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started talking to me and I was startled to
realize that I knew where he was as he walked
invisibly around the room I was in. He would
come up and whisper into my right ear, then
walk around in front of me, then behind
me, talking all the while. It was almost
supernatural, particularly when I turned
my head and the room he was in rotated
with me. He stopped talking, came back to
where I was, and took me into the other room.
There was “Oscar,” a life-sized and lifelike
rubber human head on a pedestal. It had
a microphone buried in each ear and they
were connected, through amplifiers, to my
headphones. It was a perfect demonstration
of binaural transmission.
It was only later that Bell Labs gave
up on Oscar and turned to multitrack
direct transmission for live concerts. In
the late 1930’s they experimented with
multitrack recording on film soundtracks
(which they called “Sound-on-Film”)
and used it for the famous 1940 Carnegie
Hall demonstration.
Though you might be interested
that at least some folks in the Bell Labs
believed in real stereo recording, even
back then.
Bob Rafuse
BEACONSFIELD, QC
Our Artist in Residence, Brent
Meyer, called to my attention UHF Issue
No. 88, which contains a discussion of
the “gun barrel” opening sequence seen
in the EON James Bond films. The
article states, “We’re not certain where
the ‘gun barrel’ appellation came from,
but it is clearly wrong, because no gun
barrel looks like that. The spiral pattern
is that of a human eye, seen from the
inside.”
Interestingly, the source of the “gun
barrel appellation” is Maurice Binder,
who created the title sequence for Dr. No.
The shot is of stunt man Bob Simmons
in silhouette, and was made through an
actual .38 caliber barrel by means of a pin
hole lens, which was required to achieve
sufficient depth of field to show the
groove patterns in the barrel (see James
Bond: The Legacy by Cork, John & Scivally,
Bruce, 2002, page 46.). Incidentally, these
grooves are known as a ‘rifling pattern’,
the purpose of which is to impart spin
to the projectile, thus helping stabilize
its flight.
In the opening, a series of white dots
move across the screen, and then open up
into the shot made through the barrel.
The barrel is trained on a seemingly
nonchalant James Bond as he walks, the
holder of which Bond suddenly turns to
and shoots. Thus, one might consider
that the scene shows not a “victim,” but
rather an assassin foiled by an act of self
defense.
The white dots are meant to evoke
the thought of gunshots, from which
it makes sense to ‘pull back’ to the perspective
of the barrel. In The Incredible
World of 007: An Authorized Celebration of
James Bond (Pfeiffer, Lee & Lisa, Philip,
1995, page 200) Binder recalls, “That
was something I did in a hurry, because
I had to get to a meeting with the producers
in 20 minutes. I just happened to
have little white price tag stickers and I
thought I’d use them as gun shots across
the screen. We’d have James Bond walk
through and fire, at which point blood
comes down onscreen. That was about
a twenty-minute storyboard I did, and
they said, “This looks great!””
I would like to add a footnote to Paul
Bergman’s thought-provoking article
Remembering Stereo in UHF Issue 88.
The first attempted use of multiple
channels to convey location noted by
Bergman are the famous 1932 experi-
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ments conducted by Bell Laboratories.
However, as often happens, history
contains a few surprises.
In 1881, Clément Ader used a series of
telephone pickups installed at the Paris
Opera to transmit live performances
to the Paris Electrical Exhibition, with
pickup and one receiver for each ear.
The December 31, 1881 issue of Scientific
American (pages 422–423) reported,
“One of the most popular attractions
at the Paris Electrical Exhibition is the
nightly demonstration of the marvelous
powers of the Ader telephone, by
its transmission of the singing on the
stage and the music in the orchestra of
the Grand Opera at Paris, to a suite of
four rooms reserved for the purpose
in one of the galleries of the Palais de
l’Industrie… Everyone who has been
fortunate enough to hear the telephones
at the Palais de l’Industrie has remarked
that, in listening with both ears at the
two telephones, the sound takes a special
character of relief and localization which
a single receiver cannot produce… As
soon as the experiment commences the
singers place themselves, in the mind of
the listener, at a fixed distance, some to
the right and others to the left. It is easy
to follow their movements, and to indicate
exactly, each time that they change
their position, the imaginary distance at
which they appear to be. This phenomenon
is very curious, it approximates to
the theory of binauriclar auduition [sp?],
and has never been applied, we believe,
before to produce this remarkable illusion
to which may almost be given the
name of auditive perspective.”
The entire article can be viewed
at http://earlyradiohistory.us/1881opr.
htm
Ader’s invention was commercialized
in France as the Théâtrophone, a
subscription service that transmitted live
performances in stereo over telephone
lines to homes and hospitality busi-
nesses. Those located in hotels and cafes
could be coin-operated. Théâtrophone
operated from 1890 until 1932. I believe
that a similar system may have been
operated by Bell Telephone in the US,
but I cannot locate the reference at the
moment.
In modern terms, Ader’s system
was a ‘spaced pair’ of microphones, and
thus differs from the technique most
commonly associated with Blumlein’s
name. However, these two approaches,
along with an intermediate setup called
a near-coincident pair (ORTF, etc.),
form the three basic techniques most
often considered by purists for stereo
recording. As the late Robert Fine, Bert
Whyte, and many others have found out,
you can make some extremely satisfying
stereo with two or three spaced mics.
Many thanks, by the way, for an
excellent magazine.
Kevin Hayes
VAC/Valve Amplification Co., Inc.
Sarasota, FL
Thanks for all this historical information,
Kevin. We know your knowledge of recordings
doesn’t stop at making equipment to
reproduce them. Concerning the Bond “gun
barrel” sequences, we’re willing to believe
what you say, but if it’s a rifle what’s up
with the blood?
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 9
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