Week 7 THE INTRODUCTION OF SOUND

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Oct 30, 2023

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Week 7 THE INTRODUCTION OF SOUND ● First synchronized sound film according to consensus is 1927’s The Jazz Singer ● Sound introduced new elements of style ● Sound and image were combined for cinematic effect Sound in the United States ● US was the first to move into sound film ● Forest’s sound on film process converted sound waves to into light waves which were recorded on a parallel film strip ● Western Electrics has a well researched and well funded sound on disc system Warner Bros. and Vitaphone ● Warner Bros implemented pre recorded sound as a cost cutting method and used Vitaphone system Sound-on-Film Is Adopted ● Fox invented Movietone based on Forest’s system ● Fox wanted to implement sound but Warner had signed the best talent to exclusive contracts ● RCA created Phototone ● The Big 5 producers signed an agreement in 1927 to all adopt what they deemed the best sound system. They picked Western Electric’s

Sound and Filmmaking ● Most filmmakers struggled to implement sound and ended up making staticky films ● Thee emergence of sound allowed for the development of the Musical as a genre Germany Challenges Hollywood ● In the mid 20s German film industry tried to introduce film but failed Dividing the International Pie ● German film producers didn’t want to make sound films because of a lack of wired theaters and German theater owners didn’t want to spend of sound wiring because there weren’t many sound films The Early Sound Era in Germany ● Fritz Lang combined sound and image to create metaphor and symbolism on the screen, developing many styles and techniques in films like M The USSR Pursues Its Own Path to Sound ● The Soviets tried to develop their own sound system and failed. They had to hire an American specialist to install US equipment The International Adoption of Sound ● 3 countries made sound films, but the producers and distributors in other countries got around the language difference by using techniques like subs and dubs

France ● Many french filmmakers experimented with sound. Films like Le Petit Lise and A nous, La Liberte were early forays into sound in the french industry Great Britain ● BIP released Hitchcocks film Blackmail and was one of few sucessful British companies after the end of the quota Japan ● Japan was one of the few non big 3 countries to make “talky” films Wiring the World's Theaters for Sound ● Small countries wired for sound fast but other larger countries had a minority of silent theaters until the 30s Crossing the Language Barrier ● Subtitles were originally brushed off as distracting and dubs were really hard to make so some film companies started making films in multiple languages. They would just change actors and keep everything else, but sometimes bilingual actors were used for multiple versions and sometimes actors learned lines phonetically only

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Week 8 OTHER STUDIO SYSTEMS ● Few countries rivaled the US in production, Those that did did so by mimicking Hollywood Quota Quickies and Wartime Pressures: The British Studios ● The British film industry finally consolidated into big successful companies, like Pinewood Studios The British Film Industry Grows ● Quota act passed in 1927 spurred creation of films in Britain ● While the Quota Act did help the industry expand, a lot of the work produced was cheap and was the bare minimum under the law. The quota quickies were largely unshown or showing as 2nd films in double features ● Gaumont-British and BIP were the two big integrated studios of Britain Export Successes ● Korda founded London Film to take advantage of the Quota Act. He switched his methods quickly though once he decided to try to compete in America ● The Private Life of Henry VIII was a winner for the British film industry and started a boom Alfred Hitchcock's Thrillers ● Hitchcock made 6 thrillers for Gaumont-British ● Hitchcock was good at communicating the character’s psychology via editing and framing tricks

Crisis and Recovery ● In 1937, the industry retracted because the production boom had produced little profits ● The crisis came to an end by the finish of the 1930s The Effects of the War ● The british government encouraged filmmaking. They invested in some as it was thought to be a better choice than importing ● All films had to support britain and the war effort ● Quality went up as quickies went down. They competed with Hollywood in quality Innovation within an Industry: The Studio System of Japan ● After the 1923 Tokyo earthquake the Japanese film industry was able to consolidate and became comparably stable to the Hollywood system ● Censorship was almost a non-issue stylistically in wartime Japan Popular Cinema of the 1930s ● Jidai-geki was the historical genre and was very popular. It had heroes and sword fights ● Also popular were satires of the chambara, or sword fighting movies ● Gendai-geki was the name for contemporary-life film. Student and salaryman comedies, “mother tales” and films about lower-class life made up the genre ● Many Japanese filmmakers worked to build a japanese style

The Pacific War ● The culture became jingoistic. Anti-american sentiment was institutionalized in the form of censorship ● Japan passed a law that paralleled Nazi Germany’s film laws ● The film companies were forced to consolidate into 3 ● The film companies made Japanese centric newsreels, docs, and films in order to support the war effort . India: An Industry Built on Music ● India has 12 major language and 22 minor ones, which made silent film ideal for Indian national distribution ● By the mid 1920s India was producing more films that USSR, UK, and France A Highly Fragmented Business ● The Indian market was broken up into language groups once sound movies took hold ● Firms from certain cities had market control of certain languages of production. Ex: Calcutta and Bengali ● The major firms mimicked Hollywood. They were Bombay Talkies, New Theatres and Prabhat Mythologicals, Socials, Devotionals ● Earlier forms of theatrical entertainment centered on music, and this trend continued in films

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● Major genres are the devotional (bio of a religious figure), social film (romantic melodrama), and mythical (based on lit epics) Independents Weaken the System ● Independents funded by questionable people with questionable intentions started to pull talent away from the big companies China: Filmmaking Caught between Left and Right ● The film industry was a cultural and sometimes literal battlefield for the ideological war between the leftists and conservative nationalists in China