Abstract: Multiple-camera shooting was the primary method of shooting synchronized sound in the American cinema from the earliest Vitaphone shorts to the end of 1931. This chapter analyses the reasons for its use and the difficulties and advantages it posed for staging, shooting and cutting dialogue scenes in this period. The multiple-camera technique is contrasted with two alternative methods: the typically fast-cut conversation scenes of the late silent cinema and sound filming with a single camera in a single take. A detailed analysis of John Ford's Arrowsmith (1931) considers the implications of the long-take technique for staging and performance.

Keywords: speech in early sound film, camerawork, John Ford, long takes, Acting

Multiple-camera shooting was the primary method of shooting synchronized sound from the earliest Vitaphone shorts to the end of 1931. Several technical problems contributed to the practice. In order to avoid recording camera noise, the camera was initially sequestered in a booth or “ice box” (Fig. 2.1) and somewhat later, encased in a heavy blimp. Moving the camera around the set to create new setups thus became difficult and time-consuming. Another motivation for the practice was the pronounced preference for uninterrupted sound takes in the early sound cinema. Editing sound was difficult prior to the invention of edge numbering and other devices for maintaining synchronization. Moreover, the relevant contemporary models for recording all worked by live, real-time sound capture. In the 1920s and 1930s radio was most often broadcast live. While engineers could mix multiple channels after mixing consoles came into use in the middle 1920s, this process was still intrinsically bound to the real time and space of performance. Similarly phonograph discs were directly recorded in a single session. In the USA, it was not until after World War II that the widespread use of magnetic tape provided a medium for mixing sound prior to broadcast and editing music tracks in the production of records. Film was thus effectively the first medium that afforded extended opportunities for the recombination of sounds after the recording stage, but, as I have argued, this was not institutionalized as a practice until after RCA's innovation of the push-pull track in 1935. Prior to this time, rerecording lowered the quality of the resulting sound track beyond

what was considered acceptable, especially for the rendition of dialogue.