HISTORY OF SOUND MOVIES & TRANSITION FROM SILENT ERA "LISTEN TO THIS" 1978 AT&T MOVIE 66464
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.พ. 2021
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This color and black & white educational film is about how sound came to be in the movies. Copyright is 1978. The film was made by AT&T as part of its public outreach campaign.
Opening: film reels, filmmaker and sound engineer mix tracks. Multiple people at work moving reels, mixing sound, raising sound levels, making phone calls to get certain tracks. In the control booth, knobs are turned, buttons pushed, a film projector is turned on (:08-:59). Clips from 'The Jazz Singer' (1927) with Al Jolson, a cartoon, Alexander Graham Bell's assistant Thomas Watson, a man jumping off a balcony to be with his beloved, a young boy, a crying woman. The projector plays on as people in the sound mixing booth discuss. A button is pushed. Clips from 'The Jazz Singer' (1927), Al Jolson (1:00-2:16). Opening title: LISTEN TO THIS (2:17-2:21). People in the sound mixing booth. Clips from one of the first Vitaphone films. Alexander Graham Bell's assistant Thomas Watson. People in the sound booth, a film projectionist turns his projector on. Thomas Watson. B/W clips from early movies. Thomas Edison experimenting with sound. 5 items had to be developed so movies could talk, all are shown: amplification, electrical recording and reproduction mechanisms, microphones, loud speakers, and a method to synchronize sound to picture (2:22-4:06). In 1912 at 463 West St, in Lower Manhattan, NY, a test was done on the invention the Audion. The Audion was an electronic detecting or amplifying vacuum tube invented by American electrical engineer Lee de Forest in 1906. In 1913 the Audion became key. People doing experiments with sound devices. A man plays a piano. People speak and try and capture it. In 1916 - the condenser microphone was created. In 1921 Warren G. Harding gave a speech at Arington National Cemetery and it was carried to other cities by long distance circuits. By 1922, radio had developed. Stills of people holding papers in front of microphones. That year the first non commercial talking picture was shown. Discs were used for the sound as the methods for producing them were well known. By 1924 every studio rejected sound. Movie stars of the silent 1920s films are shown in stills. People sit in a theater looking at the screen (4:07-7:00). Exterior of people walking by the Geo. M. Cohan Theatre in New York, NY in the 1920s. Warner Bros sign. Experiments with sound in Brookly, NY. August 6, 1926, a crowd jammed a the Warners' Theatre on Broadway to see the first sync sound film: "Don Juan" with John Barrymore. During this film, music played from the loud speakers rather than from an orchestra on site. Clips from the "Don Juan" film. Also, the sounds of the swords hitting one another had been added in post dubbing and that was played over the speakers as well (7:01-9:21). Billboard for the new Vitaphone film: "Don Juan." Title card for Giovanni Martinelli in 'Vesti La Giubba' followed by scenes of the singing having been dubbed into the movie. Title card for Roy Smeck, The Wizard of the String, in 'His Pastimes' followed by scenes of Smeck strumming his ukelele. People in the sound booth. Clips from 'Finding His Voice,' an animated cartoon synchronized to voice and sound, A Western Electric Sound System Picture from 1929. Animation that shows and explains how the sound recording process works as characters fly around (9:22-12:45). History was made on October 6, 1927, Al Jolson in 'The Jazz Singer.' Al Jolson talks and sings in the movie. The movie was the first with synchronized dialogue. It marked the ascendancy of “talkies” and the end of the silent-film era. People in the sound booth (in color present day) are happy. More clips from 'The Jazz Singer' (12:46-14:37). End credits (14:38-15:19).
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I didn't expect to watch the whole thing.
But I did.
Interesting, the stepping stones to the platforms we experience today
I love oddinstink
Actually, the technology of recording on film had been developing before disc. Dr. Lee deForest started experimenting with sound on film in 1919, and started the first public display of what he called Phonofims in 1923.
Now if only they could only send moving pictures over the radio..wouldn't that be grand? 👍👍
Indeed! I would call it "Television." 😀
@@elijahvincent985 I think radiovision would be good. Could name it after Tesla, he did start broadcasting. Ever heard of William or Edwin ?
“I’m Miles Cholmondley-Warner and my friend, Mr Grayson has put together a short sequence of clips on life during the 20th century.”
nice ilove it
When early talking films are discussed, the title Becky Sharpe (sp) comes up. I guess that didn't use Western Electric's sound system, as it is not mentioned in this film. At any rate, this is a great look at the early talkies.
I wanna hear what movie audiences had to say about talking pictures from silents.
But what about Edison's Kinetophone of the early teens??
Edison's Kinetophone of the 1910s is a small blip in the history of sound film. The films themselves were hard to keep in synch and were only produced for about three years. Also by the time this film was made (1978) the cylinders were probably lost. The only (known) surviving cylinder for experimental edison-dickson sound film experiments of the 1890s with the accompanying film was discovered in the 1960s, but "the connection between film and cylinder was not made until 1998".
Yes, the Kinetophone was difficult to control, but the Edison company sent trained operators to help exhibit the pictures. Scores of newspaper articles appeared praising successful demonstrations (as well as negative ones, when the system failed!). I believe there were at least 300 Kinetophone films made during their short lifetime, so to say it was "a small blip in the history of sound film" is overly simplistic -- after all, these were the first commercial live recordings to be made while filming at the same time...all done acoustically before the advent of the microphone. The Edison National Historic Site had several of the giant cylinders in their archives in 1978, but no attempt had been made at that time to marry them to existing films -- many of which had deteriorated or had been forever lost. Just because precious few survive doesn't mean the Kinetophone was a "small blip"! Just watch th-cam.com/video/6ycNxZ5aZ00/w-d-xo.html (from 1913), and tell me this wasn't a significant contribution to the history of sound film!!
@@michealgilliland8830 While Edison's experiment worked, the problem was with amplification. It wasn't until Dr. Lee deForest developed the Audion that this was possible.
So what does the Hitler Olympian film have on it? I'd like to hear those films now we know more..
Too bad the film's not longer.
Realize this film was sponsored by Western Electric/Bell System/AT&T so there is a strong bias to the technologies AT&T offered to the film industry (such as high-fidelity Vitaphone discs playing at 33 1/3 rpm, later used as radio transcriptions discs) as the slight mention of Lee de Forest's audion invention barely 'talks' about his years of phonofilm experiments before RCA Photophone started flexing their usual corrupt muscles - also not mentioned.