DALY DID UNCREDITED WORK ON 'GREETINGS' & 'HI, MOM!'
Bill Daly, an influential sound mixer who "developed one of the first 'smart' time-code movie slates," according to the Hollywood Reporter, has died at the age of 65. Daly did uncredited work as a sound transferer on Brian De Palma's Greetings, and also went uncredited as a neighbor in that film's sequel, Hi, Mom!. Daly also was the sound mixer for the Dealey Plaza scenes in Oliver Stone's JFK.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Daly was "described by his peers as a 'sound artist' and a 'soundman’s soundman.'" The Hollywood Reporter article explains briefly how Daly developed the time-code movie slates:
While serving as a location sound coordinator for the filming of the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman 1974 heavyweight boxing match in Zaire known as “The Rumble in the Jungle,” Daly developed one of the first “smart” time-code movie slates (the devices that signal "action!") that would have a huge impact on the business.
The bout was preceded by a three-day concert featuring the likes of B.B. King and James Brown, and the filmmakers wanted to film the concert and fight with multiple cameras -- but not multiple soundmen -- and to be able to sync all the cameras with the multitrack recordings of the music acts onstage. To do this quickly and efficiently, they needed to visually display the time code for the camera, but there were no portable crystal-controlled clocks at the time.
Daly, though, modified a Heuer executive desk clock that had a crystal control and plasma display to DC power and turned it into the first smart slate. He built a series of the devices and used them in Zaire for what would become When We Were Kings, the 1997 Oscar winner for best documentary.
“That clock was probably the most significant impact I’ve had on the business,” Daly said in a 1998 interview with Filmcrew magazine. Daly also used the slates for a Grateful Dead documentary in 1977.