VOICE ON THE FILM

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 104, 30 October 1933, Page 11

VOICE ON THE FILM

IMPROVED REPRODUCTION

. Latest developments in sound production as applied to talking picture equipment were discussed with a "Post" representative on board the Maunganui this morning by Mr. J. H. Barker, managing director in Australia and New Zealand of the Western Electric Co., Ltd. According to Mr. Barker a distinct advance has been made recently through a new process described as wide-range (third dimension) sound.

"We have been continually trying to obtain more life-like sound reproduction," said Mr. Barker. "The best of reproduction hitherto did not approach the natural sounds of everyday life, but an advance was made, recently, and we claim now that reproduction will be better than previously. The range of sound has been increased between high and low frequencies, so that each tone, whether it is the lowest pipe of the organ or the highest note ever done, or harmonic, of any instrument can be heard just as it would sound in 'the flesh.'" .

Then Mr. Barker made this rather surprising statement:. "We say you have: never really heard Greta Garbo talk. We say you have only heard a rough, approximation of the sound of her voice that actually goes into the microphone. You see,. a certain amount of the sound of her natural voice is lost in these three processes—first, recording, second, photographing, and third, reproducing."

"But isn't Greta Garbo's voice as we hear it from the screen supposed to be part of her fascination?" he was asked. Mr. Barker said that was so, but he contended that the hew process, far from destroying that fascination, would increase it.

"What we are 'trying to do," continued Mr. Barker, "is to progressively eliminate the loss of fidelity, and when we are able to do that theatre audir ences will be given an impression of naturalness. It will seem that the story is actually living and that they are not looking at mechanically or elec-trically-reproduced images. An improvement in this direction has been made lately, and this will be incorporated in the plant in the larger theatres very soon. ' It is claimed for the new wide-range sound reproduction that it brings to the screen new depth, tonal colour, quality, and richness, and that one will be able to appreciate tho lights and shades of personality in the speech of the stars. An improvement, said Mr. Barker, would also be noticed in the reproduction of orchestral music. Although the tone quality in :the average well-equipped picture theatre was remarkably good, there was no getting away from the fact that it had a mechanical quality, and was below the full tones of a flcsh-and-blood orchestra. It was claimed, that with the widerange system there would be little, if any, difference between the music by an orchestra in the pit and the music from tho reproducers.