Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-12-02
Progress in Talkies.

TALKING pictures made today at
Paramount's Long Island Studio
are claimed to be twice as good-by
mathematical demonStration-aS the
pictures made only four months ago.
= This fact is announced as one of
group of disclosures on. the rapidly de-
veloping art of the talking film, which
came out in conversation with Ralph
H.. Townsend, director of recording at
the studio. The thing started off with
discussion of the new all-dialogue
film, THE Letter." directed by Jean de
Limur, with Townsend in charge of the
sound.
''The Letter." it is declared. will pre-
sent its actors without lisp. They
will sound all their SIS and f's. accord
ing to Townsend, and therein is the
most striking improvement of talking
films since last Summer. Here Is the
way the engineer explains it:
Every sound has pitch, what may
be called in radio Technology wave
length or frequency, determined by the
number of vibrations per second which
that sound sets in motion. The aver
age human ear can hear sounds ranging
from frequency of Is or less up to
about $4,000.
For example. the ordinary baritone
mans voice would pronounce the word
flow with frequency of about 100
cycles per second The same voice
would pronounce the word 'safari' with
a frequency on the IS sound of about
5000 cycles, and on the IF" sound of
about 5000.
=. Now, as sound recording developed,
tthere was quite definite limit to the
frequency which could be taken down.
One of our problems has been to increase
hot I1o 70 mir
could not catch vibrations of higher
frequency than about 5000. The s.
and r. sounds were beyond that and
were not recorded; so, of course. the
actors lisped. The best we could do
last August was about 1000. Now we
are recording 5000 and actually re-
producing 5000. and soon We shall
AraiSe that maximum. Our actors can
Nsay practically anything they wish and
still be recorded perfectly. We have
tdoubled the range"
= 1.-The Letter." according to Townsend.
contains one scene which represents
the finest recording ever attained in the
films. Curiously. all the actors in it
Aare Orientals, and the speech is entirely
in Chinese. It is the scene in which
the Chinese woman and her maid in
the courthouse corridor stop the law
eyer's clerk and tell him they possess the
is nervous and furtive, entirely in
whispers. And, the engineer says
proudly. 1t was caught perfectly.
But the elimination Of the lisp and
1.-the greater clearness and range Of
sound recording is just one of several
advances in the technique of sound
pictures.
I'VE found out something in The
Letter and in The Pusher-in the-Face,
the short comedy made just previously,
which has given us one Of the great
est single Improvements yet made in
sound pictures said Townsend. ut is
simple, but Of tremendous importance.
- I'VE found that the quality of sound
accorded depends wonderfully upon the
angle at which the microphone is placed
with reference to the direction from
(which the voice comes, and also with
reference to rejecting surfaces such as
walls and floor. This factor never had
vbeen considered so carefully before.
e so, when you go on the set and see
the microphone in position, it seems
to have been just placed there casually
But its position actually has beer
worked out in advance and marked or
"a blue print of the set. If it were
.changed, your ear would know immedi-
2ately.
Another thing we have done, which
Il think is new in talking films, we have
eliminated the unnatural and uninter.
esting appearance of two characters
standing stiff1y in front of the camera
and speaking their lines. What J
mean is that we have given the micro
phone greater range, SO that the actors