Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound, 4th Edition

Chapter 2

Our Amateur Beginnings

When I was in junior high school, I had to stay home for several weeks because of a contagious illness. My father had an old office 1/4” audiotape machine with a simple omnidirectional microphone that was really only intended for recording close-proximity voices. In a matter of days I was swept into a fantasy world of writing and recording my own performances like those I had heard on the radio. I played all the parts, moving about the room to simulate perspective, and making a wide variety of sound effects and movements to conjure up mental images of Detective Ajax as he sought out the bad dealings of John J. Ellis and his henchmen.

I opened and closed doors, shuffled papers, moved chairs about. My parents had ...