During a recent much needed clear out of old papers I came across this article which, if I remember correctly, I was asked to write for one of the magazines which dealt with British Film Production in the early post war years. I thought it might be of interest to members to read how things have changed since 1949. It was only my second picture as a Production Mixer.
l Western Electric ASR 71686 four channel mixer used in conjunction with an MGM (Culver City) 200 mil push-pull channel mounted on a dolly for use on the stage.
l Western Electric RA-1142 microphones set to the cardioid position
l Mole-Richardson microphone booms
l MGM system of silent turnover used, but since no bloop light is incorporated in the Technicolor camera, a bloop light had to be made up separately and held in front of the camera by the assistant at the start of each take.
Because of the unusual problems involved, and the length of track of many the camera movements, a sound crew of more than the usual number was needed. The normal crew consisted of nine men made up as follows: Mixer, Maintenance Engineers, Sound Camera Operator, 2 Boom Operators, 3 Assistant Boom Operators, Sound Magazine Loader.
At one time, during the marathon shot (Flusky's dinner party) a sound crew of eleven was fully employed on the floor, tracking and operating booms, using microphones on sticks and tracking the camera motor cable. During this shot, our maintenance engineer, who luckily is a very good 'amateur' boom operator was pressed into service on one of the four booms.
With very few exceptions, practically every shot necessitated the use of several microphones. Even in cases where there was very little camera movement, the construction of the sets and /or intricacies of the lighting frequently restricted the movement of the boom making it necessary to use an additional microphone to cover parts of the dialogue.
The lighting technique, with moving lamps on the set and the necessity of lighting the actors over such wide ranges of movement, imposed severe limitations on boom and microphone movements during most of the picture.
Originally we had hoped to mount a microphone on the camera. This was actually tried but very quickly abandoned after the microphone had hit one of the moving walls during a tracking shot. Quite apart from that, this method of microphone mounting proved impractical because of the high degree of electrical pickup from the camera motor cable, and lighting cables necessarily running close to the mic cable and pre amplifier. Trouble was also experienced from camera noise with the mic on top of the blimp. In any event, the good coverage of dialogue by this method was very haphazard.
Another idea which was tried, but without much success, was the mounting of a microphone, suspended on fibre runners, from a Rufflette Rail, the theory being that the rail could be hidden and the mic pulled forward or backwards by off set cords. This proved quite successful, once it had been made sufficiently silent, but the obvious limitation of movement imposed by the rail made it impractical.
Extensive use was made of stick mounted microphones. Often these were held in the hand while the boom-man followed the artists as best he could, avoiding meanwhile, the camera assistants, the camera and its crane and cables, and the innumerable tracking lamps which always seemed to go just where he wanted to be. After several takes with the heavy mic used in this way the boom-men were more than usually worn out.
Stick mounted microphones were also used from the rails very extensively, and in cases where any movement would be dangerous, (since the boom man on the rails could rarely see the camera until it was too late) the mics were fixed in an optimum position in the hope that the artists would stick to their rehearsal positions for the dialogue.
On one occasion, during the ballroom sequence, a mic was lowered on a length of sash from the gantry to cover dialogue in the middle of the ballroom. The unfortunate man who did the lowering could see very little and had to rely on frantic signals from below.
During the Flusky dinner party sequence, it was necessary to use six microphones, three on booms, two fixed from the rails and one moving stick. Since the mixer had provision for only four microphones, we had to have a man standing by to change over the mic cables as the shot progressed. Four pre amplifiers were left plugged up to the mixer so as to avoid delay while they warmed up, and the mic cables were changed over at the pre amp. The two mics used first in the shot were unplugged as soon as the action moved on and the two mics used for the end of the scene were plugged in, in their place. Miraculously enough the final track showed no evidence of these unorthodox back stage operations.
In certain places during the long takes, a great deal of noise was inevitable, not only from the movements of the sliding sections of the set, but also from the movement of props which were whipped out, or pushed into position in front of the camera. The camera dolly and moving lamps also made a good deal of noise at times. We would record the whole scene and mark passages over which there was a great deal of noise, then as soon as the scene had been shot, a wild track was taken of these sections, the actors repeating the scene in their correct positions as they did for the camera. Two takes were normally made on each wild track to give Bert Bates, the editor, a better selection when cutting in the wild lines.
If it was found later that further wild lines were needed for any reason, a Moviola was brought onto the stage, the line made up into a loop was run for the actors and a wild track made under conditions and in a position, matching the original as nearly as possible. It was thus possible to get a much closer match in sound quality than could be obtained in a post synchronising theatre.
Owing to the wide range of movements during the long takes, lighting requirements demanded the use of a very large number of lamps. Thus the noise level from the lamps was abnormally high and some wild tracking was necessary for this reason alone.
All effects, such as footsteps on gravel, door slams, door handles etc, were shot on the floor as the picture progressed. All off-stage effects dialogue was also recorded in the same way.Thus the picture was kept fully up to date all the time and since one sound crew were responsible for shooting, as nearly as possible, all the tracks needed, there was more hope of getting an evenly matched track than might otherwise have been obtained with the use of two or more crews in the the theatre and on the stage.
In addition, the crew having worked on the picture all the time, had a much better idea of what was wanted in the way of perspective etc, than would an outside crew doing the odd days on the picture. Our crew naturally had a much greater than normal interest in the picture, since we were able to do many things which are normally done elsewhere after the finish of shooting and without the cooperation of the director.
Under Capricorn was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein. They were co-directors of Transatlantic Productions who in the USA the year previously had produced the movie Rope. Rope was Hitchcock's first colour film and was notable for having been shot in eight 10-minute takes, an interesting technical experiment. The main crew members of Capricorn were required to attend a screening of Rope before shooting started.
The four channel mixer referred to was the standard type used in MGM's Culver City Studios in the USA and it was decreed that they would also be used at MGM Elstree Studios. The particular mixer used for Under Capricorn arrived a day or two before rehearsals started. I discovered when I first used it on rehearsals that channels 2 and 3 were out of phase with channels 1 and 2!! It was rewired of course but it wasn't much of an advert for the MGM Douglas Shearer Empire!!
The mixer had no VI. It was only provided with a limiter meter and the trick was to let the limiter meter needle just kick a little from time to time - quite good training for a young mixer really, to avoid relying on a meter. However, with the whole system designed for upper frequency pre-emphasis, you can imagine how really important it was not to over modulate and cause light valve crash.
In 1949 hand booms were usually referred to as 'sticks' hence the reference to 'stick mounted microphones'. The Western Electric RA 1142 microphones used on the production weighed 3.5 lbs - quite a contrast with today's Sennheiser 416. What with holding heavy mikes on 'sticks' above the head and pushing around weighty Mole -Richardson booms, boom ops had to be pretty strong in 1949.
Cranes, propelled by electric motors and independent of tracks, were designed and built for the shooting of Rope. There was a large and small model and now known as Transatlantic Cranes, they were brought over from the States for use on Under Capricorn. A specially trained driver was employed to drive and maintain the cranes.
Because these cranes were designed to go anywhere and everywhere (like the later introduced crab dolly) independent of tracks, the studio floor had to be absolutely free from uneven surfaces and the cranes to move as silently as possible. To achieve these requirements the entire floor of the large stage at MGM Elstree was covered with carpet before any sets were in place. The carpet came from an allocation which had been made for Sidney Bernstein's Granada Cinemas. Presumably the cinemas had to wait for their post war carpet renewals until whatever could be salvaged when shooting finished.
The lighting cameraman was Jack Cardiff and the main cast were Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten. Margaret Leighton, Michael Wilding and Cecil Parker.