When writing the citation for Stephan Kudelski’s AMPS’ Honorary Fellowship Award, I became aware, as far as I could ascertain, that no sound man or woman who used Nagras to make their living, had ever paid public tribute to him. So I, being one of those guilty of this appalling oversight, decided I’d better make some sort of attempt to correct the situation. For neigh on 35 years, worldwide, Nagras were taken for granted as the best and most reliable way of recording motion picture production sound on location and in the studio, be it for features, commercials, documentaries or TV movies. From 1961, by using a Nagra, good quality synch sound could be recorded wherever a 16 or 35mm camera could go. The days of sound trucks with sprocketed film channels and banks of heavy duty batteries were numbered. The documentary and short film industry were first to see the Nagra’s potential. Documentary film maker Derrick Knight speaking recently of documentary film making in the 1950s said that they couldn’t afford synch sound and for their tracks, had to make do with a few library sound FX. The Nagra changed all that. Very soon after it’s introduction, on documentaries and TV current affairs programmes, there was no silent shot sound turned on everything. A sound recordist with Nagra slung over the shoulder, a good microphone, handheld or on a short pole, could cover everything in camera range. Documentary crews working together became extremely skilled in this style of shooting, never missing a turnover or a clapper. Sound for documentaries became 'realistic’ rather than ‘creative’ as it had had to be in the past due to the lack of truly portable camera and sound equipment. The introduction of the Nagra as a recorder for recording synch sound was not greeted with loud acclaim in the feature film industry. The sound departments of the major studios were not convinced that 1/4” tape was suitable for feature film production. The Leevers Rich Synchro Pulse 1/4” method for synch recording had been tried but had a wobbly reputation, due mainly to crews forgetting to plug up the synch cable. It was used by TV film units reasonably successfully but in the feature studios relegated to location use only, where the then policy was to post synch all sound recorded outside the walls of a sound stage. The 60s saw an increase in the number of | independent producers setting up to make feature films on location without using facilities from the major studios. The Nagra came into its own. Facilities companies were set up to hire out camera and sound equipment. But the astute freelance sound mixers splashed out and bought their own gear. The outlay for a Nagra 3, AKG or Sennheiser mics plus cables and a few other accessories was not prohibitive, especially when compared with Westrex sprocketed magnetic channels and WE or RCA microphones as used by the major studios. With his own equipment the mixer could know the gear was in top condition and also be adding to his income the rental charge negotiated with the production company. Work for freelance crews at that time was reasonably plentiful for the good guys, thus the gear was an excellent investment, rental earnings being better than the going interest rates form banks and building societies. The economical advantages to both producers and equipment owners were considerable but the technical advantages were phenomenal - high quality sound, extreme portability, astounding reliability, simplicity of operation, and all at a reasonable cost. Very soon all documentary and independent features were being recorded on Nagras but it took at least five years before the major studios sound departments accepted the Nagra. Besides technical apprehensions there were crewing worries, not by the union, but sound camera operators feared that producers would question their necessity. Freelance sound mixer Dudley Plummer who took delivery of his first Nagra 3 in 1961, probably the first in the UK, told me how on a job that took him to Shepperton Studios, covering a film star profile story, one of the resident floor mixers snarled at him with curled lip “Oh, you’re one of those chaps who carries it all on your back and needs a 1 ton generator to get a 50 cycle pulse!”. Many reputable sound people said the Nagra would never get anywhere. How wrong they were. From the start of my motion picture sound recording career I have always been interested in ‘natural sound’. Fortunately in my first job with the New Zealand National Film Unit during WWII, I was given every encouragement to pursue that interest by providing realistic sound effects tracks for many of the ‘Weekly Review’ items and documentary films produced during the seven years that I was employed there. |
