Evening Star Newspaper, January 12, 1930, Page 93

SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 12, 1930. e chance on keeping perhaps several hundred people idle for several hours while a defect in the recording apparatus is being repaired. Another important man is the laboratory en- gineer. He takes the sound track which has been recorded and subjects it to varicus tests before it is developed, in order to secure the highest point of perfection in the developing process. The tiny black lines which form the sound track are scrutinized by an electric eye a million times more sensitive than the hu- man eye. This is the photo-electric cell which transforms the light waves into scund waves in the theater. This cell is so sensitive that it absolutely is imperative to have the sound track developed in exact accordance with a pre-determined pe- riod of time. Otherwise the voices and music would sound distorted on the screen. That is where the principal benefit of the sound track on a separate film ccmes. If the scund track is on the same film as the picture, some consid- eration must bz given to the picture in the de- veloping process. THE sound departments also employ a num- ¥ ber of others whose jobs, while not as ex- acting as those named above, still are im- portant. Thesz are bell boys—no, not the type you see in hotels. These boys have va- rious duties, such as ringing bells for quiet when a scene is about to be shot and again when the scene is finished, seeing that warn- ing lights are switched on and off at the propey times and that stage doors are all closed. Helping the beH boy on his job is the flag waver who stands guard outside of stage doors to see that nobody tries to enter while a scene is being shot. In the old days before the sound-proof stages were built these men kept all foot and motor traffic away from stages on which scund pictures were being made. And they still are used cn exterior locations to keep anything which might cause a noise away from the microphone’s range. Just before each scene is filmed a buzzer boy steps in front of the cameras and microphones with a small apparatus which gives a flash and a buzz simultaneously. This is done so that the cutters may match the sound track with the film more perfectly. Each company also has its noise doctcr, who has a full kit of noise-deadening apparatus ranging from rubber heels and tape for actors’ shoes to huge felts for covering sets. As you probably have concluded by now, the one big factor in making scund and talking films is to have absolute quiet except for the sounds which are desired in the pictures, In the days of silent pictures one or two cameras usually were used in photographing each scene. One-camera was operated by the first cameraman and the other by the second. With the talkies came greatly increased cam- era staffs and the creation of the chief cinema- tographer who takes no part in the actual pho- tographing. TN THE old days scenes were done once for a long shot, again for a medium shot and a third time for a close-up. The cumbersome sound-proof camera booths which came with the talkies made such moving about practi- cally impossible. Hence, many more cameras are now used. The entire operation is now done in one “take,” with various cameras us- ing spzcial lenses for long shots, medium shots and close-ups. The chief cincmatographer sits outside the booths and directs all the cameramen. He de- cides just how the set shall be lighted, the po=- siticn of each camera booth and just what an- gle or part of a scene shall be photographed by each of his assistants. This method of shooting may be changed in the near future, now that soundproof hocds are being perfected for the cameras. These hoods—which keep the camera’s noises from the microphones just as effectively as the large and heavy booths—permit the cameras to be moved about as freely as they were in the silent days. And it is a well known fact that Y Esther Ralston shows you hqw to operate the control board of a sound system. it is difficult to light a set fcr the simultaneous taking of a long shot and a close-up. Aside from the studio technical jobs which have been opened by the talkies, there are any aumber of others—which might be classed as vhe “white-collar” jobs of the industry. to a minute and a half. But that was all. Now the town is overrun with them. There are morc chorus girls in Hollyweod right now than Broadway ever dreamed of having. Almost every picture has its chorus. And many of them depict ballets ‘using any- Skeleton practice stages make it possible to take talkie scenés without a hitch when work is transferred to sound stages. T}{E players’ ranks are overflowing with those who can do nothing but sing or dance. Chief among these are the chorus girls. Before talking and singing was injected into pictures a chorus girl was a rare sight in Hollywood. A director might occasionally use a chorus of six or eight girls in a scene running from a minute Here Warner Brothers’ sound expert, George Grove, is demonstrating the “mixing panel,” which regulates the volume of sound picked up during fllming, 80 Myrna Loy and John Miljan. where from 200 to 400 girls. Many of the stu- dios now have their own dancing instructors and special classes for this reason. Larry Ceballos, one of the best known stage directors on the Pacific Coast, spends his entire time training girls for dance and ballet num- bers in Warner Bros. and First National pic- tures. He has a troupe of approximately 200 girls at work all of the time and he increases this number for some films. Pathe has Richard Boleslavsky, famous New York stage and ballet instructor, under contract to arrange and stage all of the ballet and chorus numbers in their films. In addition to these high-salaried studio dance instructors, Hollywood is overrun with dancing schools where all types of dancing are taught. Any casting director can secure from them a group of girls for any kind of a dance on an hour’s notice. There are exactly 50 of these schools listed within the city limits of Los Angeles. Among the better known ones are those conducted by Ernest Belcher, Earl Wallace, Bud Murray, Theodore Koslofl, Harvey Karel, Maurice Ku- sell and Arnold Tamon. Besides these the want ad sections of every Los Angeles paper carry advertisements of persons who will give private dancing lessons in their own homes for & reasonable sum. Dancing schools are just one of the many side rackets which have sprung up in the movie cclony since it went talkie. There are schools around here now that will teach you to do everything but lay bricks. There are dramatic schools, make-up schools, vocal gchools, costume designing schools, foreign lan- guage schools, elocution schools and schools that guarantee to teach you to play any kind of a musical instrument “in 24 easy lessons.” PROBABLY the most prominent vocal in- structor is Adolfo de la Huerta, one-time President of Mexico. Since discovering that Mexico wasn't a very healthy place for him the former President has been living in Hollywood, and during the past year or two has taken on a number of singing pupils. Throughout the recent revolution in our neighboring republic, De la Huerta remained here giving his daily singing lessons. Another change brought about by the talkies is the employment of orchestras. A few of the old silent pictures contained occasional scenes of orchestras, but they were very occasional. Now they even are building entire pictures around somc of the country’s leading synco- pators. NEARLY all of the major studios also main- tain their own symphony orchestras for scoring their pictures. Dr. Hugo Reisenfeld, head of the United Artists’ musical department, has a 50-piece symphony at his command at all times. David Brockman, noted musical com- poser and director, has a 40-piece orchestra at Universal. The Fox studio has a huge Wur- litzer organ, which is said to be the equivalent of any 70-piece orchestra. An orchestra of 30 men under the direction of Josiah Zuro spends_ all of its time at Pathe. A large orchestra conducted by Victor Bara- valle " plays the musical numbers fSr all the RKO films, It works in conjunction with the ballets and choruses and plays accompaniments for songs from the stars, such as Bcbe Daniels and Rudy Vallee. D:zspite their importance, these large orches- tras make up only a part of the musical de- partments of the various studios. To look over the roster of these various musical departments one would think New York's Tin Pan Alley had moved to Hollywood en masse. g According to Jesse L. Lasky, production chief of Paramount, musical comedies and’ romance are due to be among the most popular forms of screen entertainment. Consequently a staff of more than 50 song writers, orchestra conductors and vocal artists is firmly entrenched on the Paramount lot under the direction of Nathaniel W. Finston, former assistant concert master of the New York Symphony Orchestra. Among the better known ones are Richard Whiting, composer of “Japanese Sandman”; Sam Coslow, composer of “True Blue Lou,” and Leo Robin, who wrote the lyrics for “Hit the Deck.” - SONGS aren’t new in the film industry by any means, but they have been givemn a new place. In the old days of silent pictures theme songs were occasionally written to help publicize the films. During the past year the situation has changed. Songs now have be- come as much a part of motion pictures as the inevitable clinch in the last reel. And they no longer are used merely as an advertising medium. In fact, they receive as much pub- licity from a picture as they give it. When songs were written primarily for Broadway musical shows it took months for them to become nationally popular. Even a hit song on Broadway moved slowly in other parts of the country. But when a hit song is written for a picture, theater audiences in hundreds of cities hear it within a few weeks and rush down to buy sheet music or records. And as the writers receive a royalty on all of these, they clean up in a comparatively short time. ANl in all there are nearly 200 writers of popular songs under contract to the various Hollywood studios. Two of the new jobs which have been created by speaking films are quite apt to be temporary positions, according to Jesse Lasky, who says: “Dialogue writing and dialogue directing are among the new sound jobs which will not last. The dialogue writer, while very important now, will pass with the development of motion pic- ture dramatists trained to write for the audible screen. When that time comes the authors will write their own dialogue right into thei® scripts. Many of our present day dialogus writers may develop into the screen dramatists of the future, however, so the outlook is not necessarily bleak for them. “Dialogue directors, recruited from the stage, have found lucrative jobs in Hollywood since the screen found its voice. However, I be- lieve their jobs also are insecure. They will soon pass out of pictures, leaving one director in sole charge of a production.” ’I‘HERE seems to be no doubt but what both of Lasky's predictions will be borne out. It is only logical that authors should be re- sponsible for both action and dialogue. Other jobs have been created by the advent of color in films. The technicolor process re- quires an entirely different make-up from or- dinary film. Consequently it is necessary for each company to have an experienced make-up man continually on the set when color se- quences are being filmed. Studio painters, whose work formerly photo- graphed entirely in blacks and whites, have now been augmented by expert artists. Since colors photograph exactly as they come from the painter’s brush the work must be carefully done and a great deal of attention paid to the correct blending of eolors. The filming of color pictures also gives work to a double force of electriciars, since twice as many lights are required by technicolor film as by ordinary film. (Copyright, 193q )