1.
Production sound mixer
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This requires choice and deployment of microphones, choice of recording media, and mixing of audio signals in real time. The recordist may be asked to capture a variety of wild sound on location. The recorded production sound track is later combined with elements, i. e. effects, music, narration. The Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound, vincent Magnier, Le guide de la prise de son pour limage. John Purcell, Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures, A Guide to the Invisible Art, ISBN0240809181 Jay Rose, Producing Great Sound for Film and Video. Focal Press, fourth edition 2014 Book info, make Your Movie Sound Like A Real Movie Martinez, Carlos E. Location Audio for Any Budget, An Introduction Rose, Jay Film/video tutorials written for DV Magazine and others
2.
Microphone
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A microphone, colloquially nicknamed mic or mike, is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Several different types of microphone are in use, which employ different methods to convert the air pressure variations of a wave to an electrical signal. Microphones typically need to be connected to a preamplifier before the signal can be recorded or reproduced, in order to speak to larger groups of people, a need arose to increase the volume of the human voice. The earliest devices used to achieve this were acoustic megaphones, some of the first examples, from fifth century BC Greece, were theater masks with horn-shaped mouth openings that acoustically amplified the voice of actors in amphitheatres. In 1665, the English physicist Robert Hooke was the first to experiment with an other than air with the invention of the lovers telephone made of stretched wire with a cup attached at each end. German inventor Johann Philipp Reis designed an early sound transmitter that used a strip attached to a vibrating membrane that would produce intermittent current. Better results were achieved with the transmitter design in Scottish-American Alexander Graham Bells telephone of 1876 – the diaphragm was attached to a conductive rod in an acid solution. These systems, however, gave a poor sound quality. The first microphone that enabled proper voice telephony was the carbon microphone and this was independently developed by David Edward Hughes in England and Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison in the US. Although Edison was awarded the first patent in mid-1877, Hughes had demonstrated his working device in front of many witnesses some years earlier, the carbon microphone is the direct prototype of todays microphones and was critical in the development of telephony, broadcasting and the recording industries. Thomas Edison refined the carbon microphone into his carbon-button transmitter of 1886 and this microphone was employed at the first ever radio broadcast, a performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House in 1910. In 1916, E. C. Wente of Western Electric developed the next breakthrough with the first condenser microphone, in 1923, the first practical moving coil microphone was built. The Marconi Skykes or magnetophon, developed by Captain H. J. Round, was the standard for BBC studios in London and this was improved in 1930 by Alan Blumlein and Herbert Holman who released the HB1A and was the best standard of the day. Also in 1923, the microphone was introduced, another electromagnetic type, believed to have been developed by Harry F. Olson. Over the years these microphones were developed by companies, most notably RCA that made large advancements in pattern control. With television and film technology booming there was demand for high fidelity microphones, electro-Voice responded with their Academy Award-winning shotgun microphone in 1963. During the second half of 20th century development advanced quickly with the Shure Brothers bringing out the SM58, digital was pioneered by Milab in 1999 with the DM-1001. The latest research developments include the use of optics, lasers and interferometers
3.
William A. Wellman
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William Augustus Wellman was an American film director notable for his work in crime, adventure and action genre films, often focusing on aviation themes, a particular passion. He also directed several well-regarded satirical comedies, beginning his film career as an actor, he went on to direct over 80 films, at times co-credited as producer and consultant. In 1927, Wellman directed Wings, which became the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture at the 1st Academy Awards ceremony, Wellmans father, Arthur Gouverneur Wellman, was a New England Brahmin of English-Welsh-Scottish and Irish descent. William was a great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Puritan Thomas Wellman who immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1640, William was a great-great-great grandson of Francis Lewis of New York, one of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence. His much beloved mother was an Irish immigrant named Cecilia McCarthy, Wellman was expelled from Newton High School in Newtonville, Massachusetts, for dropping a stink bomb on the principals head. Ironically, his mother was an officer who was asked to address Congress on the subject of juvenile delinquency. In World War I Wellman enlisted in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps as an ambulance driver, N.87, les Chats Noir was stationed at Lunéville in the Alsace-Lorraine sector and was equipped with Nieuport 17 and later Nieuport 24 pursuit aircraft. Wellmans combat experience culminated in three recorded kills, along with five probables, although he was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire on March 21,1918. Wellman survived the crash but he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Wellmans credits, January 19,1918 a German Rumpler shot down in front of American lines in Lorraine by Wellman, March 9,1918 shot down a German Rumpler, killed the rear Gunner, Pilot killed by airman Ruamps. March 18,1918 shot down a German Rumpler, not confirmed as fight took above German Lines, maréchal des Logis Wellman received a medical discharge from the Foreign Legion and returned to the United States a few weeks later. He spoke at War Savings Stamp rallies in his French uniform, in September 1918 his book about French flight school and his eventful four months at the front, Go Get Em. was published. He joined the United States Army Air Service but too late to fly for America in the war, stationed at Rockwell Field, San Diego, he taught combat tactics to new pilots. While in San Diego, Wellman would fly to Hollywood for the weekends in his Spad fighter, using Fairbanks polo field in Bel Air as a landing strip. Wellman was hired for the role of an officer in Evangeline, but was fired for slapping the leading lady, the actress Miriam Cooper. Wellman hated being an actor, thinking it an unmanly profession and his first assignment as an assistant director for Bernie Durning provided him with a work ethic that he adopted for future film work. One strict rule that Durning enforced was no fraternization with screen femme fatales, which almost immediately Wellman broke, leading to a confrontation, despite his transgression, both men became lifelong friends, and Wellman steadily progressed to more difficult first unit assignments. Wellman made his directorial debut in 1920 at Fox with The Twins of Suffering Creek
4.
Tracking shot
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A tracking shot is any shot where the camera moves alongside the object it is recording. In cinematography, the term refers to a shot in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly that is placed on rails – like a railroad track. The camera is then pushed along the track while the image is being filmed, a tracking shot generally runs lateral to or alongside its subject since the tracks would be visible in a shot of any distance that moved toward or away from its subject. The technique is used to follow a subject that would otherwise leave the frame. In this spirit, any conveyance, including via a vehicle, like a car. A handheld or Steadicam mounted camera following a similar trajectory is called a shot as well. While the core idea is that the camera moves parallel to its subject, a variant of the tracking shot is the onride video, also known as a Phantom Ride, where the camera films during a ride on a train, an amusement ride or another vehicle. Such videos may be used to document the route, the camera can be fixed to the vehicle or held by a person in the vehicle. The rail cam made a debut in the NHL on November 20,2006 in the Colorado Avalanche/Dallas Stars hockey game. The Versus cable television network used the camera during the game to test it out for a use on a nationally broadcast program. The camera was fastened to a system that ran on the top of the glass on one side of the ice rink. As the play shifted from end to end, the motorized mount allowed the camera to follow the action, the system was developed by Fletcher Chicago. The experiment was short-lived, the rail-cam is no longer used in NHL hockey games, walk and talk, a film technique which makes use of the tracking shot Steadicam
5.
David O. Selznick
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David O. Selznick was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive. He is best known for producing Gone with the Wind and Rebecca, David Selznick was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Florence Anna and silent movie producer and distributor Lewis J. Selznick. His parents were Ukrainian Jewish immigrants and he had four siblings and his dad was born in Kyiv in 1870. Selznick added the O to distinguish himself from an uncle with the same name and he studied at Columbia University in New York City and worked as an apprentice for his father until the elders bankruptcy in 1923. In 1926, Selznick moved to Hollywood, and with the help of his fathers connections and he left MGM for Paramount Pictures in 1928, where he worked until 1931, when he joined RKO as Head of Production. David Selznicks years at RKO were fruitful, and he worked on films, including A Bill of Divorcement. Rockabye, Bird of Paradise, Our Betters, and King Kong, while at RKO, he also gave George Cukor his directing break. In 1933 he returned to MGM where his father-in-law, Louis B, mayer established a second prestige production unit for David, parallel to that of powerful Irving Thalberg, who was in poor health. Selznicks unit output included the all star cast movie Dinner at Eight, David Copperfield, Anna Karenina, despite his output of successful movies at MGM, Paramount Pictures, and RKO Pictures, Selznick longed to be an independent producer with his own studio. In 1935 he realized that goal by leasing RKO Culver City Studios & back lot, formed Selznick International Pictures, Gone with the Wind won eight Oscars and two special awards. Selznick also won the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award that same year, in 1940 he produced his second Best Picture Oscar winner in a row, Rebecca, the first Hollywood production for British director Alfred Hitchcock. Selznick had brought Hitchcock over from England, launching the directors American career, Rebecca was Hitchcocks only film to win Best Picture. After Rebecca, Selznick closed Selznick International Pictures and took time off. His business activities included the loan of his artists to other studios, including Alfred Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh. In 1944, he formed The Selznick Studio and returned to producing pictures with the huge success Since You Went Away and he followed that with the Hitchcock films Spellbound and The Paradine Case, as well as Portrait of Jennie, a vehicle for Jennifer Jones. He also developed projects and sold the packages to other producers. Among the movies that he developed but then sold was Hitchcocks Notorious, in 1949 he co-produced the Carol Reed picture The Third Man with Alexander Korda. Gone with the Wind overshadowed the rest of Selznicks career, later, he was convinced that he had wasted his life trying to out do it
6.
The Wild Party (1929 film)
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The Wild Party is a 1929 Pre-Code film directed by Dorothy Arzner, released by Paramount Pictures, and known as Clara Bows first talkie. The film focuses on a college where the students are more interested in having fun. Stella Ames is the most popular student, with a loud mouth, when the young and attractive professor Gilmore Gil starts working there in anthropology, all the girls immediately feel attracted to him. Stella recognizes him as the man she once shared a bed with. The professor is unamused by the bad behavior and does not seem to notice who Stella is. At the end of term, a costume party is held. Stella and her friends show up in revealing costumes and are thrown out by Faith Morgan. The girls decide to go to a bar, where they are bothered by drunk men. They try to leave, but the men refuse to let them go, all the girls are able to get away and leave with the car, but Stella is left behind. Fearing the worst, she decides to play along with the men so they will not force themselves on her and she is eventually rescued by professor Gilmore, who beats up the men. While taking her home, she tries to show her gratitude, hurt, she starts crying, but Gil states that he still would kill for her and kisses her. Eva catches them and soon spreads the word, but Stella threatens to ruin her life if she continues to, Stella denies the whole story, but admits to her best friend Helen that she loves him. However, the morning he acts as if nothing has happened. Upset, she returns to her old lifestyle of wild parties, however, when information reaches her that Gil has been shot, she realizes that she is still in love with him. A month later, Gil returns to college, Stella visits him, and he explains to her that he hates her for what she is and loves her for what she could be. They kiss, but are interrupted by Eva. Gil acts as if nobody else is there, after she leaves, they enjoy a romantic evening until a fire drill interrupts them. While reporting to the dean, Helen loses a letter she has written to George and it turns out that Eva has found the letter and threatens to reveal both Helen and Stellas admirers. She later admits to their friend Babs that she has given the letter to Faith Morgan, Stella later tries to protect Helen and takes the blame, claiming that it was she who wrote the letter
7.
Clara Bow
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Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in silent film during the 1920s and successfully made the transition to talkies after 1927. Her appearance as a shopgirl in the film It brought her global fame. Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol and she appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as Mantrap, It, and Wings. She was named first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929 and second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930 and her presence in a motion picture was said to have ensured investors, by odds of almost two-to-one, a safe return. At the apex of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters in a single month, after marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada. Her final film, Hoop-La, was released in 1933, in September 1965, Bow died of a heart attack at the age of 60. Bow was born in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn at 697 Bergen Street, in a bleak and her birth year, according to the US Censuses of 1910 and 1920, was 1905. The 1930 census indicates 1906 and on her gravestone of 1965, the inscription says 1907, Bow was her parents third child, but her two older sisters, born in 1903 and 1904, had died in infancy. Her mother, Sarah Frances Bow, was told by a not to become pregnant again, for fear the next baby might die. Despite the warning, Sarah became pregnant with Clara in late 1904, in addition to the risky pregnancy, a heat wave besieged New York in July 1905, and temperatures peaked around 100 °F. Years later, Clara said, I dont suppose two people ever looked death in the more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life, Bows parents were descended from English-Irish and Scottish immigrants who had come to America the generation before. Bow said that her father, Robert Walter Bow, had a quick, All the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didnt. everything seemed to go wrong for him, poor darling. I do not think my mother ever loved my father, she said, and it made him very unhappy, for he worshiped her, always. When Bow was 16, her mother Sarah fell from a second-story window and she was later diagnosed with psychosis due to epilepsy. From her earliest years, Bow had learned how to care for her mother during the seizures, as well as how to deal with her psychotic and she said her mother could be mean to her, but didnt mean to. Still, Bow felt deprived of her childhood, As a kid I took care of my mother, Sarah worsened gradually, and when she realized her daughter was set for a movie career, Bows mother told her she would be much better off dead. One night in February 1922, Bow awoke to a knife held against her throat by her mother
8.
Dorothy Arzner
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Dorothy Arzner, born Dorothy Emma Arzner, was an American film director whose career in feature films spanned from the silent era of the late 1920s into the early 1940s. In fact, Dorothy Arzner was the female director working in the 1930s in the United States. She was one of the few women who established a name for herself as a director in the American film industry during this time. Born in San Francisco, California, to Louis and Jenetter Arzner, Dorothy grew up in Los Angeles, after finishing high school, she enrolled at the University of Southern California with hopes of becoming a doctor. She even went as far as spending two years as a student at the University of Southern California. During World War I, she left school to work overseas in the ambulance corps, by the time the war ended, she decided against returning to her medical studies and, after a visit to a movie studio, decided to pursue a career as a film director. Through connections with director William C, deMille, Arzner got a job as a stenographer in 1919 at Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which later became Paramount Pictures. She moved on to be a writer, was promoted to film editor within six months. Her first assignment as an editor was in 1922 for the renowned classic Blood and Sand and she was soon receiving accolades for the high quality of her work. Impressed by her technique, director James Cruze employed her as a writer and editor for several of his films, Arzner achieved a great deal of clout through this, along with her work on over fifty other films at Paramount. She eventually threatened to move to rival Columbia Studios unless given a directorial position, Paramount conceded in 1927, putting her in charge of the film Fashions for Women, which became a financial success. At Paramount, Arzner directed Clara Bows first talkie, The Wild Party, to allow Bow to move freely on the set, Arzner had technicians rig a microphone onto a fishing rod, essentially creating the first boom mike. She did not, however, take out a patent, one year later one was filed for a very similar sound-recording device by Edmund H Hansen, a sound engineer at the Fox Film Corporation. Although not the first to patent the boom microphone, Arzner is still credited with its invention, the Wild Party was a success with critics and was the third top-grossing film of 1929. The film, set in a college, introduced some of the apparent lesbian undertones and themes often cited in Arzners work. Her films of the three years were strong examples of Hollywood before the Production Code. These films featured aggressive, free-spirited and independent women and she left Paramount in 1932 to begin work as an independent director for several of the studios. The films she directed during this period are her best known, launching the careers of actresses, including Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, Sylvia Sidney
