[78-L] Mit-Out Sound

[Harold Aherne]

I have looked in a couple of different sources to back up this claim (and 
because my curiosity was piqued):
 
In "The Camera Assistant's Manual" (David Elkins, Focal Press, 2000), the 
term is glossed as "minus optical sound", meaning that the scene
is filmed without synchronised sound (which would be added
later). The opposite of MOS is "synch", meaning that the sound
is recorded with the action (pp. 3-4). That definiton is also given in 
"The Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound" (Yendall, 2003).
 
The ascription of "mit out sound" to Erich von Stroheim is noted in a few places, 
but the only dialogue film that he directed was "Hello Sister" (aka "Walking Down
Broadway", Fox, 1933). Although he appeared in leading and supporting parts
in several early talkies from 1929-32, there seems no obvious reason
why he'd have to be concerned with the mechanics of sound on any of 
them. If the "mit out sound" legend is correctly attributed to him, it would
almost have to result from his work on that single film.
 
The more usual German-accented pronunciation of "without" would
seem to be "vitout", though there could be variations (the German word for
"without" is ,,ohne''). None of this proves that "minus optical system" isn't in
fact a "backronym", but it's the best I can do!
 
-Harold
 
 
 
 
 


--- On Mon, 10/13/08, joe at salerno.com <jsalerno at earthlink.net> wrote:

From: joe at salerno.com <jsalerno at earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: [78-L] Mit-Out Sound
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Date: Monday, October 13, 2008, 9:55 AM

It seems strange calling a film "minus optical system"

In the beginning film sound was on disc, was it not? like Vitaphone discs?

joe salerno