10/5/09
Zamore: Film Theory
Aim: Understanding the significance of sync sound
Do now:
Think about a movie that you have seen quite a few times and describe the sound in the movie. Think
about music, sound effects, and dialogue in a particular scene and describe them.
**No paper due this week—Test on Camera work, writing film analysis and film history 1895-1920 (only
pieces we went over)
We’re going to watch the first Sync Sound movie. First, we will prepare by reading about and discussion
a few key points.
Film: The Jazz Singer, (1927) dir: Alan Crosland. Starring Al Jolson.
Key issues:
 Musical
 Sync Sound Vitaphone (whose invention?!)
 Not full talkie—still uses inter-titles
 What are intertitles?
 Use of Blackface/Minstrel Show
Within your group, each person will be given one of three short essays to read and take notes on. In 10
minutes, we will rotate groups and each person will be in charge of teaching their subject to the others.
In your groups (both first and second rounds), there will be a
1. Leader 2. 2 Time keepers 3. Recorder
As you teach each other the information,
the leader keeps the group on task,
the time keeper makes sure you are getting through all the information in the allotted time and
the recorders is writing down notes and any questions or thoughts that come up through the
discussion. (this does NOT mean that the recorder is the only one working!! The recorder is recording
what (s)he hears as the three people are discussing)
10 minutes in first groups,
10 minutes in second groups
Then we will watch the first 15 minutes of the film.
BLACKFACE:
Blackface, in the narrow sense, is a style of theatrical makeup that began in the United States. Blackface
was used to take on the appearance of certain archetypes of American racism, especially those of the
"happy-go-lucky African American on the plantation." Blackface in the broader sense includes similarly
stereotyped performances even when they do not involve blackface makeup.
Blackface was an important performance tradition in the American theater for roughly 100 years
beginning around 1830. It quickly became popular overseas, especially in Britain, where the tradition
lasted even longer than in the US, occurring on primetime TV as late as 1978[2] and 1981.[3] In both the
United States and Britain, blackface was most commonly used in the minstrel performance tradition. (The
minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American “entertainment” made up of comic skits, variety acts,
dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface. Minstrel shows made fun of black people,
representing them as ignorant, lazy, clownish, superstitious, joyous, and musical.) However, blackface
predates the minstrel tradition, and it survived long past the heyday of the minstrel show. White
blackface performers in the past used burnt cork and later greasepaint or shoe polish to blacken their
skin and exaggerate their lips, often wearing woolly wigs, gloves, tailcoats, or ragged clothes to complete
the transformation. Later, especially after the Civil War, black artists also performed in blackface.
Stereotypes embodied in the stock characters of blackface minstrelsy played a significant role in
cementing and growing racist images, attitudes and perceptions worldwide. However, by the mid-20th
century, changing attitudes about race and racism effectively ended the prominence of blackface makeup
used in performance in the U.S. and elsewhere.
AL JOLSON
Al Jolson (May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950), born in Lithuania, was a highly acclaimed American singer,
comedian, and actor. His career lasted from 1911 until his death in 1950, during which time he was
commonly dubbed "the world's greatest entertainer.” Numerous well-known singers were influenced by
his music, including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Judy Garland.
By 1920, he was America’s most famous and highest paid entertainer. Between 1911 and 1928, Jolson
had nine sell-out Winter Garden shows in a row, more than 80 hit records, and 16 national and
international tours. Yet he's best remembered today for his leading role in the world’s first talking
picture, The Jazz Singer, released in 1927. He starred in a series of successful musical films throughout
the 1930s. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Jolson became the first star to entertain troops overseas
during World War II.
According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, "Jolson was to jazz, blues, and ragtime what
Elvis Presley was to rock 'n' roll." Being the first popular singer to make a spectacular "event" out of
singing a song, he became a “rock star” before the dawn of rock music. His specialty was building stage
runways extending out into the audience. He would run up and down the runway and across the stage,
"teasing, sweet-talking, and thrilling the audience," often stopping to sing to individual members, all the
while the "sweat would be pouring from his face, and the entire audience would get caught up in the
excitement of his performance."
THE JAZZ SINGER
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with
synchronized dialogue sequences, its release began the rise of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent
film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, the movie stars Al Jolson,
who performs six songs. Directed by Alan Crosland, it is based on a play by Samson Raphaelson.
The story begins with young Jakie Rabinowitz defying the traditions of his devout Jewish family by
singing popular tunes in a beer hall. Punished by his father, a cantor, Jakie runs away from home. Some
years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a talented jazz singer. He attempts to build a
career as an entertainer, but his professional ambitions eventually come into conflict with the demands of
his home and heritage.
While many earlier sound films had dialogue, all were short subjects and many had only a synchronized
instrumental score and sound effects. The Jazz Singer contains those, as well as numerous synchronized
singing sequences and some synchronized speech.
Jolson's first vocal performance, about fifteen minutes into the picture, is of "Dirty Hands, Dirty Face,"
with music by James V. Monaco and lyrics by Edgar Leslie and Grant Clarke. The first synchronized
speech—uttered by Jack —occurs directly after that performance. Jack's first spoken words—"Wait a
minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet"—were well-established stage chatter of Jolson's. In a
later scene, Jack talks with his mother, played by Eugenie Besserer, in the family parlor; his father enters
and pronounces one very conclusive word.
In total, the movie contains barely two minutes worth of synchronized talking, much or all of it
improvised. The rest of the dialogue is presented through the caption cards, or intertitles, standard in
silent movies of the era.
VITAPHONE
The Vitaphone was a sound film process used on features and nearly 2,000 short subjects
produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. This was the last and
most successful, of the “sound-on-disc” processes. The soundtrack was not printed on the actual film, but
was issued separately on 16-inch phonograph records. The discs would be played while the film was
being projected. Many early talkies, such as The Jazz Singer (1927), used the Vitaphone process. (The
name "Vitaphone" derives from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound.")
In the early 1920s, Western Electric researched both sound-on-film (Phonofilm) and sound-ondisc (Vitaphone) systems. However, due to the relatively poor sound quality of Phonofilm, Warners
decided to go forward with the disc system as the more familiar technology. The business was
established at Western Electric's Bell Laboratories in Brooklyn, New York and acquired by Warners Bros.
in April 1925. Warner Bros. introduced Vitaphone on August 6, 1926, with the release of the silent
feature Don Juan with music score and sound effects only (no dialogue), accompanied by several talkie
short subjects featuring mostly opera stars and classical musicians of the day, and a greeting from motion
picture industry spokesman Will Hays.
A Vitaphone-equipped theater used normal projectors equipped with a special turntable and
reproducer, a fader, an amplifier, and loudspeaker system. The projectors operated as normal silent
projectors would, but also provided a mechanical interlock with an attached phonograph turntable
(similar to a record player). When the projector was threaded, the projectionist would align a start mark
on the film with the picture gate, and would at the same time place a phonograph record on the turntable,
being careful to align the phonograph needle with an arrow scribed on the record's surface.
When the projector rolled, the phonograph turned at a fixed rate, and (theoretically) played sound
in sync with the film passing the picture gate simultaneously. The Vitaphone had an 11-minute maximum
running time of a reel of film.
The Vitaphone process made several improvements over previous systems:
Amplification - The Vitaphone system was one of the first to use electronic amplification, using Lee De
Forest's Audion tube. This allowed the sound of the phonograph to be played to a large audience at a
comfortable volume.
Fidelity (Accuracy in duplication) - In the early days, Vitaphone had superior fidelity to sound-on-film
processes.
These innovations notwithstanding, the Vitaphone process lost the early format war with soundon-film processes for many reasons:
Distribution - Vitaphone records had to be distributed along with film prints, and shipping the records
required a whole set-up apart from the already-existing film distribution system. The records would start
to suffer from audible wear after an estimated 20 screenings and were then supposed to be replaced with
a fresh set. Damage and breakage were inherent dangers and could stop the show cold for the day, so a
spare set of discs was usually kept on hand. This consumed even more distribution overhead.
Synchronization - Vitaphone was vulnerable to severe synchronization problems. If a record was
improperly cued up, it would start out of sync with the picture and the projectionist would have to try to
manually sync. If the wrong record had been cued up, there was no realistic option but to pause the show
for a few minutes while swapping in the right record, resetting everything and trying again. If the film
print became damaged and was not precisely repaired, the relationship between the record and the print
would be thrown off, also causing a loss of sync.
Editing - A phonograph record cannot be physically edited, and this significantly limited the creative
potential of Vitaphone films. This discouraged frequent changes of scene in the film and the lively pace
that they created. Not only was editing sound on disc a nightmare for the editor, but it was increasingly
obvious to everyone that while the system sufficed for musical shorts and a synchronized musical
accompaniment for otherwise silent films, it was no way to make a feature-length film with "live" sound.
By the middle of 1931, Warner Brothers-First National had thrown in the towel and was recording and
editing optical sound on film, like all the other studios.
END OF THE SILENTS - UPHEAVALS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY WITH THE EARLY TALKIES:
As anticipated, the arrival of sound created great upheaval in the history of the motion picture industry,
(as exemplified in the film Singin' in the Rain (1954)). Film studios were confronted with many problems
related to the coming of sound, including restricted markets for English-language talkies. Many
Hollywood actors/actresses lacked good voices and stage experience, and their marketability decreased.
Technically, camera movements were restricted, and noisy, bulky movie cameras had to be housed in
clumsy, huge sound-insulated booths with blimps (sound-proof covers), to avoid picking up camera noise
on the soundtrack. Artistically, acting suffered as studios attempted to record live dialogue, because
stationary or hidden microphones (in either their costumes or other stage props) impeded the movement
of actors. Some of the earliest talkies were primitive, self-conscious, crudely-made productions with an
immobile microphone - designed to capitalize on the novelty of sound.
Silent film studios became obsolescent, and new investments had to be made for expensive new
equipment, technological innovations, and sound-proofed stages. Cameras were mounted on moveable,
squeak-proofed dollies, and microphones were hung from booms that could be held above the action
(outside of the camera's view). Lubitsch's first sound film The Love Parade (1929) (with Jeanette
MacDonald's debut appearance), exhibited the director's creative adaptation to the requirements of
sound film, and was one of the first backstage musicals with musical numbers that were integral to the
plot. Smoothly directed, Lubitsch avoided making it stage-bound and over-acted like many of the early
talkies. And Rouben Mamoulian's first film Applause (1929) did creative and revolutionary things with
recorded sound, such as overlapping soundtracks, and using sounds as cues or signals.
Films that began production as silents were quickly transformed into sound films. All of the studios were
forced to follow suit. By 1930, the silent movie had practically disappeared, and by the mid 1930s, film
industry studios had become sound-film factories. In 1927, only 400 US theatres were wired for sound,
but by the end of the decade, over 40% of the country's movie theatres had sound systems installed.
Many stars of the silent era with heavy accents and disagreeable voices saw their careers shattered (e.g.,
Polish-accented Pola Negri, Emil Jannings, Ramon Novarro, Clara Bow, Vilma Banky, Colleen Moore, Rod
La Rocque, Gilbert Roland, Nita Naldi, Renee Adoree, Blanche Sweet, Agnes Ayres, and John Gilbert), while
others like Joan Crawford, Paul Muni, Greta Garbo, Ronald Colman, Lon Chaney, Sr., Richard Barthelmess
and Gloria Swanson survived the transition - but elocution lessons from diction coaches became a
necessity for some. Other silent stars, such as Mary Pickford, failed to make the transition to talkies and
retired in the 30s. Many new film stars and directors that had to be imported from Broadway, would
become familiar Hollywood names in the 1930s.