to his ever-changing part, which demands a different performance daily and for which he has little preparation, if any. In film making an actor never knows his whole story. Perhaps he will be asked to do scene 22 first, with no knowledge of what has gone before or will follow in the story. “The technique of talking pictures is rapidly being perfected at the Fox studios, and a blending of these radically different ways of approaching a story is the result. In the talking picture ‘Heart in Dixie,’ which has an all-negro cast, a general rehearsal of the whole story with the entire cast was undertaken before any actual camera work began. This was to give the actors a chance to ‘feel’ their roles. This gives a better feeling of dramatic values to each individual performance. “In the talking picture, tonal values must be carefully studied. Monotony of effect in sound is deadly. This is also true on the legitimate stage, but truer for the film. “The use of incidental sound to create mood is something that must be carefully studied. It is important that only those sounds which will contribute to the desired effect must be used. Any sounds which will distract from that, must be rigidly excluded. So, too, silent portions have their value in a talking picture. They are not blanks, as spaces in printing. They are heavyprinted dashes that add emphasis. Unless emphasis is sought, some way must be found to cover these thundering silences. In themselves they are un- | natural, as there is nothing in life that !is absolutely soundless. An off-stage i orchestra playing almost soundlessly is the device of the stage to cover these | silences, which are unnatural in the extreme. Some films will follow this custom, where it is necessary, keeping the orchestral sounds very muted and only of the sort that create the desired mood in the silence. “The speaking screen must be accepted as a new medium, with a technique of its own that must be carefully worked out. Approaching a story to be made for the talking screen, the director makes a mistake is he copies stage technique, for by so doing he deprives himself of the advantage of the screen as a medium. The experience of those who have used the silent screen for years should not be lost in a mad rush to make the talking picture a copy or an imitation of the stage production. It is a medium in itself, and can very well stand on its own feet. It has given an impetus to the artistic efforts of screen actors, for with the new medium they are allowed to offer more to their public. It is a* challenge to the stage actors to show what they can do with the new medium. The result is bound to be I a better performance for either sort of actor as he appears in the talking film.”