How Music is Made to Fit the Films

Setting the "movies" to music, or, more correctly speaking, setting music to the "movies" is an art in itself. When one witnesses some especially thrilling photo-play the music and the action on the screen usually synchronize so perfectly that the spectator is scarcely conscious of the accompanying music until it ceases. Moving-picture promoters in Cleveland have made a special study of this musical feature. The Spitalny brothers- there are three of them- conduct the orchestras at three of the photo-play theaters, where the music is made to fit the film, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer declares:

It is a trick and an art, this arranging a musical setting for a photo-play- a trick to record the memorandum as the film flashes past, an art to arrange the orchestration, synchronize it, and, finally, offer it with an orchestra.

The general scheme of arranging and directing corresponds in all cases. Some, perhaps, are a trifle more elaborate in working out their detail. But the general plan is identical.

This is the way it is done:

When a new film is booked for an engagement the print to be used is sent on a week ahead for a private screening. This may occur in a private projection-room, in the theater proper before the performance time, or in the studio of some film exchange. In any instance, it is at the private screening the work of the musical director begins. it is there he lays the foundation for his next week's score. The picture is projected at the same speed at which it will be shown to the public. As the scenes flash across the screen, the director jots down his notes as to varying incidents and characters. Three or four of the leading characters are selected as vital to the action. Varying themes may be given them, character themes, in fact; or the basic principle of the play may be themed, theme of idea.

Elaborate notes are made as to the varying scenes, with memoranda whether the action is fast or deliberate, long or short, and what characters participate in them. This is the working model, as it were, the skeleton, upon which the director fastens his themes and builds up a musical composition to fit the performance.

Then comes the real task- the arranging of the score.

The average feature of the program presented to-day runs from five to ten reels, with an average of 1,000 feet of film to a reel. The six- and seven-reel feature is employed as frequently as any. The total of musical numbers selected in making up the score for such an offering may number from eighty to one hundred different compositions, irrespective of repetitions; the number is never less than from forty to fifty.

When these arrangements are completed, the music selected, the themes worked out, the cuttings indicated, and the rough version of the setting is ready, then comes the second showing of the film, which is reviewed by the director and the pianist. Then, says The Plain Dealer:

The music is made to fit. Some bits may be found to be too long; some may run too briefly; all this is noted, tried, rearranged, and, finally, when the session is ended, the score has been synchronized to a nicety. The musical arrangement is reviewed. The part for each of the various instruments is made to correspond with the master score. Then, when this is done, all is ready for the dress rehearsal, at which not only orchestra and operators, but stage-hands, electricians, and others may be present.

Hyman Spitalny takes a wide view of the responsibilities of the musical director of a photo-play, for, he says:

He is a conductor, in fact, not only of the music but of all other departments. The director's desk at the Stillman is equipped with telephone connections to all parts of the house, a, series of buzzers for signaling, and a speedometer, which assist materially in synchronizing during the actual performance.

When the time of a performance arrives the stage buzzer is signaled for lights out. The orchestra starts. The operator is signaled, the film is projected on the black curtain, the curtain is signaled and withdrawn, and the projection curtain displayed. All these signals are sent from the director's desk.

Here at the Stillman we employ a speedometer for synchronizing. One of these is on my desk; another is attached to the machine in the projection-room, while still another is installed in the manager's office, that he may check the running time if he desires. This machine has a double index-sheet, on which the footage per minute is indicated, and, at the same time, the minutes per thousand feet. Usually we run about 1,000 feet to sixteen minutes. [¹]

Of course, actual projecting time, may vary a bit, due to one reason or another, and we may find, in the midst of a scene, that it is necessary to change the tempo of the film in order to preserve the musical setting. I signal by the buzzer, and the speed of projection is changed to suit the occasion.

And it is thus that time, effort, and any dollars are expended on that part of the picture-play which really appeals only to the subconsciousness of the spectator. The Spitalnys are the pioneer photo-play musicians in Cleveland. They have assembled a musical library containing completed orchestrations valued at $15,000. The Plain Dealer says:

In the setting to The Woman God Forgot, Geraldine Farrar's spectacle of the Aztec days, $700 worth of music was used, while the numbers employed in Nazimova's War-Brides approximated the same.

¹ "1,000 feet to sixteen minutes" works out to 62.5 feet per minute, or a projection speed of 16 frames per second.

"How Music is Made to Fit the Films," Literary Digest, January 26, 1918, page 58.

© 1997, David Pierce, on editing and revisions (if any)

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