“THRILLED TO BITS.”

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19887, 16 May 1936, Page 19 (Supplement)

“THRILLED TO BITS.”

NEW ZEALAND SINGER. EXPERIENCES OF TELEVISION. “Thrilled to bits!" exclaimed Gladys Lorimer, a New Zealand singer who has achieved operatic stardom abroad, when she was asked in Christchurch how she enjoyed her experiences of televising for the 8.8. C. “You feel that you are going right through to yout audience, so that it is more like being on the legitimate stage again.” Television had brought a set of new and different conditions for artists. Miss Lorimer continued. Certain types ol faces did not "televise well. Clearcut features photographed best, broad features and sunken eyes tending to produce undesirable shadows on the image. Miss Lorimer is the first artist tc visit New Zealand who has been televised by the 8.8. C. There are now 25,000 television-receiving sets in England, she said, and three times a week the 8.8. C. transmits programmes for a radius of thirty miles around London. The television set is like an ordinary radio set with a panel of frosted glass on top. Made Up like a Zulu. Similar to a first-class Zulu was how Aliss Lorimer described the make-up necessary for television, the whole effect having to be black and white—i flesh-colour foundation which comeoiil white; eyebrows outlined with white; a wide ridge of white on ttu nose, shadowed with black: eyelids royal blue and lips the same. Costumes also had to be black and white. The studio was plunged into complete darkness, contiued Miss Lorimer, and In order to provide a clear picture it was necessary to stand about two feet from the glass partition between the studio and the camera. A disconcerting vertical beam of light was switched on which was painfully intense and played in a flickering wave across the performer.

When a dancer was being televised different arrangements were made. Whereas it was necessary for a singer to confine her attention to movements of the hands or arms within th • narrow beam, a dancer was allowed freedom of movement, the beam and the camera following the performer about.