SHOOTING “TALKIES.”

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17662, 13 August 1929, Page 6

SHOOTING “TALKIES.”

SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES. DIFFERENCE FROM FILMS The scientific correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian” recently gave the following interesting comparison between the taking of ordinary films and talkies. . »

A film can he made up of photographs of just as many .scenes as there arc pictures on the film strip. There may be 10.000 separate pictures cn the film strip, so the producer could conceivably have had to photograph 10,000 scenes to obtain his basic series of pictures cn the strip. In practice he does not (Subdivide his scenes as finely as’ this. He takes a few hundred ' successive photographs with a kinema camera of two or three gestures lasting perilous one minute. He has these few gestures performed over and ever again before the camera, until he is satisfied with them. From half a dozen pets of photographs of these gestures he can choose the best set. The next day he commences with the rehearsals of the next short scene preparatory to the photography. Having rehearsed the actors satisfactorily, ho has another half-dozen sets of photographs taken, and chooses the best set. This will provide him with another minute cf his final reel. By the end of a month or two he has collected together enough sets of pictures to he pieced together to form the complete reel. It is evident that the producer must have a remarkable gift of imaginative organisation if he is to make anything of this process. Ho has to assemble harmoniously sections taken at intervals of days and weeks. Through all that period he should hold in his imagination a clear picture of the story and make hisf scene sections fit it. This discussion of just one point in film-production einrhasy-es the diffi-' culties and possibilities of silent film technique. In “talkie” film, production there is sound as well as sight to be organised. There is the division of the story into- a few gestures and sentences. These have to be “shot” cr photographed repeatedly. While watching the production cf a “talkie” in tho studio' of the British Talking Pictures Company at Wembley, this sort cf thing went on. The son’ of a farmer staggers into the kitchen, drunk. The father is seated in a chair by the fire, with his wife standing beside him. The mother says something like this: “WhatV- the matter with the bev?” The young man staggers against the kitchen table, and his father rises from the chair and with his mother towards him. “He’s drunk,” sayp the father; “that’s what’s the matter with, him.” Tho sen shouts: “Who says Pm drunk? ' If you weren’t my father I’d ” “Young man,” the father interrupts, “keep a civil tongue in yocr head.” Mother rushes in between them and tells her husband t.o leave tho boy alone, and coaxes her son to rest against the table. The scene would , last, say. twominutes. The producer rehearses the movements several time? until they arc organised satisfactorily. Then lie has to listen to the speech and sounds. As the son stagger* into the room he slouches his feet- along tho stone floor. The loud-speaker registers a screeching ,slither. The actor is asked to slouch without slithering. The scene is “shot” again. This time the actor is so careful not to slither that, in lib distraction, he forgets the correct route for the stagger. The scene lias to he shot again. Then another difficulty is caused by something analogous to Spoonerisms. The soundreproduction apparatus is liable to cause certain sounds to puffer a sea change. Consequently, words beginning with these sounds are sometimes transformed into puller richer and stronger words not rr-xl in drawingrooms. Words exhibiting this transformatory characteristic are struck from the scenario.

Tho scene is shot again with the unstable word expunged. Attention to tho new construction of the sentences again distracts the actors from the approved movements. The scene is shot cane more. , This time the actors get the movements right, lint owing to concentration on these one of them ejean forget, the words. The scene is shot yet once more. No wonder, soft music is played in the intervals to seethe - everyone’s nerves! The addition of speech to movement has greatly increased the organisation complexity of production. It is quite conceivable that the producer will photograph and record “talkies” word by word. Then his imagination will lie required to hold the auditory as well ap the visual story cf the film for a period of months, so that ho can-compare the tone'of the one word in each “shoot” with that ideal he ought to have in his mind. Talent will find plenty of! worthy problems in talking-film production. -