Vini, Vidi, Voice-Over
To some ears, the sound of voices exclaiming in Latin may trigger ugly flashbacks of grammatical traumas past. But it was music to the ears of Patricia Aste, producer of the PBS documentary “Peter and Paul and the Christian Revolution,” an examination of early Christianity under the Roman empire.
When Aste and Koval Films needed authentic “walla” (broadcast-speak for background noise) for ancient Roman crowd scenes--longshoremen, market vendors, that sort of thing--they knew where to turn: the L.A. chapter of the North American Institute for Living Latin Studies, also known as SALVI (Septentrionale Americanum Latinitatis Vivae Institutum). “We try to be accurate,” Aste says during a break. “We filmed in March in Morocco and we could have [had] people speaking Arabic, but why?”
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Dec. 11, 2002 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday December 11, 2002 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 ..CF: Y 19 inches; 691 words Type of Material: Correction
Magazine headline -- A headline in the Metropolis section of the Dec. 1 Los Angeles Times Magazine erred in the phrasing “Vini, Vidi, Voice-Over.” The correct Latin is “veni, vidi.”
Sixteen SALVI members spent four hours recording for Aste in October in a studio near Universal City in place of their monthly dinner-and-Latin-conversation get-together. “Make it sound like a murmur,” Aste cued. “Ladies, we need you going to market. Someone say something low-key about chicken and lemons until we get to the goat.”
“I’m a guy,” protests Gethin Wied, a 19-year-old Loyola Marymount student.
“That’s OK,” Aste replies.
Andrew Gollan, a SALVI board member, offers the group some coaching. “If you want to say John Lennon is dead, that’s great, as long as you say it in Latin.”
The ambience is festive despite the grim character motivation required of thespians enacting some of early Christianity’s stickier moments. “They’re stoning him and dragging him in a tug of war,” Aste tells the assembled players. “You’re not in an air-conditioned studio,” adds associate producer Ellen Mulligan. “You die beautifully,” one SALVI member cheerfully remarks to another.
Created in Los Angeles in 1996 to promote Latin, SALVI is taking its second walla gig in stride. “It’s a great club,” says Mulligan. “They did some walla for a previous series we did. It’s really the sound patterns that we try to get.” As for non-Latin exigencies such as speaking in tongues, Aste has that covered. “For the Pentecost, we’ll have you speak in Latin and then play it backward.”