[78-L] film request for a silent 78 side

[Chris Zwarg]

At 21:14 12.10.2008, you wrote:

>Joe wrote,
>
> >> I don't get it - just use any record
>
>Hmmm, Joe, nobody, seems to have understood what the film producer wants 
>to do....
>
>The way I understand it, as she says there's a problem for the sound 
>dept., she wants to film a needle being placed on a rotating 78, then 
>the camera pans back to film the actors/dialogue, all in one take.
>
>So, they don't want music bellowing out from the gramophone while the 
>actors speak (they will dub some quiet music in later).
>
>Now do you see why they want a 'silent' 78 ?
>
>So, can anyone help the producer?
>
>John

IMHO, they should find a "suitably quiet" 78 with music fitting the mood of the scene, maybe put a "soft" or "pianissimo" needle on, and record dialogue AND music in the same take. This way, the music will actually sound like music coming out of a gramophone, which I presume is what they want to achieve - if that gramophone is not supposed to play music in the volume and tone quality such a machine will typically produce, the scene setup is somehow silly, isn't it? The "natural" volume of the gramophone music should be low enough that the actors can easily hear each other, so the sound recordist should have no problem to pick the dialogue up clearly; if OTOH the music is so loud as to mask the dialogue, that merely shows that the characters *could just not have been talking the way they do standing next to the machine, as they wouldn't have understood each other*, and they shouldn't try and film it that way, pretending the gramophone sounds more softly than it does.

Chris Zwarg