A New Profession.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 December 1921, Page 4

A New Profession.

MAKING MUSIC FOR THE PICTURES. (By Ward -Muir). The birth of a new profession is always an occurrence worth recording. One bus just taken place. And although il lias not received its official christening it may be defined for the mine as assembling music for the films. If you slioll into the private theatre cl' any of the great film oiupaniees you will generally find that a picture is being shown, whatever the hour of the day. At ten o’clock in Hie morning, when the West End’s traffic bar. hardly begun, mysterious individuals gather ill the little private theatre and hour after hour, sit watching the screen. They arc not Press critics or prospective renters. They are experts wlm, viewing the picture again am! again, time and revise its suh-tilles. criticise

its photography, decide on tinting alterations, and so on. There experts bate been added le new

by one whose even more autocratic lash is to devise all the iletajls cl tlie film - musical accompaniment. Until recently this was left as a rule to orchestra conductors —many oi whom entertained the most casual view of the undertaking. “Film runs seventyfive minutes!-’ Right you are. 111 have the music for it, to tlie ti 1'..” And sure enough, music to last seventy-live minutes was handed out.

A rough-and-ready formula grew up: slow waltz for sentiment, tenoral march for death scene, ragtime for huiiMur, drum for motor-ear. hut no l’cai subtlety in the provision of musical atmosphere could lie achieved unless imbu e and accompaniment were wedded by a

Hence the arrival ol tlie film music assembler —who must be endowed n*t only with an encyclopaedic memory oi musical literature and a highly sensitive dramatic instinct, but al-o be himself a gifted composer ami have tin' elaborate possibilities ol oreiiestryl technique at his lingers’ ends.

Sitting ill the darkness of ti e private theatre, lie is shown lire film icpeatedly, and as it passes before his eyes iie makes lightning uieinorainl.i 'it the various motives involved. All tee duel characters, treated by the modern method, must have G.oii own lau-ial motives: the subject as a whole must have its main musiia! the me : every incident or series ol incidents must be either musically ilin.st rated, imimonised with, of commented upon sometimes seriously, sometimes ironically, but always with the object of providing that essential factor an • alimisplu'l'o”- and providing it a! exactly (lie ligid instant.

“Way Down East” and “T •" Lqmmist” were both imtccdiutelv hailed as masterly blendim " met'.no anil music. The tenner's leu-c-al club- 1b' limcnt li'e uori. ■>! an American ; tlie latter’s was that ol an Englishman, Davis Brooks, who is now busy on the “musical atmosphere” oi a forthcoming big George Clark production. In the lullless of time a young inii'-i----eian may become as celebrated for having composed the incidental music to a film as, sav, the incidental music tn such a play as ''Monsieur Benucairo.” And meanwhile the assembling of musically atmospheric passages, their dramatic interruption by what Handel called “valuable sileme-.” the harmonious linking tip of separate tunes, is itself arriving at the dignity ol an art; and soon the film which is merely accompanied by more or less “suitable” airs of the rumly-tumty order will he unmarketable.

Tile budding composer who neglects to study film prospects is making the mistake of his life.