Square Dance Sequence Stumps Experts: Professor “Imported” To Handle Job

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 88, 30 August 1948, Page 3

Square Dance Sequence Stumps Experts: Professor “Imported” To Handle Job

It’s no news when the motion picture industry goes to great lengths for the sake of authenticity. Therefore, for a big square dance sequence in “Duel in the Sun”, the mammoth David O. Selznick Technicolour production due for early release in New' Zealand, one of the foremost authorities on the square dance was imported from Colorado. He is Professor Shaw, who ordinarily teaches school * ip. Colorado Springs. “Duel in the Sun” is Professor Shaw’s first encounter with .the world of make-believe, and he was a bit confused by what happened when he saw the “rushes”. For two weeks he had drilled hundreds of extras in the seemingly simple dance steps of the square dance. Everybody had lots of fun and the scene was shot finally in one take. There was an orchestra playing, there were spoken lines by Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck and Lillian Gish. And then came a week of waiting while the film was printed by the Technicolour laboratories before the rushes could be shown.

Finally, the day arrived and Professor Shaw was ushered into the projection room to see how the scene turned out. To the regular cutters, film editors and advisers the scene looked perfect, but it was obvious to all when the lights went up, that Professor Shaw was a bit disturbed. “Tell me,” he said, “didn’t you think that orchestra sounded too far away?” v “Oh, of course,” said, one of the film editors, “but what we do is to record the. orchestra separately and match it with the playing later on.” “I see,” said Professor Shaw, “but what are you going to do about the sound? All those feet dancing on the wooden floor seemed, to me at least, to drown the lines Miss Jones and Mr Peck were speaking.” “That’s simple,” said the editor. “We just make some ‘wild lines’ with Jones and Peck and match them to their lips when we make the final sound track of the picture. Then if the dancing feet make' too much noise, we just lower the sound level, and raise the level of the voice track.” i‘Of course, of course,” said Professor Shaw. “But would you please tell me how you make the final sound track?” “Well,” the editor responded, “we have "vyhat is known as our dubbing room. At one end is the movie screen with a loud speaker, and at the other end is a huge desk with dials, knobs 'and plugs, like the control room of a radio station. We run several rolls of film at the same time, each one matched to synchronise with the other. On one roll is the picture which is projected on the screen, on the next is the sound effects, the .third may contain dialogue and . . . .” But at this point Mr Shaw was looking more than a trifle dazed.