Talking about old productions of police and detective series led to a whole new topic …
John Howell
One of my earliest memories was of the sound of the bell. On most shows and films with this sort of shot the bell was just ‘cut in’ and ‘cut out’, literally I imagine, a length of mag track. What was missing was the new burst of ringing cleanly merging into the tail of the previous one. There are many ways of doing it in modern times but all rely on having a recording of the beginning and end of a bell ring.Such recordings were usually ruined by the words ‘That’s surely enough John, you can loop it can’t you?’ Then, for passing shots, don’t mention Doppler Effect (‘You can speed it up or slow it down can’t you John?’).
Pat Heigham
Talking of bells, I had a task on a play:
A short play, sit-com really, required a special recording. Character wakes up, listening to church bells – something not right – realises he should be on number 3 bell and he’s overslept. The bulk of the play involved his thwarted attempts to reach the church.
Not possible to edit out one single bell from a peal, so through the fact that I knew Barry Rose, (Nick Ware’s brother-in-law), Organist and Choirmaster at Guildford Cathedral at the time, organised to record the practice bellringers to do a special ring, leaving a gap for the 3rd bell, recorded separately and laid up in sync on the second track, then fader up when chummy eventually made it and pulled on his rope!
Ian Hillson
The bells, the bells (warning: I may have bored you with this one before!)
On my TA course, one lecturer (filling in a bit of time) pointed out the following: on football coverage in the news (covered then a lot on film) you can tell when they’ve gone over to the mute standby camera because just before a goal is scored you hear a bell ring in the crowd. Well, nearly correct because….
….. fast forward a few months to AP and I’m doing live grams at TV News. There’s the full complement of FX 45s (inc 7 series comedy ones to keep boredom at bay!) plus a few old 78s specially cut – Victoria Falls (a source of instant white noise useful when all else fails) and that notorious goal FX one. However, if you cue up on that bell ring it gave you just the correct duration for a wow-less run-up to the cheer – obviously not everyone had noticed this, and some had included the ring.
One of the other 78s was cut inside-out so newbies were handed it to cue-up, and then wondered why the stylus kept falling off the outside of the record.
Pat Heigham
I do recall the odd ‘play from the centre’ discs – a good fool-you.
I also remember that with the phasing out of 78s, the gram library issued FX on microgroove vinyl, 7″, but I thought they were 33 1/3? I found them not so easy to cue up as 78’s.
Bells or clock chimes:
Working on “Rupert of Hentzau” (1964) directed by Gerry Blake, who loved me playing around with FX on rehearsal, but one had to get it perfect on the night! The lovely Barbara Shelley (Flavia) had to pace up and down, waiting for her hero to return. Her cue to go to a window and look out, was to be a clock chime. I played a cuckoo clock! Total corpsing of Barbara, and we had to start the rehearsal again, but one could see in her face whether she thought she would get the bird again!
Bob Foley was attached to me for Grams Training, and I let him handle the whole of one play – selecting/editing and playing in the FX. The play was set in Mexico, and I thought a better church bell could be found, so I asked Bob to find a more ‘mexican’ sounding one. “Oh!” said he: ” Like a ding-a, dong-a!”
That has remained a catch phrase between us for all the years since!
Ian Hillson
I just remember the gram library FX as 7″ microgroove.
John Howell
I seem to remember that the Victoria Falls 78 sounded better at 45rpm in many situations (and it lasted longer!) but the new FX 33s (yes they were 33rpm) could not be slowed down!
Nick Ware
They were 33.3rpm. I still have a couple, one of them MP25112 “Lakeside atmosphere” – a good old faithful one-fits-all outdoor country atmos. I did have quite a few, but threw them out nearly half a century ago!
Nick Way
…as we’re on bells, I have been wanting /searching for a proper Post Office Telephone ring as used many times at TVC. I really want my mobile to have a correct frequency and interval ring. Have considered ripping it from Basil’s front desk but obviously it won’t be clean.
I enjoyed ” Fantabulosa!” BUT for the telephone ring. Totally wrong!
Graeme Wall
If you can find an old Nokia they used to have a BT ring tone as well as the standard Merkin version.
Dave Plowman
It rather depends on the phone. Not all GPO phones had the same bells throughout the years.
Figures I have lying around say the AC frequency is 17 Hz, and that there are two rings of 0.4 seconds separated by a gap of 0.2 seconds, and a gap of 2 seconds before this repeats.
Nick Way
I used to marvel at TVC’s telephone ringer with several frequencies and periods for the UK, USA and France as well as manual.
Twice Paul Graydon lent me a hand ringer. First used on a play, then “Blackadder Goes Forth”.
I loved the lead Sound Maintenance made me – bare ends to Post Office Jack!
Nigel Taylor
Is this what you want? The Trimphone sound is just right if you want your phone to sound hip and with-it (!)
Telephone 706:
Telephone bell ring:
Trimphone:
Is this the first time a Cameraman has given a sound effect to a Gram Op?
Nick Way
….probably not, but rare, very rare, I guess. However, all installed and I’m a happy Gram Op! I’ll keep the Trimphone just in case.
Alasdair Lawrance
John Howell sent me a 706 ringtone some time ago. Doesn’t half baffle people in Pret!
