THE “TALKIES.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume L, Issue 40025, 19 November 1929, Page 1

THE “TALKIES.”

THE EARLY STACIES

RAPID DEVELOPMENT. In the summer of 1924 the Western Electric iCoTnpany believed that it .had a talking' picture machine, and confidently it set about to show it to the motion picture industry. It looked simple. A motion picture camera synchronised through a motor with a turn-table bearing a wax disc took a picture. At the same time the sound was .recorded on the disc. Copies of the film and copies of the disc were made; the film was put on a projection machine and the .record on another turn-table. Both were started together, and there you were! The company at the same time ' was experimenting with sound on film. In this-process the picture is reduced on one side by a narrow sound track that run scontinuously between the picture and the sprocket holes. Pictures which have the sound ,on the film may be distinguished from those played with records by the fact that the former picture, when thrown on the screen, is almost square. Other companies and individuals also were doing things with Die same sort of plan in .mind.

In the film process the sound is turned into light, which registers, through a very tiny slit, on the film. The light varies in volume with the sound, and a strip of sound film, closely examined, will show tiny cross streaks of varying density. :W|hen this is run through a properly-equipped projection machine the sound track on the positive print lets through the same amount of light that was recorded on the negative. This is turned back into sound, and the show is under way. One process varies this 'by iregistering on the sound track tiny black mountain ranges lying horizontally against a white sky. The effect is the same. Instead of regulating the amount of light by different shades of grey, this method increases the light by recording a little peak against the sky, and lowers it by introducing Mount Cook .to shut off the sun.

The latter process is Photophone, used by the Radio Corporation of America. The grey sound track is used by Electric Research Products, which is part of the Western Electric Company, and this is .known as Movietone. The record process is Vitaphone, which is a trade mark. The Vitaphone method, without the label, is used by many different companies.

Warner Brothers, a little more than two years ago, decided to bet their last shilling on the disc method. 'William Fox, who had made a great deal of money with a Western star whose pictures seldom played the de luxe theatres, began experimenting with the film method, with a talking- news reel in mind. Means were devised for carrying the latter form .of recording apparatus on a motor truck. It was these two companies that were to see their small wagers pyramid into millions. They were to attain such power in motion pictures that they were to see great theatre chains, owned by rival producers, forced by public demand to present talking- pictures produced by these two companies, while silent pictures made by the owners of these theatres were relegated to less important houses. At the Motion Picture Club, on Broadway (New York), which is the clearing house for news and gossip about the business, it is generally agreed that A 1 Jolson’s picture, “The Jazz Siuger,” was the turning point for sound pictures. “The Jazz Singer,” opened in New York, and at 11 o’clock that night the leaders of the Motion Picture Industry, who stood cheering in the theatre, knew that their business had been turned upside down. All the leaders were there; but the Wjarner Brothers, who were destined within ai few months to be hailed as Lie greatest geniuses of the industry, were absent. The day before, Sam Warner, who had done ' most to bring- about this revolution, had died.

At that time only a few score of theatres, scattered throughout America, were “wired.” Already, however, the talking news reel had met with sufficient success to cause theatre owners to begin to wonder whether they hadn't better get in on this new thing. After “The Jazz Singer” they wondered no longer. The Western Electric 'Company is the only organisation that manufactured sound equipment. It was totally unprepared for the rush of customers. It lacked machinery for quantity production; it lacked trained men to make and instal the apparatus. It was in no position to fill orders from producers who wanted to make sound pictures, or from theatres that wanted to exhibit them. Slowly, gradulaly gathering momentum, it groaned out the machines while the Motion Pic-

ture Industry, except for two companies, fussed and fumed, watching the pot and waiting for the water to boil.

A sound stage, equipped, cost at that Line £>loo,ooo, but you couldn't get immediate delivery at any price. Reproducing apparatus, installed in a theatre, cost' from £2OOO to £SOOO, depending upon the size of the theatre and the amount of amplification necessary. Theatre owners would gladly have paid twice that amount, since the cost was even less than a cooling system or a good f pipe organ. Experience showed that increased business and reduction in music expense made the first, cost immaterial.

After 1700 theatres were equipped in the United States, an improved foreign demand developed. The 'Western Electric Company is now equipping theatres in the British Isles, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, .British India, Burma, etc. The talkie movement has naturally had a great spread in (the English-speaking countries, as well as in Australia and New Zealand, but it is interesting to know that the language idiifijculty has afforded slight impediment to the spread of Englishspeaking movies; for example, Japan has ordered several equipments for leading theatres in her principal theatres. A theatre in Havana, .Cuba, where Spanish is the common tongue, is doing a rushing business. Similarly, theatres in Panama, Columbia, Argentina, and Brazil have answered the call of the talking, picture.

So far the Western Electric system, not only because it was first in the field, but on account of considerable experience gained through the telephone business throughout ’the world, has maintained its lead abroad as‘well as in the States. Experts agree that, hut for the high quality of reproduction possible with this standard equipment, the talking motion picture industry would never have grown to the extent it has in the past three years.