MUSICAL COURIER
46
January 18, 1923
looking at the film as it is run off for your benefit, viewing and re-viewing the picture ad nauseam. A projection room is a kind of private theater used for rehearsals only. It is a small hall without windows, from which all light is rigorously excluded. Here the film can be run through the powerful magic-lantern-like apparatus and thrown, or projected on a screen, either large or small, and subjected to all kinds of critical emendations. Here sits the director, day after day, occasionally shouting out, “faster!”—“too slow”—“keep it on eighty, Harry!”—“we’ll cut that!”—or “run the last reel through again!” Here likewise sits the musician, stop-watch in hand, getting the time of the different dramatic episodes and saturating himself with the prevailing moods of these different episodes, or picking out on the spot appropriate music for certain scenes.
Someone will say: “How is it possible to correct, alter, or tinker with a picture after it is once taken?” It is this way. Very many more pictures are taken than will be ultimately used; usually many repetitions of the same scene. All these repetitions• are included in the orginal film and when it is run off it is apt to look like a hodge-podge of nonsense to anyone but the director, who usually knows what he is doing. Of these repetitions the best one is retained; the others cut out and thrown away. Frequently whole scenes are sacrificed; sometimes part of a scene, thus shortening the episode; or even only a single view, which occupies but a few feet of film, is cut out. The idea of the director is that somewhere in all this conglomeration of pictures lies the story which he is busy pictorially realizing and that he must so cut his film as to present that story in its clearest and most interesting form. Thus, for our picture, about forty-five miles of film were taken. This had to be cut to about two miles. When I first began to study the picture most of it was in this extensive form; an episode which, in its final form, would occupy but a part of one reel (an average reel being about 1,000 feet of film), would be in perhaps ten or a dozen reels.
This stop-watch business, the timing of the different episodes, was all done for me by a most able assistant, so I didn’t have to worry about that. But when I got the time plot in my hands the fun began. I would take my notebook, consult my time-plot and say to myself: “Let me see, I’ve got to have forty-five seconds of tranquillity in G major, say 4/4 time—then thirty-seven seconds of suspense, say E minor 3/4 time—then fifteen seconds of irritation, 2/4, indeterminate key—then fifty-five seconds of fight in, say, G minor 4/4 time,” and so on. After this music was all picked out with relation to the moods of the respective scenes—sequence of keys—contrasting times, etc.—it then had to be cut to fit the time-plot approximately. This can only be done approximately in the studio. Every one in the theatrical business knows that two hours of actual rehearsing with the orchestra in the theater is worth more than a week’s work in the studio. Years ago, I myself used to say that incidental music is composed at rehearsal.
All this looks like rather a difficult and complicated job, but it is not so. The most particular and important part of the task lies in the selection of the music—that it may fittingly express and accentuate the mood of the scene which it is to accompany. The minutia of its exact adaptation can be done by almost any musician who is a bit of a composer, has taste and judgment and a little theatrical experience.
The picture was first produced in New Bedford, as was fitting, and the people went nearly crazy with delight to see their own local traditions and history thus theatrically glorified. All the old sea captains׳—including the one who had charge of the Caribbean Sea expedition—were there and were all “het up” with excitement and interest. The wealth, beauty and fashion of the town were out in full force and indeed, it seemed that the Metropolitan Opera House had nothing on the Olympia Theater in New Bedford that night.
“Low Brows.”
The moving picture and its production in America is, today, an immense industry and a good business, but it has very little art about it. Ninety-nine per cent, of it is a seductive appeal—composed of sensationalism, thrills, and vulgarity— the object of which is simply and solely to separate the low-brow from his dollar in favor of the producer. The stories are for the most part what the Germans call Hintertreppenromane—that is, back stairs romances, because they are supposed to cater to the mawkish sentimentality, and the love
MY SUMMER IN THE MOVIES
(Continued from page 6)
sic adapters. So there is frequently a small percentage of original work in these scores; but that percentage is unusually small indeed. I have yet to hear a complete score which was especially composed to accompany a moving picture film.
When I first took the commission to design this accompaniment, I consulted an old friend of mine who does a great deal of this work and is, in fact, quite a pioneer in the field. He gave me a lot of valuable advice, and said, among other things: “Since you will not be given much time to complete your work (as is usual), I would advise you to avoid original composition as much as possible. Resort to it only in case of extreme necessity.” Of course, I knew far more about this kind of a job when I got through than when I began, and I can now say, with some authority, that the majority of these scores are a matter of selection, paste and perspiration rather than creation, taste or inspiration.
Having assembled my library, my next occupation was to classify the music according to mood. I bought a blank book and labeled the different pages with the names of all the different moods which one would find suggested in the dramatic unfoldment of the ordinary moving picture scenario. Thus there were sections in my note book labeled joy, grief, anger, hilarity, fight, tragedy, suspense, pensive, mystery, sadness, love, etc. All the pieces of music I listed under one or another of these headings, either complete pieces or single strains. Frequently a single piece yielded two or three strains in as many different moods. All this was noted in its proper place, as well as the key and time signatures.
Before one can actually go to work selecting and adapting music to accompany a moving picture one must not only be very familiar with the story, but also with every incident of it; must be very familiar with the look of the picture (must, in fact, be able to remember it perfectly without seeing it), and must know the exact time (to a second or so) occupied by the various dramatic episodes. This means many days spent in the hot projection room,
posed pieces of music, carefully culled, cut, picked out, and dove-tailed together into some sort of logical sequence, so as to appear in the light of a specially composed score. Compositions are chosen, of course, with due regard to the mood of the scene which they are to accompany and are cut down or otherwise mutilated until they occupy the requisite amount of time. The picking out of appropriate music to accompany certain scenes is one part of the job; arranging them in sequential order so they will follow each other naturally is another part of the job, and cutting them so that they shall exactly fit the time occupied by the various scenes is the third part of the job, by some considered the most difficult. All this adaptation requires a careful consideration of key relationships, sometimes even transpositions of keys and the introduction of modulations in order to make the thing sound smooth and natural. Of course an original composition is sometimes introduced. It would be almost impossible to prevent it, for nearly everyone has the composing bug nowadays, even moving picture mu-
CLARA
NO VELLO
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