DEREK PRENTICE IN MELBOURNE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 349, 1 March 1946, Page 17

DEREK PRENTICE IN MELBOURNE

USICAL sound effects such as those used in recent BBC broadcasts, including The Harbour Called Mulberry, and Radar, are planned by Derek Prentice, late of the BBC, who is now in Australia under contract to 3DB Melbourne, to produce for that station. He says that after he has! assimilated the features of the Australian scene by observation and personal contact, his echnique will follow the lines developed by the American radio producer, Norman Corwin, and by leading British producers, including Cecil McGivern.

He announced on arrival in Australia that his BBC work had been very attractive, but he felt that he should experience sponsored broadcasting. He was particularly interested in his new job, he said, for it gave him his first opportunity of working under truly competitive conditions. Mr. Prentice is greatly interested in experiments with the use of musical backgrounds to replace natural sound as a link between sequences in plays and radio features. He has had some experience of American and Canadian broadcasting methods and has gained a good insight into their quick-fire methods of presenting programmes. As far as his ideas of musical instead of naturalistic sound effects are concerned, he has a special eye for Australian. composers and musicians who think along these lines. This is his first visit to Australia and already he has found that, though the people generally are similar in their outlook to the people of England, there are’ a number of important differences which interest him greatly as a broadcaster and producer. He will have to study these closely, he says, before he can produce something likely to meet with the sa scm of Aus- tralians, "