Tweet editing early talkies

I was reminded of what really bugs me about transitional films while watching the Marion Davies films TCM ran last week - and that's the editing. More specifically, the lack thereof.

MARIANNE is a prime example of what makes 1929 talkies often such a chore to slog through. There are painfully long shots of the stoop outside of Marianne's maison where you look, silently, at concrete for what seems like an eternity before anyone enters the frame and begins talking. Then there are the closeups where again you - and the actor - waits an eternity before saying a line and doesn't do a whole lot of acting while the wait is on.

Does anyone here know more about the editing process of early sound film? I could understand some of these establishing shots to help sync up sound-on-disc, but MGM was sound-on-film, at least when MARIANNE was made, right? If that's true, wouldn't it have been fairly easy, even in 1929, to have originally cut these films more along the lines of what became the industry standard 18 months later?

Or was there some sort of technical improvement around 1930 that allowed the editors greater freedom in how they assembled product?

[Mike Gebert]

There may have been technical issues, not least related to the time gap between the picture and the audio on a strip of film. Others will know more about that than me.

But I suspect at least as big a reason was that talkies were following stage practice, in which there's no cutting to get someone from the door at stage right to the other actors in the middle; you just sit through it. That pacing seemed normal and only stopped seeming normal when movies started getting faster.

There are a lot of things in early talkies that just took a few years to settle into established practice and what we take, now, for "movie realism." A lot of early talkies mix the sound of footsteps up way too high; there are scenes in things like Glorifying the American Girl or even, quite late in the day, Cimarron where it sounds like everyone's walking on wooden bleachers with army boots, there's so much clump-clump. It just took a few years to arrive at a level that sounds normal to us now.*

* The scene I'm thinking of in Cimarron takes place on wooden sidewalks, so that's why the clump clump is emphasized that late in the day, though even so a similar movie a few years later would have dialed it down. Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate was assailed for a muddy sound mix (among many other things), especially in the early scenes in Casper when the sound of tromping feet and belching machinery is mixed very high; I've often wondered if that wasn't, in fact, inspired by the very similar scene in Cimarron.

Does anyone here know more about the editing process of early sound film? I could understand some of these establishing shots to help sync up sound-on-disc, but MGM was sound-on-film, at least when MARIANNE was made, right?

Most of the major studios were still using discs into 1931 and some into 32. I guess a lot of the smaller theater owners couldn't retool again after just a couple of years. I know that there were discs for Frankenstein and Dracula and the L&H films into 1931. The leader for my print of The Dentist (1932) has a mention of "track and disk" on it. I guess that could have been left over from before.

I'm pretty sure discs continued to be made into the mid-1930s, though I can't imagine the studios being happy about it.

Does anyone here know more about the editing process of early sound film? I could understand some of these establishing shots to help sync up sound-on-disc, but MGM was sound-on-film, at least when MARIANNE was made, right?

Most of the major studios were still using discs into 1931 and some into 32. I guess a lot of the smaller theater owners couldn't retool again after just a couple of years. I know that there were discs for Frankenstein and Dracula and the L&H films into 1931. The leader for my print of The Dentist (1932) has a mention of "track and disk" on it. I guess that could have been left over from before.

Even the leader on one of my 1934 Betty Boop cartoons say track and disc.

I'm pretty sure discs continued to be made into the mid-1930s, though I can't imagine the studios being happy about it.

any examples of MGM films using discs that late?

According to the Vitaphone project, the latest discs they know of are for some Monogram features from 1936, RKO's Roberta (1934) and some Charlie Chase shorts. Here's the place to go:

http://www.picking.com/vitaphone-faq.html

Does anyone here know more about the editing process of early sound film? I could understand some of these establishing shots to help sync up sound-on-disc, but MGM was sound-on-film, at least when MARIANNE was made, right? If that's true, wouldn't it have been fairly easy, even in 1929, to have originally cut these films more along the lines of what became the industry standard 18 months later?

Or was there some sort of technical improvement around 1930 that allowed the editors greater freedom in how they assembled product?

It just goes to show a lack of knowledge can breed contempt. The phenomenon you describe is directly related to the way the films were presented, and in fact it is a carry over from the silent era.

Films in the silent era and early sound era did not have countdown leaders as we have come to know them. Typically, when making changeovers, a projectionist threads up the Academy leader with the "9" (meaning nine feet) in the projector's threading window--The leaders are 12 feet long, but threading up on "9" allows for operator reaction time and the machine coming up to speed before the changeover. When the projectionist sees the first changeover cue, which is 12' from the end of the outgoing reel, he turns on the second projector. When he sees the second changeover cue (which used to be 1' from the end of the reel but now occurs at 1 1/2" from the end of the reel because of the frames often lost when films are plattered as they commonly are today) he hits a switch which closes the shutter and sound on the outgoing machine and opens it up on the incoming machine.

In the silent era there were no countdown leaders, and the leaders tended to be short with a part title card just before the first frame of picture. There were also no chageover cues (though many projectionists carved their own into prints). A common changover in the silent era would be effected by threading on the last frame of the part title before the first frame of picture. Typically, the last shot of a reel would be a subtitle, which was repeated as the first shot of the incoming reel. When that subtitle came on, the projectionist would start the second machine and make the changeover, and the audience wouldn't see it because the image went from a subtitle to the same subtitle. When there was no subtitle, it was common to end a reel with a fairly neutral shot--say a wide shot of someone coming into a room, and begin the next reel with a shot that would not jar the audinece, like a close up.

This practice continued in the early sound era, except now there was a need for the projectors to get up to speed so the sound wouldn't "wow."

So in the early sound era the projectionist would make changeovers as in the silent era, but have to thread 12 to 18 feet from the start of picture for sound, and there were still no changeover cues. Projectionists in the early soud era would receive run-down sheets which would say something like:

Start machine as man walks out of room. Changeover on close up as man comes out door.

With no subtitles as a "safety valve," the reels ended and began with netural shots--sometimes without any sound track to speak of, sometimes with long delays before a line of dialogue. These delays were to accomodate the changeovers, and were never meant to be seen on screen--at least not in the excruciating way they seem today when they are allowed to run a full length and not properly trimmed in the typical TV or video presentation.

Because of the need to make changeovers, and because of other techical issue, reels on early sound films were often relatively short--600 feet say rather than a ful 1,000 feet, so this phenomenon crops up more often than it otherwise might.

All of this changed in October 1930 when the Academy standardized start leaders and changeover cues throughout the industry.

It just goes to show a lack of knowledge can breed contempt.

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Thanks for the primer, Bob. I'm just not sure what you meant by your opening sentence.

It just goes to show a lack of knowledge can breed contempt.

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Thanks for the primer, Bob. I'm just not sure what you meant by your opening sentence.

Just a little play on the concept of "familiarity breeds contempt" I probably should have said "lack of familiarity" rather than "lack of knowledge." It was not meant to be an attack of any kind.

The thing that bugs you about early talkies also bugs many others. When you understand why it's happening it will become, presumably, less annoying.

What Bob described is well displayed in THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR where at regular intervals in the film we see people sitting or standing motionless for a few moments, then suddenly springing to life. It's bewildering if you don't know what it is- after TCM showed that film AMS was buzzing.

The thing that bugs you about early talkies also bugs many others. When you understand why it's happening it will become, presumably, less annoying.

I understand it now and you're right, it is less annoying. There's still plenty of annoyance left, though.

Fred