The Development of Sound

1
The Development of Sound
2

• Probably the first sound film was made by Thomas
  Edison in 1890. It lasted just a few seconds and
  was of a laboratory worker in his Newark
  laboratory.
• Edison turned the crank on his kinetoscope and
  shot frames of Fred Ott acting out a sneeze.
  Edison recorded the sound of the sneeze on his
  phonograph to be played back with "The Sneeze"
  film.

3

• Despite many attempts during the next 30 years,
  sound reproduction in films never really
  progressed
• It was not until 1926 and the invention of the
  Vitaphone the sound was first available in
  mainstream cinema.

4

• The Vitaphone was a sound-on-disc system using
  multiple 33 1/3 rpm discs developed by Bell
  Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric.
•  
• The Vitaphone system was first embraced by Warner
  Brothers.  In August 1926, Warner Brothers
  debuted the first Vitaphone film Don Juan

5

• This was the first mainstream film that replaced
  the traditional use of a live orchestra or organ
  for the soundtrack. However, in Don Juan there
  was no dialogue in the film.  

6

• The first movie with dialogue, or "talkie", was
  The Jazz Singer. Although, originally conceived
  as a singing picture with no dialogue, Al Jolson
  ad-libbed some dialogue on the set.
• Although only about ten minutes of the film used
  sound, the moment when Al Jolson spoke the words
  "You ain't heard nothin' yet" caused a sensation.
   

7

• The Jazz Singer was probably the first movie
  Blockbuster, proving a massive success all round
  the world.
• In 1929, Warner Bros. ceased production of silent
  films

8

• However, sound brought with it many problems. The
  early microphones picked up every noise on the
  set, forcing the cameras to be placed in
  soundproof booths.
• Location filming became almost impossible. Actors
  who strayed too far from the microphone would
  become indistinct, greatly limiting the action on
  screen

9

• Any music had to be performed live off-camera,
  and the need to maintain continuity in sound and
  lip movement meant that multiple cameras were
  required for close-ups and other effects which
  had previously been filmed separately.

10

• Later in 1928, Disney's Steamboat Willie
  premiered.  
• It was the first film to completely create a
  soundtrack in post production including sound
  effects, music, and dialogue.

11

• After the stock market crash of 1929 and the
  onslaught of the Great Depression, little
  technical development occurred in the early
  thirties.
• We had to wait until 1933 for the next
  development in movie sound

12

• That year, King Kong was released by RKO and made
  film sound history.  
• Murray Spivak, who did the sound design for the
  movie, was the first person to manipulate sound
  in a creative way.  

13

• Spivak used the sound of a lion's roar slowed
  down one octave and mixed this with a second non
  pitch shifted track to get the roar of King Kong.
• This was the start of true post production sound
  creation.

14

• Spivak is hardly remembered today although his
  techniques could be said to be the forerunner of
  Foley sound.
• Named after Jack Foley, a sound designer with
  Universal studios in the 1930s, Foley sound
  creates and recreates sounds such as footsteps,
  doors opening and closing etc in a postproduction
  studio.

15

• Although never given a credit on any of the films
  he worked on, his techniques have become
  essential in every film production since and
  carry his name.
• The Foley artists working today now have
  specialised Foley studios to create their sounds.

16

• As sound became recognised as not just an adjunct
  to but an essential part of the movie experience,
  more and more development money and time went
  into sound technology.

17

• In the early 1930s, sound-on-film began to
  supplant sound-on-disc as the technology of
  choice for adding a soundtrack to a movie.
• An interesting thing about sound-on-film is that
  the sound is several frames away from the
  corresponding images.

18

• This is because the audio pickup, or reader, is
  set either above or below the lens assembly of
  the projector.
• Most analogue pickups are in the basement (below
  the lens), while digital pickups are normally in
  the penthouse (fastened to the top of the
  projector).

19

• A test film is run to calibrate the sound to the
  picture. Once this calibration is done,
  projectionists can splice film together knowing
  that the sound will synchronize properly.

20

• Sound-on-film uses one of two technologies
• Optical
• Magnetic

21

• The most common method is an optical process
  whereby a transparent line is recorded along one
  side of the film. This strip varies in width
  according to the frequency of the sound.

22

• For this reason, it is known as a variable-area
  soundtrack. As the film passes the audio pickup,
  an exciter lamp provides a bright source of
  light, focused by a lens through the transparent
  line.
• The light that passes through the film shines on
  a photocell.

23

• The light is changed to electrical current by the
  photocell. The amount of current is determined by
  the amount of light received by the photocell.
• The wider parts of the strip allow more light,
  which causes the photocell to produce more
  current.

24

• Since the width of the transparent strip changes
  the amount of light, this results in a variable
  electric current that can be sent to a
  pre-amplifier.

25

• In 1933, Leopold Stokowski's became involved in
  research with Bell Telephone Lab's early
  "Auditory Perspective" experiments on
  stereophonic sound.
• Bell's most famous demonstration came when the
  Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Stokowski,
  was transmitted over three telephone lines to an
  astonished audience in Washington's
  Constitutional Hall.

26

• Eight optical recorders were employed to record
  the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by
  Stokowski.
• Using multiple optical recorders allowed sections
  of the orchestra to be handled separately during
  mixdown, a new concept at the time.

27

• As a result of these developments, in 1940, Walt
  Disney's Fantasia was the first film to be
  released with a multichannel soundtrack.  

28

• A special system was devised for playback of
  Fantasia called Fantasound. The Fantasound system
  employed two projectors. The first one projected
  the picture and had a mono optical mix of the
  entire soundtrack.
• This mono mix was used as a backup system in case
  of failure of the main soundtrack.

29

• The second projector was played in
  synchronization to the projector with the picture
  information.

30

• This second projector employed four mono optical
  sound tracks as follows 1. control track 2.
  screen left 3. screen right and 4. screen
  center.
• This three channel speaker array was similar to
  the original stereo setup proposed by Bell Labs
  in the Thirties. In addition to the screen left,
  right, and center, there was house left, right,
  and center channels.

31

• This has remarkable similarities to the Dolby 5.1
  sound systems used today in home cinema set-ups.

32

• Fantasia debuted in New York's Broadway Theatre
  on November 13, 1940, and was an instant hit.
• However, only two Fantasound systems were ever
  sold to theatres New York's Broadway Theater and
  the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles.
• These installations cost 85,000 and included 54
  speakers placed throughout the auditorium.

33

• In the 1950s, magnetic recording became popular.
  Magnetic sound-on-film had a couple of advantages
  over optical at the time
• Magnetic was stereo, while optical was mono.
• Magnetic had better sound quality.

34

• But there were disadvantages, too
• Magnetic had to be added to the movie after it
  was filmed.
• Magnetic was more expensive.
• Magnetic didn't last as long as optical.
• Magnetic was more easily damaged.

35

• Even though magnetic recording provided as many
  as six discrete tracks of sound on a film, the
  expense was simply too much.
• There had been experiments with stereo optical
  tracks, but there was too much noise to make that
  sound system worthwhile.

36

• But when Dolby Laboratories introduced Dolby A in
  1965, a noise reduction method originally
  developed for professional recording studios, the
  movie industry saw an opportunity to reinvent the
  optical track.
• This would get around the problems of the
  magnetic sound track.

37

• It was designed for use by professional recording
  studios to make quiet master tape recordings.
• In the early to mid 1970's its use was extended
  to film recording studios and motion picture
  release prints in order to make films sound
  better.

38

• In 1971, Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange was
  released.  It was the first movie to use Dolby
  noise-reduction on all magnetic generations up to
  the magnetic print master. The final release,
  however, was academy mono.

39

• In 1979, with Apocalypse Now, Dolby debuted the
  Dolby 70mm "Split Surround" format.  

40

• It was actually the first 5.1 format as we think
  of it today.
•  
• It had a left, center, and right, left surround,
  right surround, and low frequency effects
  channel, created by a sub-woofer.  

41

• Return of the Jedi, in 1983, was the first motion
  picture to be released in concordance with the
  new "Lucasfilm Seal of Approval".

42

• The THX theatre sound reproduction system grew
  from an idea to install a state-of-the-art
  monitoring system for Lucasfilm's new
  re-recording stage.
• The system's un-equalized frequency response was
  extended down to the 40Hz third-octave band, down
  one and a half dB, which was an octave better
  than most theatre loudspeaker systems.

43

• Treble response was also extended in the octave
  above 8kHz. Not only were the crossover and sound
  system marketed, but also a complete theatre
  inspection package that would be marketed under
  the trade-name of the THX System.

44

• This has come a long way since phonographs were
  used to provide a soundtrack to films
• Film sound now is a recognised art form within
  the film making process.

45

• www.filmsound.org