Challenge of Sound

Sound Technology, talkies, sound recording

S.B Thakkar’s conversations with Prabhat’s sound recordist Shankarrao Damle figure in this article. Inter alia, S. Damle mentions the underdeveloped technology and technicians available to Indian studios in the beginning, which led a few studios to hiring the foreign engineers who came with the imported talkie equipment. There were at the same time indigenous innovators like Modhu Sil in Calcutta, Goverdhanbhai Patel in Bombay. S. Damle reminisces the Audio Camex equipment he handled for the first time. The article states that the ‘sound man’ in those days was a ‘second grade citizen’ of the film studio. Though the studio floors were sound proofed, they often were not adequate in the event of pigeons cooing in the premises. ‘Crackling’ was another technical misfortune that beset the sound recording process. The article speaks of the role of the sound engineers associated with the equipment dealers, who had a monopoly over the maintenance and repair of the machines, more than the sound recordists themselves.

S.B. Thakkar

National Film Archive of India

Cinema Vision India, Vol.1, No.2, April 1980, pp.13-18

1980-04

The Media Lab

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Hollywood Looks at India

sound recording and reproduction, talkies

Wilford Deming Jr.’s ‘Hollywood Looks at India’ debuts as a feature in Varieties Weekly. The article focuses on the experiences in Indian cinema industry that Deming Jr. has had as an expert on sound recording, which prompted him to concede that in the technical sense, the Indian studios considerably pre-date the American studios. Deming Jr. surveys the conditions in an average Indian studio laboratory. He states that lackadaisical laboratory processing renders the sound and picture quality inconsistent through the length of the film, an instance which even the American studios are not able to prevent.

Wilford Deming Jr.

Varieties Weekly

Varieties Weekly, Vol.1, No.4, August 22, 1931, pp.6-8

1931-08-22

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