1 Documentary Film by Paul Rotha. Faber, 1936, p. 208.
because physically unconnected images are being edited into a continuous sequence. In cases of this sort the use of actual sound not only presents insuperable technical diffi culties, but also serves no useful purpose.
Sequences employing simpler visual continuities, on the other hand, can often be made to gain immensely from actual sounds. In a fi lm dealing with human situations and designed to evoke an emotional response from the spectator, the creation of mood remains one of the main problems. The counterpart of this diffi culty in a story-fi lm lies to a considerable extent in the director’s ability to guide his actors in speech and gestures: this, of course, is an entirely different problem. The documentary director does not normally work through dra-matised incidents and must therefore convey mood in other ways. It is here that actual sounds can be of the greatest value. Synchronous and non-synchronous sounds can come into play.
The skill in fi tting effects to a picture is partly, of course, fi nding a soundtrack which effectively matches the picture or action appearing on the screen and arranging it so that the two appear synchronous. But a more interesting sidelight on this process is achieving an effect by laying, not the sound represented by what is seen on the screen, but by what may be happening just round the corner — out of range of the camera. For instance, to cover an empty street in the early morning in Manchester we might use the characteristic sound of hooves of dray horses clip-clopping along the cobbled street. It is quite extraordinary how a very dull shot on the screen is somehow brought to life by this sort of technique. 2
In making Listen to Britain , Humphrey Jennings set himself the task of re-creating the atmosphere of war-time London, primarily through the characteristic sounds associated with the time. That he succeeded most bril-liantly in doing so is testimony not only to his skill, but also evidence of the great emotional power of actual sounds. A detailed analysis of the sound-track of Listen to Britain would be almost impossible. For one thing, the sound effects are too complex and depend for their effect too closely on the precise quality of the sounds themselves. For another, the emotional effect of sounds on the spectator is less direct than that of images and is therefore less readily described. As Ken Cameron has pointed out, “ the effect [of sound] on the emotions depends more upon the association of ideas than upon . . . the sound itself. For example, the sound of an anti-aircraft gun and shells in the sky may be just what they represent and nothing more to an audience in Chicago. To an audience which has lived in London throughout the war they will conjure up ideas which are anything but commonplace ” 3 The reader must therefore go to see (and hear) Listen to Britain if he is to get a clear idea of the way Jennings creates his effects.
To achieve the desired tempo and rhythm of presentation, the fi ction-fi lm director directs his scenes at the vary-ing speeds appropriate, and subsequently sees to it that the rhythm of his direction is reinforced in the editvary-ing.
In a documentary, individual shots — often of inanimate objects — tend to have no inherent rhythm of their own which the editor can work to. The shots are given a rhythmic value only when they come to be edited.
(We have already seen in the excerpt from Merchant Seamen how a shot of the calm ocean can be effort-lessly placed in a sequence of great speed and excitement.) Sound — actual or commentative — can play a most important role in this process of controlling the pace and rhythm of the originally inert shots. Here is a well-known example in which commentative sounds only are used.
2 Sound and the Documentary Film by Ken Cameron. Pitman, 1947, p. 8.
3 Ibid., p. 8 .
NIGHT MAIL 4 Extract from Reel 3
An imaginative documentary showing how night mail trains convey mail from London to the north of Scotland .
The extract is from a sequence showing the train’s journey through Scotland. Two slow panning shots of the mountain scenery through which the train is travelling just before daybreak, precede .
4Directors: Basil Wright, Harry Watt. Editor: R. Q. McNaughton. Sound Direction: Cavalcanti, W. H. Auden, Benjamin Britten. G.P.O. Film Unit, 1935.
Ft. fr.
Ft. fr.
Dissolve to:
3 11
19 Cottage in the valley. In the dark glens beside the pale-green sea-lochs,
Dissolve to:
20 Valley with hills in background. Men long for news. 3 8 21 C.S. Wheels of engines; fast
rhythmic motion of pistons.
Commentator ( Voice A ):
Letters of thanks, letters from banks;
Letters of joy from the girl and boy . . .
4 5
The sequence 5 was the only part of the fi lm which was not fully scripted before production began: its necessity had been agreed on at an earlier stage, but its actual shape was not evolved until the rest of the fi lm was already in rough-cut. Some of the shooting had been done (speculatively) on location, but a few extra shots had to be obtained after Auden’s verses had been agreed on. In general, it may be said that the editing tempo and the pictorial juxtapositions were largely determined by the previous composition of words and music (though this is rather a dangerous state-ment to make, since the whole job was a to-and-fro synthesis of effort involving Watt, Auden, McNaughton, Britten, Cavalcanti and myself: it would perhaps be better to say that the whole sequence resulted from a simultaneous group effort in terms of music track, word track and pictorial material). We were not working entirely in the dark, since we had the experiment of Coal Face on which to base our work.
The order of procedure was something like this: 1. The commentary was discussed, written and recorded:
while recording voice A, a visual metronome was used to ensure a regular beat in the reading of the rhythmic passages; 2. The picture was cut to fi t in with the recorded words; 3. Britten composed the score after seeing the above and recorded the music while listening to the words through ear-phones; 4. The picture and words were slightly re-edited to fi t in with the music.
The excerpt quoted consists of four separate phases, each with its own motif :
(1) Shots 1 – 13 : “ The gradient’s against her . ” The theme of the images in this part is the effort and strain of the train making its uphill journey: each image contributes to this effect. Throughout, a defi nite and constant beat — as if keeping time with the straining movement of the pistons — is maintained.
Over shots 1 and 2 this rhythm is established by the commentary. The images show the train with its regular puffs of smoke emerging from the funnel, and are therefore easily linked in the spectator’s mind with the rhythm of the words: thus the two opening shots — which establish the new sequence — can be left on the screen for a relatively long time without losing their rhythmic quality.
The following shots 3 – 7 do not contain any pronounced beat of their own. Here, therefore, the beat is produced by accelerating the rate of cutting and by the more strongly dominating musical phrases.
In 8 – 13 the commentary takes over again and its beat is, this time, further reinforced by the cutting.
5 Notes by Basil Wright.
(2) Shots 13 – 15: “ The Climb is done. ” This is a transition passage showing the relaxation coming after the long climb. A visual clue is provided to this by 15 , where the engine driver pauses to wipe his brow and to take a short breather. But the main impression of relaxation of effort is conveyed by the breaking up of the rhythm which was established in the previous part. The line “ Dawn freshens. The Climb is done ” has no regular beat and the music becomes calm: the sense of strain of the opening shots is gently slackened.
(3) Shots 15 – 20 : “ All Scotland waits for her. ” This is a short descriptive passage. Any sort of beat which might be produced by cuts is consciously suppressed by linking all the shots through dissolves; the naturally spoken blank verse becomes straight forward description and temporarily diverts attention from the train. The tempo is calm, contemplative, expectant.
(4) Shot 21 : “ Letters . . . Letters . . . Letters . . . . ” Abruptly, the tempo is changed. After the slow, meandering pas-sage, a cut takes us sharply to a shot of the fast-revolving wheels and the brisk staccato commentary starts up.
The train, we are made to understand, after its struggle uphill and its relaxed progress at the summit, is now freewheeling down into the valley.
The passage from Night Mail was chosen for analysis because it makes use of almost every kind of sound device available to the recordist. It demonstrates the degree of complexity which may be necessary in a sound-track to achieve a complete effect. It is interesting to note, moreover, that in this instance the rhythmic variations in the passage (which are controlled by the sound) explain the sense of the sequence: the quick, accelerating rhythm in shot 21 and onwards, for instance, in itself conveys to the audience that the train is free-wheeling downhill — the fact is not established visually or in the commentary. The control of rhythm is here the decisive factor in making fi lm sense of the images.
The order of procedure which was adopted — editing the visuals after the sound-track — is, of course, the reverse of the usual. Here, it has obvious advantages: the passage depends in the fi rst instance on establishing a rhythm and it was therefore easier to “ anchor ” the beat (i.e., record the sound-track) before fi nally settling the visual continuity. This is not to say that the method is always preferable to the more normal routine: each problem and each individual director must choose his procedure on the merits of the individual case. But the fact that it is perfectly reasonable to compose the sound-track before the picture in imaginative documenta-ries of this sort shows that here the sound has become more than a mere adjunct to the picture: the two are of equal and complementary importance.
Documentary fi lm-making is, to-day, more and more tending towards the straight propaganda fi lm: sponsors usually insist on a clearly stated “ message. ” This, unfortunately, means that more and more directors are com-ing to rely on the commentary to carry the substance of their fi lms: the images remain useful only to illus-trate or to clarify certain concepts which are more readily demonsillus-trated in pictures than in words. The result is, at best, a pleasantly illustrated government pamphlet or an ingeniously contrived commercial brochure with pictures. From an aesthetic point of view, however, these fi lms are valueless — as perhaps in some cases they are meant to be.
This does seem to be a waste of good opportunity. Documentary directors are in a uniquely favourable posi-tion to experiment with the use of their sound-tracks. To throw away this chance by using a continuous — however beautifully written — descriptive commentary is to waste one of the modern fi lm’s main and yet only partially explored assets — imaginative sound.
The aim of the documentary or story-fi lm editor is the creation of mood, the dramatisation of events. To the editor of educational fi lms, these considerations are largely irrelevant. The purpose of his fi lms is to teach and his aims must be clarity, logical exposition and a correct assessment of the audience’s receptivity.
The editing of educational fi lms is largely determined at the script stage. A logical fl ow of ideas and the cor-rect placing of emphasis on the important facets of the exposition must be worked out in the script if the fi nal result is to be satisfactory. More than with any other kind of fi lm, it is necessary to make each point with the utmost precision and this cannot be done unless the aim is clear throughout the production process. With the script written, the continuity is further sharpened by judicious direction — in the placing of the camera, in the use of camera movement to link two ideas and so on. If the script and shooting have been intelligently handled, the work left over to be done on the editing bench then usually only consists of assembling the shots in script order and timing them to fi t the commentary. No purpose will be served here, however, if we consider scripting, directing and editing as three separate functions, for they are all part of the same process of exposition. No amount of brilliant shooting and editing can convey clearly an idea which has been inad-equately analysed in the script.
The general aim of the editor of educational fi lms should be smoothness of presentation. One shot must follow smoothly after another if the audience is not to be confused. A story-fi lm editor can sometimes deliberately use a harsh cut or a surprise effect to give the audience a jolt; this is almost certainly unwise in a teaching fi lm, because it is intended to create a momentary confusion and will divert the spectator’s attention away from the argument.
It must be stated at the outset that there is a distinction between instructional and teaching fi lms. It is a dif-ference of aims corresponding to the differing functions of the instructor and the teacher. An instructional fi lm is concerned with drills, manipulative skills and rules of handling: whether it is made for apprentices in a particular craft or for a general audience, the order of scenes is more or less fi xed by the actual procedure adopted in practice. The editing problem is to convey the nature and order of events as clearly, yet as concisely, as possible. A teaching fi lm, on the other hand, deals with less tangible material: its topics range from the most general ideas or theories to expositions of complex principles in science or aesthetics. Logical inference takes the place of continuity of action and the editing problem is therefore completely different.