THE TALKIES.

Shannon News, 29 November 1929, Page 4

THE TALKIES.

5, THE EARLY STAGES, !'< RAPID DEVELOPMENT. £r !’ In the summer of 1924 the Western Electric Company believed that it had > a talking picture machine, and confidently it set about to show it to the motion picture industry. Nearly, every company was approached, and, just to >' stop the Western Electric Company from bothering any more, they all sent ■’ men down to West Street, New York, to see and hear a picture of a man i playing a violin. ■: It looked simple. . A motion picture T cambra synchronised through a motor -• with a turn-table bearing a wax disc. L" Copies of the film and copies of the disc were made; the film was put ou • a projection' machine and the record oil another turn-table. Both were h. started together, and there you were, r It was all quite interesting to the movkie people—but what of it? The theatres were not equipped to show this. ; The company at the same , time was j. experimenting with sound on film. In 'i this process the picture is reduced on r - one side by a narrow sound track that runs continuously between the picture r and'the sprocket holes. Pictures which j have the sound on the film may be dis- */" tinguished from those played with reL cords!! by the fact that the former picture, when thrown on the screen, is almost square. Other companies and if individuals also were doing things with the same sort of plan in mind, t' In the film process the sound is turnb cd 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. When, 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. ..W-h™ is turned back into sound, and mmhc show is under way . One process

: varies this by registering on. the sound track tiny black* mountain ranges ly- , ing 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, find lowers it by introducing Mount*Cook to shut ' «ff the aaa.

\ BUYING FROM COMPETITORS. The latter process is Photophone, used by the Radio Corporation of Amer- ' ica. The grey sound track is used by Electrical Research Products, which is - part of the Western Electric Company, and this is known as Movietone. The record process is Vitaplione, which ? is a trade mark. The Vitaphone method, • without the label, i 3 used by many different companies. Warner Brothers, a little more than , two years, 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 theat-

res, 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. Disc recorders are not yet portable. ", It was these two companies—at no time in their previous histories rated among the Big Three —that were to : ' see their small wagers pyramid into /•millions and their prestige grow until ! they became a “Big Two.” They

were to attain such power in motion pictures that they were to see great v theatre chains, owned by rival producers, forced by public demand to pre- * sent talking pictures produced by these two companies, while silent pictures I made by the owners of these theatres were relegated to less important houses. > WHEN TALKIES WERE MADE.

They were to see, however, no great

loss in gross revenue by theatre-own- ' ing producers of silent pictures. These / theatres were to make so much money in showing talking pictures from rival f- studios that they would absorb the C losses on their own production. Such was the curious chain of events in an

industry gone berserk. / At the Motion Picture Club, on / Broadway (New York), which 1;. clearing house for news and gossip ’ about the business, it is generally J agreed that A 1 Jolson’s picture, “The Jazz Singer,’ ’ 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 Indus-

try, who stood cheering in the theatre,

’? knew that their business had been *;■' turned upside down. All the leaders were there; but the Warner Brothers, \ who were destined within a few ' months to be hailed as the greatest geniuses of the industry, were absent. The day before, Sam Warner, who had done most to bring about this re- > volution, had died.

At that time only a few score of theatres, scattered throughout America, were “wired,” as they say in the picture (business. Already, however, the. talking news reel had met with sufficient success to cause theatre owners . - to begin to wonder whether they hadnot better get in on this new thing.

After “The Jazz Singer” they wondered no longer. The Western Electric Comany is the only organisation

j. that manufactured sound equipment, r- It was totally unprepared for the rush / of customers. It lacked machinery for " quantity production; it lacked trained

- men to make and instal the apparat. tus. 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, gradually. gathering momentum, it ground out the machines while the Motion Picture Industry, except for two com- ; panics, fussed and fumed, watching v the pot and watiing for the water to boil. ,

A sound stage, equipped, cost

that time £IOO,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 pipe organ. Experience showed that increased business and re-

duction 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, German, France, British India, Burma, etc. The talkie movement has naturally had & great spread in the English-speaking countries, as weil as in Australia and New Zealand, but it is interesting to know that the language difficulty has afforded alight 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, whore 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.

INSTALLATIONS IN NEW ZEALAND.

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, but 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.