Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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rushes, the editing was based on the logic of the visuals, and King explains that “we
established a cut basically that was eighty or ninety percent mute – if we got that right
within ourselves, then we went with the audio against it”. Even at the final stages of the
editing, after the individual scenes had been cut, and they were shaping the piece as a
whole, King recalls the scenes were so self-contained, that “not a lot of shaping took
place”, apart from linking shots. 372 What King is describing is reminiscent of the kind
of pure film style advocated by André Bazin which gives visual action room to unfold
fully, in contrast to the ‘overcutting’ of the average commercial, or of any drama that
relies upon editing rather than acting or mise-en-scène to create intensity. 373
Compiling the film’s soundtrack “presented an interesting challenge”, according to
White. 374 In part due to their efforts to “save both time and money” during shooting
and in part due to the problems with the old sound equipment that was all Ward and
White were able to obtain from the Film Unit, only a few scenes - such as the phone
scene, and getting off the bus, which had dialogue - were shot with true location sound,
using a camera with a sync sound recording facility and a sound recordist. King
believes that one of the reasons White approached him about working on the film was
that in the drama series he had just worked on, he had led a team which had successfully
done six episodes of post-sync sound for an actor whose voice was not right for the part,
something that was relatively rare in New Zealand at that time. White recognized that
King “had that ability”. 375 He comments that “Chris King’s experience proved
invaluable when it came to track-laying in preparation for the final sound mix, rescheduled
for the beginning of June. A total of six tracks were utilized, although
towards the end of the film, the soundtrack became more and more sparse”. 376
Since only about twenty-five percent of the film had been shot with synchronous sound,
Ward and White spent a long time finding the right sound or sounds to contribute to the
mood they felt they had “established visually”. The practical limitation of shooting
mute was turned to an advantage by maximizing the evocative potential of sound to
help create Stimmung. They recorded all the “spot effects” such as keys rattling, and
372
Interview with Chris King, 2 February 1999.
373
André Bazin, What Is Cinema?, trans. Hugh Gray, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1967).
374
White, "Production of a Film Drama," 16.
375
Interview with Chris King, 2 February 1999.
376
White, "Production of a Film Drama," 16.