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During
those days when I was working my way around this conundrum,
I was aware of the name Don Connolly as the recordist on many
of the great Aussie films of that time. He was what I wanted
to be. He was an icon. What achievements earned the man that
sort of reputation?
During
my recent chat with Don, he explained that the industry he
entered was very different from that of today. Don started
work for Percival Films, who processed prints from negs sent
from America, where he worked in the lab, quality checking
those prints.
Deciding
to get in on the ground floor of television when it hit Australia,
Don completed the only electronics course that was available
at that time, ending up with a Broadcast Operators Certificate
from AWA's Marconi course. Don's fortunes changed because
of this certificate, but perhaps not in the way he imagined.
Percival
Films became Commonwealth Films; who had a connection to Avondale
Films. The year was 1954 and two of Avondale's projects, a
Chipps Rafferty film called King of the Coral Sea, and the
Charles Chauvel feature Jedda, were just about to go into
production. Because of Don's recently acquired certificate
from the Marconi course, and the related knowledge of three
phase power and synchronous motors, Avondale recognised that
he was just the sort of person they needed for the demanding
medium of film sound.
Other
films Don worked on during this period were The Phantom Stockman,
Dust in the Sun, and Walk Into Paradise.
In those days the sound people were responsible for the whole
soundtrack of the film. From location recording, through to
track laying, post synch dialogue and effects, and mixing,
there was no delineation of tasks. The sound team on location
was also responsible for providing the power supply from which
the synchronous motors of the camera and the recorder ran.
This came usually from a bank of aircraft batteries, through
a rotary converter to provide 50 cycle AC power. It often
took some time for the rotary converter to wind up, then for
the recorder to settle down - and all this before the camera
even turned over.
Don
said that in one film in New Guinea he had thirteen switches
to throw before he could call "speed". Those were the days
of ingenuity and invention. When a location recording machine
got seriously "bent" in transit, they stripped it, sent the
frame to a local workshop to get it straightened out, and
reassembled it. They had no test tapes to align its heads
with, so Don recorded some high frequency feedback on another
machine, and they used that for azimuth adjustment.
We
apparently beat Hollywood by about 5 years to all magnetic
sound editing. In Hollywood at that time, they would record
magnetic, then print to optical for editing.
At
Avondale Films, all recording and subsequent dubbing was done
on sprocketed magnetic film. But the 35mm full-coat mag stock
was expensive.
So Don developed a machine which could cement ¼ inch magnetic
tape to the back of reject film stock. They called the result
"cutting film" and it saved them heaps. Mag stripe, as it
would later be known, became the standard for soundtrack dubbing
and editing.
Later in his career Don developed the first loop dubber with
an erase head. He explained that most dubbers were loaded
with loops cut to the duration of the phrase, sentence or
soundtrack you were working with. But the dubbers had no erase
head. They were playback machines. Nobody trusted them to
have the ability to wipe a tape. Recording was done on a reel
to reel type deck, and those takes were eventually cut to
picture, (often in loops), for checking.
Don realised that if a loop dubber were fitted with an erase
head and a switchable record/playback head, then what had
just been recorded could be played back to picture for checking,
without stopping the machines.
In
1962, Don was offered a job on a series of Ampol films about
Australia. When looking for lightweight location equipment
to use with Ampol's 16mm cameras, he decided to try a new
system that had just become available in this country. He
thus became the first person to use a Nagra in Australia.
Don track layed these films himself, but when he delivered
the first reels to the studio for mixing, they proudly showed
him the brand new location recorder that they had just developed.
It was sprocketed, had handles either end for a two man lift,
and it required the normal bank of car batteries to power
it. Don went to his car and returned with the Nagra, informing
the studio boffins that this easily portable recorder would
do everything their machine would do, and it was powered by
12 torch batteries!
Among
the many TV series and movies that Don has worked on through
the years can be counted those landmark feature films which
put Australia back on the map as a country with a film culture.
They include Picnic at Hanging Rock, My Brilliant Career,
The Devil's Playground, Gallipoli, The Earthling and The Stowaway.
As
well as his respected standing as a sound recordist, Don's
knowledge of the whole of film sound was held in such high
regard that he was offered the position as Dolby Laboratories'
representative in Australia, during the times of their groundbreaking
entry into stereo, surround and standardisation of cinema
sound.
These
are just some of the achievements that have earned Don the
reputation he enjoys. He was a first in Australia - sometimes
in the world - during the development of the all important
technologies which have formed our industry.
We
haven't the room here for all the stories he told me. So I
have just extracted the above from some of the facts that
came from his many recollections during our interview. But
he did say that he is contemplating writing a book of his
experiences, and that's one book I'd like to read.
Ross Linton
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