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September 2001, Week 2

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Subject:
From:
Leo Enticknap <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 9 Sep 2001 18:27:16 +0100
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Ken Mogg writes:

>Leo, on the recent DVD of ROPE, screenwriter Arthur Laurents says that
>Granger merely pretended to play the piece, which 'was, of course, a
>dub'!

Having looked at my 16mm print again, I can see that in all but one shot,
Granger is shown in front of the piano from behind it - i.e. you can't see
his hands.  But there is one 20-second point where you can, and the sync
still looks totally convincing to my eyes.

Furthermore, the dubbing must have been very difficult, because 1948 was
just before the introduction of magnetic sound recording into the Hollywood
studios.  Presumably the final mix track neg, sans piano, of the entire
reel (given that the reel had been taken without cuts) containing the
playing must have been rerecorded as the pianist simultaneously played into
a separate channel, which was then mixed into the signal going into the
sound camera which was recording the dupe neg.  If the take were aborted,
the entire reel would have had to be done again.  Just recording the piano
'offline' and then attempting to post-sync it in would surely have been
impossible because of the extra layers of generational fading this would
have caused in the final track.  Quite an achievement, for anyone's money!

This strikes me as a very similar procedure to the dubbing by Jean Barry of
Anny Ondra's voice in the sound version of 'Blackmail'.  This was recorded
using RCA single-system (i.e. the optical soundtrack is exposed in the same
camera as the picture) sound on film cameras, NOT Vitaphone as has been
stated in several books and articles.  Post-syncing in 'Blackmail' was
impossible because the sound cameras necessary for re-recording had not
arrived in Britain by that time.  On 'Rope' it was made extraordinarily
difficult by the long takes - i.e. even if you only alter a few seconds,
you've got to re-record the whole reel.  But the techniques used for
getting round the problem seem to have been remarkably similar.

I wonder who the pianist who did the dubbing is?  His style sounds much
softer and less staccato-ish than that many concert pianists of that
generation (e.g. Horowitz, Rubeinstein, Janis or Graffman).

L
------------------------------------
Dr. Leo Enticknap
Director, Northern Region Film and Television Archive
School of Law, Arts and Humanities
Room M616, Middlesbrough Tower
University of Teesside
Middlesbrough  TS1 3BA
United Kingdom
Tel. 01642 384022
Brainfryer: 07710 417383

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