DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE

What is the biggest upcoming development in consumer audio-speaking strictly quantitatively? The sound of video, of course.

But I ask you, what is the most unexplored (and hence the newest) kind of consumer audio? Also the sound of video-specifically, the sound associated with the now fast-multiplying camcorder. updated version of the old home movie camera. We haven't even begun to learn how to use that sound. But it is there, which is what matters.

I've been especially interested in the rebirth of the home movie because I was in on its very beginning, a couple of generations ago, with my 1933 Ciné Kodak Eight, spring-wound and short in the breath, so to speak, but one of the most ingenious and satisfactory little machines I have ever used. It buzzed away for some 15 years before I slid off into color stereo slides, and it works perfectly to this day-though there is no film for it. In that camera, by the way, originated the bidirectional tape-travel format used much later for our reel-to-reel half-track tape and for a billion or so audio cassettes.

The sound in the revived home movie is, of course, what prompts me to write these words. It is indeed audio, if not always "hi" in the "fi." When we finally learn to use it, there's no reason why this sound too may not be "high end" in quality. The more camcorders we acquire, the more important it will be, in audio interest and in sales.

With all this in mind, I jumped enthusiastically onto the new video track a number of years ago-much too soon.

As some may remember, my first efforts at video were a mess, out of a roomful of malfunctioning monstrosity, snarled cables, hundreds of pounds of incidental equipment, including a large, separate VCR and a big camera that specialized in purple skies and coffee-colored human faces. Not surprising, at that stage. There has been enormous progress in the few short years since, including the very idea of the camcorder, a unit with just about everything built in. But my next venture in personal movies has had to wait.

Instead, as you may also recall, I have been snooping on other people's pictures.

It's been by invitation, of course, just like old times. Today, people invite you to a home-movie party to show off their new camcorder, whereas it used to be films or color slides. Everything, picture-wise, is just as it always was. Dad takes hour after hour of family shots and picks out "the best" of them for the party: Family in back yard. getting into car, jumping into swimming pool, ogling Niagara Falls or the Eiffel Tower or maybe the big game in Timbuktu, baby drooling in crib, Mama beaming all out of focus. Gorgeous mountains (a vague, thin line on the wavy horizon), glowing mountain lakes (a featureless blue screen with a smudge), and so on, ad infinitum, or anyway for too long.

Still, everyone enjoys the show, and there are bits of real beauty here and there. The only thing missing is the sound.

This kind of home show, I say, is a lot better than a mere pile of color prints on a table. A true captive audience! Isn't that what we all want? Everybody sees the pictures together, too, a much better kind of sociability.

The sound is there, from start to finish, but nobody listens. That's because it is 90% zilch, a vague sonic mush with bits of unintelligible voices here and there, thumps, clicks, bangs unexplained-about as interesting as a roomful of office machinery. Very simply, this is because, though the mikes are operating, the camera wielders simply ignore them. The picture's the thing.

Left to their own devices, micro phones are really stupid. They don't have automated brains: they pick up huge volumes of sonic mishmash signifying nothing whatsoever, and if they do catch anything useful, it is by sheer accident. That can happen, rarely, but you can't count on it. You must work at your sound, just as you work at your pictures.

Which reminds me of just such a sonic accident I heard in 1972, in a small Austrian mountain-lake town. A walking race, of all things, was taking place. If you haven't seen one of these, you should. One or the other of the racer's feet must always be on the ground. like the contact shoes on the power rail of a subway line. So they make haste by an extraordinary huffing and puffing and violent pumping of the arms, with chest out, head back, knees flying high, all spasms and shudders.

This bizarre race ended at a white rib bon at the town center, with judges, a grandstand, and a public-address sys tem to carry the speeches and announce the winners. At the far edge of the little crowd, I held my fingers in my ears-those speakers, high up on street poles, were loud. People a mile away could have heard the winners' names-and probably did.

When it was over, some of the crowd hung around to chat and kibitz, as might be expected. Meanwhile, I had moved along the lake shore a considerable distance. There was not a soul in sight anywhere near me. But I began to hear quiet conversations going on a few feet away, intimately. It took me some minutes to realize that it was the P.A. system, a mile away. Somebody had left it on; the people next to the mikes could not hear the speakers far overhead (and so no feedback). They were "broadcasting" acoustically, unknown to themselves, over a vast territory. I could have understood every word if German had been my language. Then, clunk, the P.A. went off, and I was alone. A quite astonishing freak pickup.

We all know perfectly well that, in our active daily life, sound is just as important as sight. Why, then, do camcorder owners who now have that sound along with their pictures seem to go out of their way to ignore it? No doubt it's a holdover from the old home-movie days, but they probably also ignore it because they are at a complete loss as to what to do with it. Pictures are much easier than sound, admittedly.

So we continue to take pictures and forget about the rest. And yet, there are simple things to do with sound, things that are easy enough for any body. Above all, though, it means paying attention to what you hear as well as what you see.

You may remember my snooping re ports of a while back; these included an account of my own video picture (complete with bright-green bald head, bloated body, and bilious face thanks to fluorescent lights near the camera) and a description of the little man who made a long speech in an unintelligible whisper of a voice (he'd zoomed the lens but could not zoom the mike). Or perhaps you recall how the same little man dashed madly around the room like a lunatic on the loose (four-head fast forward), which was the hit of that show. I have two more recent video snoopings to report, one involving a camping weekend (I was there) and the other a fancy, cruise-ship tour. Both videotapes were played back at parties, and both were instructive to me.

A camping weekend out of New York City, you understand, is not like others.

A large collection of people travel to a convenient nearby wilderness, ours being in the Pennsylvania mountains, where, in the midst of unbroken forests and fields with cows, there is a resort with swimming pool, sundecks, beach umbrellas, easy chairs, air mattresses, a bar, wide green lawns, and disco music. Yes, there are tents. But in other respects we might as well have been in the heart of the metropolis. Reassuring, at least to city dwellers, who never go near the dangerous forests, any how. Poison ivy.

To keep 150 such folks from boredom, there must be endless activities, nature being out-of-bounds. Pure camcorder stuff, sights and sounds! At most of our activities, the camcorders duly appeared. Piles of bodies tangled in hilarious human chains. Volleyball, tag, three-legged races, setting-up exercises (pardon me-aerobics), meditation, and contests for best this and best that, with prizes. A fine, noisy scene as well as a photogenic one could there be a better opportunity for video? Came the playback, months later in the city. At a big party, of course, with the usual disco music, colored lights, dancing, and a loud roar of conversation. Mostly young people. The video equipment was late; as it was being set up, the party went on, with lights, music, and the roar of happy voices.

I became aware of a faint, pinkish image on the curved projection screen. Wedging myself in closer, I discovered two loudspeakers in the middle of the crowd: Stereo! But they were 30 feet apart and inaudible from more than a couple of feet away. Their sound blended into the general noise.

The lights never went off at all. A TV-watching habit, no doubt. The music finally was stopped and the live voices gradually died away, leaving the loud speaker sound, which was almost exactly the same as the live sound, a genial sonic mush.

The pictures were good (if washed out). Everything was there-games, sports (neatly zoomed in upon), and the prize presentations, which brought my first new discovery. It at an outdoor noisy scene there is a P.A., move in on it with your sound. These people had.

The P.A. is always audible, it records a lot better than many people on the scene can hear it, and it tells the entire story as it is happening, if you will allow it. So let it talk--in complete sentences, not cut off in the middle of a word. Easy enough. Just give this audio its due, instead of ignoring it.

In that playback, there was no need for explanations; we knew exactly what was going on as though we were on the spot. With that specific information from the P.A., the background of cheers, clapping, and laughter was exactly right for the pictures. That's good video.

The second playback party brought us video of a summer tour by sea through northern Europe on the most enormous white slab of a cruise ship I have ever seen, like a vast iceberg with portholes. We looked at that ship every few moments, both outside and inside, even unto the swank dining room with its candles and wine and crepes Suzette. Good! It confirmed in my mind that video, unlike the old home movies (with ugly photofloods for lighting), is more successful indoors than out. Those dim-light pictures were just as good as the ads claim, candles and all. Video, as I've noted before, is an indoor sport.

Even so, I was somewhat shocked to see the ineptitude, outdoors, of this camcorder operator. He made every silly mistake I made a half-century ago.

He panned and panned, wildly, until your stomach quivered. He jumped too quickly from place to place so you were hopelessly confused. Video, after all, gives you plenty of time, whereas we were in a real hurry with the old short movies. Outdoors we need solid, stable shots to set a mood, fix a scene, give you the feel of being there. Video color can be lovely when the scenery stops bouncing.

And the sound! I could have wrung this man's neck. Totally ignored-and so much of interest. We saw him, his wife, and her mother (all present at the playback party) a hundred times in close-up, but in the entire show not one of them spoke a single word.

Moreover, the tour was staffed by a bevy of speaking guides, Danish, Finnish, Russian, Swedish, English, all explaining things in our own language.

We could see them talking, but we heard only disconnected unintelligible fragments. A live guide is even better than a P.A. And why not "interview" one, for the microphone? One final fillip: This cruise-ship video also took us into the Hermitage in Leningrad, and there were marvelous zooms into this museum's great masterpieces. Also, by sheer accident, there was good sound. Museums are quiet. You can get all those hushed comments around you and look at the pictures too. Eureka!

(by: EDWARD TATNALL CANBY; adapted from Audio magazine, Mar. 1988)

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