Sound in Films

Silent to Surround
 History of Sound
1895 to 1927: Silent cinema was never without sound.

1877: Edison discovered Phonograph, to record sound

and playback on tin foil around a groove cylinder.

1894:first proto-sound-film system developed by

Dickson and Thomas Edison. Live recording of violin
playing along with action recorded on 35mm negative
at 40 fps.
Kinetoscope & Phonograph
 1895 1927 Silent Cinema Shows had
Live Music were played. But no recorded sound to
accompany the films projected on screen.

The musicians sat in a pit below the screen and played

music that fit the mood of what was happening in the film.

Benshi or katsuben in Japan, stood to the side of the screen

and introduced and related the story to the audience. They
would add their own commentary, explaining what was
happening in a shot or describing what had happened in
confusing edits or sudden transitions. Some benshi were
known to interpret and add to a script, for example reciting
poetry to accompany a moving visual.
 The Warner Brothers 1925
"Who needs sound?" they argued. "Everyone loves silent
movies.

In 1925, they were looking for a way to make their movies more
popular, and Sam suggested that they give sound a try.

So when the telephone inventors came to Hollywood and showed

him their new sound movie system, he was very interested in
what he saw and heard.

The record would replace the live musicians in the theater.

Everyone who went to a movie, would now hear the same music,
just as they all saw the same moving pictures on the screen.
 Vitaphone: the sound of life
The new sound movies were called Vitaphone movies, which means
"the sound of life.

Don Juan (1926) was the first feature-length film to utilize the
Vitaphone sound-on-disc sound system with a synchronized musical
score and sound effects, though it has no spoken dialogue.

George Groves, on assignment from The Vitaphone Corporation,

was charged with recording the soundtrack to the film. He devised
an innovative, multi-microphone technique and performed a live mix
of the 107-strong orchestra. In doing so he became the first music
mixer in film history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xwwuy2rsgFc
 The jazz singer (1927)
In 1927 the Warner brothers made a movie starring a
famous singer named Al Jolson. In this movie, The
Jazz Singer, Al Jolson's character sang songs and in
one scene he also talked and kidded with the woman
who played his mother. Audiences really liked this
scene, and the Warner brothers realized that people
did indeed want to hear the actors talk.

Birth of Talkies, changed the way of making a film

thereafter.
 Synchronization of Picture with Audio
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound
technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film.

Sound-on-film would ultimately win out over sound-on-

disc(Vitaphone) because

Synchronization: no interlock system was completely reliable, and

sound could fall out of synch due to disc skipping or minute changes
in film speed, requiring constant supervision and frequent manual
adjustment

Editing: discs could not be directly edited, severely limiting the

ability to make alterations in their accompanying films after the
original release cut.
 Synchronization of Picture with Audio
Alam Ara premiered March 14, 1931, in Bombay. The first
Indian talkie was so popular that "police aid had to be
summoned to control the crowds. It was shot with the
Tanar single-system camera, which recorded sound directly
onto the film.

British cinema pundit Paul Rotha declared, "A film in

which the speech and sound effects are perfectly
synchronised and coincide with their visual image on the
screen is absolutely contrary to the aims of cinema. It is a
degenerate and misguided attempt to destroy the real use of
the film and cannot be accepted as coming within the true
boundaries of the cinema. The film Till Now,1930.
 Elements of Sound
Though we might think of film as an essentially visual experience, we really
cannot afford to underestimate the importance of film sound. A meaningful
sound track is often as complicated as the image on the screen. The entire
sound track is comprised of three essential ingredients:

the human voice/dialogue

sound effects(synchronous and asynchronous sounds)

Music(synchronous and asynchronous)

These three tracks must be mixed and balanced so as to produce the

necessary emphases which in turn create desired effects. Topics which
essentially refer to the three previously mentioned tracks are discussed below.
They include dialogue, synchronous and asynchronous sound, and music.
 Diegetic& Non-Diegetic sounds
Diegetic sound is any sound presented as originated from
source within the film's world. Digetic sound can be either
on screen or off screen depending on whatever its source is
within the frame or outside the frame. Another term for
diegetic sound is actual sound Diegesis is a Greek word for
"recounted story

voices of characters

sounds made by objects in the story

music represented as coming from instruments in the story

space ( = source music)
 Diegetic& Non-Diegetic sounds
Sound whose source is neither visible on the screen
nor has been implied to be present in the action:

narrator's commentary

sound effects which is added for the dramatic effect

mood music/background score/theme

Non-diegetic sound is represented as coming from the

a source outside story space.
Interplay of Sound Elements