Harry Smith wrote a piece in 1937 praising the soundmen he worked alongside out in the field at the end of the first decade of their arrival in news gathering.

This year marks a significant anniversary—the end of the first decade of news-reel sound. In 1927 the soundman took his place alongside the cameraman and audio-visual records of the stuff that makes newspaper headlines began rolling into newsreel headquarters for dissemination to the theatre-goers of the world. It’s a far-cry from that first sensational clip of Lindbergh’s arrival in Paris to today’s spectacular and costly coverage of world events and the soundman has played no little part in the progress made.

It was natural to suppose that men constantly alert to the kaleidoscopic panorama of events in a newsreel day, would find the advent of sound a not insurmountable obstacle. Since sound was news, the newsreel found its voice. Thus, the science of sound, linked hands with the science of photography, and in the newsreel as in the feature production field, a host of new skilled workers were thrust into a bewildering new business, radically different from anything they had previously experienced.

From laboratories, broadcast studios, ships at sea, from film studios and many other sources came men dedicated to work side by side with the newsreel cameraman. To say that the going was tough is putting it mildly indeed. It was a long hard period of practical education for the erstwhile technical man unhardened to the drama of news happening beneath his very nose. For him there were the thousand and one troubles that seemed ever present in early type single system recording outfits and the constant compromise to be made between inadequate “pick-up” and the cameraman’s sense of art and composition — a compromise that still defies any set rule.

For the cameraman who had recently traded his lightweight silent camera for the ponderous sound affair, it also was a period of torture. Limited in movement by one hundred foot cables, with heart breaking minutes of delay when seconds were golden — a complete breakdown and new set-up many times during a single story — it was little wonder that tempers often were strained to the breaking point. The great improvements made in newsreel outfits since the original equipment was assembled is a tribute to the unceasing labor of the sound and camera laboratories.

From those stilted, handicapped early shots to pictorially, dramatically and audibly effective news-picture presentations of today — a jump of ten years — the newsreels camera and microphone have scoured the ends of the earth and pushed into many strange and difficult places in search of the unusual and the news-worthy. And the thoughtful young man hunched over an assortment of dials and switches is an important element in the complicated machinery that puts today’s streamlined newsreels on theatre screens.

Today, as in the beginning, there are no alibis for sound failure. It either is on the film or it isn’t — and in most cases there is only one “take.” The newsreel soundman soon learned that his was a combination of many tasks. Operation and maintenance of his equipment are but a small part of the job and the average soundman devotes many quiet hours weekly to study of latest developments.

Not all of embryo soundmen were satisfied with the new profession. Although the men were selected with great care, it remained for practical experience to reveal that some were not suited by nature to the uncertainties of news on the run. Substitution lately of narration for extraneous sound has, of course, lessened the demand for men in the field. Unfortunately, many good newsreel soundmen were lost through this. For the most part, however, the men who now do the work are those who have weathered a good portion of a decade of newsreel sound recording.

For his record of ten years, not earmarked with flaming heroics but distinguished by quiet perseverance and reliability on which editors depend, for his ingenuity and resourcefulness in successfully solving the many sound problems in the field, for his ability to “take it” alongside of his buddy, the cameraman — if for no other reason, his exhibition of “guts” on countless occasions — the soundman has undoubtedly earned his title — “Newsreel Man.”