The Sound Technician's Role in Making Movies

By transcription, Bidwell McCormick takes you behind the scenes in Hollywood. The sound technicians are among the most important people on the movie set today, and it's almost uncanny what some of these men can actually do.

Yes, and if a player blows or fluffs his lines it is very often that the sound technician even knows it in advance. Well, this item of contemporary science was discovered on the chismets at MGM, where Edward Arnold was working with Ronald Coleman.

The dialogue was bouncing along when Jimmy Flaster, unit sound mixer, removed the beeps from his ears and shook his head. An instant later Arnold stumbled on a word, and director William Deeterly yelled, cut. The sound technician said, I knew he was going to fluff that line because he started speeding up.

A sound man can usually tell about two lines in advance because involuntarily he starts speeding up as he approaches a line that he isn't sure of. Sound technicians know other things if no one else on the set knows too.

He may be seated ten feet in the action or a hundred feet, but his ears instantly record every particle of sound the microphone picks up. Much of it cannot be heard by a person standing directly beside the microphone or even by the players themselves.

In a sound technician will know if a player needs a drink of water too. Very often a player's mouth will become dry, but he doesn't ask for a drink of water because he is afraid it will delay production or because he doesn't know that it is affecting his tones.

But all this is picked up with the sensitive ears of the sound technician, and very often he must ask people to drink some water. It does seem strange, but it is nevertheless true, that the man sitting all day long in that chair behind the black control box with all its intricate knobs and wheels to indicate