Vitaphone was a sound film process used on features and nearly 2,000 short subjects produced by Warner Brothers and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image as opposed to a Silent film. Short subject is a format description originally coined in the North American Film industry in the early period of cinema. Warner Bros Entertainment Inc (or Warner Bros, Warner Bros Pictures) is one of the world's largest producers of Film and First National was an association of independent theater owners in the United States that expanded from exhibiting movies to distributing them and eventually to producing them as Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes. The term Sound-on-disc refers to a class of Sound film processes utilizing a Phonograph or other disc to record or playback Sound in sync with a motion The soundtrack was not printed on the actual film, but was issued separately on 16-inch phonograph records. The discs would be played while the film was being projected. Many early talkies, such as The Jazz Singer (1927), used the Vitaphone process. A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image as opposed to a Silent film. The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American Musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized Dialogue (The name "Vitaphone" derives from the Latin and Greek words, respectively, for "living" and "sound. ")
The business was established in the Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn, New York, and acquired by Warners Bros. American Vitagraph was a United States Movie studio, founded by J Brooklyn (named after the Dutch town Breukelen) is one of the five boroughs of New York City. in 1925. Warner Bros. introduced Vitaphone on August 6, 1926, with the release of the silent feature Don Juan starring John Barrymore with music score and sound effects only (no dialogue), accompanied by several talkie short subjects featuring mostly opera stars and classical musicians of the day (the only "pop music" artist was guitarist Roy Smeck), and a greeting from motion picture industry spokesman Will Hays. Events 1538 - Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. Year 1926 ( MCMXXVI) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Don Juan ( 1926) is a Warner Brothers film directed by Alan Crosland. John Sidney Blyth Barrymore ( February 15 1882 – May 29 1942) was an American Actor, frequently called the greatest A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image as opposed to a Silent film. Roy Smeck (born Leroy Smeck, 6 February 1900 – 5 April 1994) was an American Musician. William Hays (and the nicknames Bill Hays and Will Hays) may refer to William Hays (general, American Civil War Union general
A Vitaphone-equipped theater used special projectors, an amplifier, and speakers. Generally an amplifier or simply amp, is any device that changes usually increases the amplitude of a signal. For the Marty Friedman album see Loudspeaker (album A loudspeaker, speaker, or speaker system is an electroacoustical The projectors operated as normal motorized silent projectors would, but also provided a mechanical interlock with an attached phonograph turntable. Interlocking is a method of preventing undesired states in a state machine, which in a general sense can include any electrical electronic or mechanical device or system The phonograph, or gramophone, was the most common device for playing recorded Sound from the 1870s through the 1980s When the projector was threaded, the projectionist would align a start mark on the film with the picture gate, and would at the same time place a phonograph record on the turntable, being careful to align the phonograph needle with an arrow scribed on the record's label.
When the projector rolled, the phonograph turned at a fixed rate, and (theoretically) played sound in sync with the film passing the picture gate simultaneously. Unlike the prevailing speed of 78 revolutions per minute for phonograph discs, Vitaphone discs were played at 33-1/3 r. p. m. to increase the playing time to match the 11-minute running time of a reel of film. Also unlike most phonograph discs, the needle on Vitaphone records moved from the inside of the disc to the outside.
The Vitaphone process made several improvements over previous systems:
- Amplification - The Vitaphone system was one of the first to use electronic amplification, using Lee De Forest's Audion tube. Lee De Forest, ( August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961) was an American Inventor with over 300 patents to his credit The Audion is an electronic Amplifier device invented by Lee De Forest in 1906 This allowed the sound of the phonograph to be played to a large audience at a comfortable volume.
- Fidelity - In the early days, Vitaphone had superior fidelity to sound-on-film processes, particularly at low frequencies. Sound-on-film refers to a class of Sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film usually but not always the same Frequency is a measure of the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit Time. Phonographs also had superior dynamic range, on the first few playings.
These innovations notwithstanding, the Vitaphone process lost the early format war with sound-on-film processes for many reasons:
- Distribution - Vitaphone records had to be distributed along with film prints, and shipping the records required a whole infrastructure apart from the already-existing film distribution system. A format war describes competition between mutually incompatible proprietary formats typically for Data storage devices and Recording formats for Electronic Additionally, the records would wear out after an estimated 20 screenings (a checkbox system on the record indicated the number of plays), and had to be replaced. This consumed even more distribution overhead. Damage and breakage were also inherent dangers.
- Synchronization - Vitaphone had severe and notorious synchronization problems. If a record skipped, it would fall out of sync with the picture, and the projectionist would have to manually restore sync. Additionally, if the film print became damaged and was not precisely repaired, the length relationship between the record and the print could be lost, also causing a loss of sync. The Vitaphone projectors had special levers and linkages to advance and retard sync, but it required the continual attention of the operator, and this was impractical. The system for aligning start marks on film and start marks on records was far from exact.
- Editing - A phonograph record cannot be physically edited, and this significantly limited the creative potential of Vitaphone films. Warner Brothers went to great expense to develop a highly complex phonograph-based dubbing system, using synchronization phonographs and Strowger switch-triggered playback phonographs (working very much like a modern sampler. The Strowger switch, also known as Step-by-Step or SXS, is an early electromechanical telephone switching system invented by Almon Brown Strowger. A sampler is an electronic musical instrument closely related to a Synthesizer. )
- Fidelity versus Sound-on-Film - The fidelity of sound-on-film processes improved considerably after the early work by Lee DeForest on his Phonofilm process, and the introduction by the Fox Film Corporation of Fox Movietone in 1927. In 1919 Lee De Forest, inventor of the Audion tube, filed his first patent on a Sound-on-film process DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly The Movietone sound system is a Sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures which guarantees synchronisation between the sound and the picture The DeForest and Fox systems were variable-density, but were superseded by RCA's variable-area sound-on-film process RCA Photophone, introduced in 1928. RCA Corporation, founded as Radio Corporation of America, was an electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986 RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded
With improvements in competing sound-on-film processes, Vitaphone's technical imperfections led to its retirement early in the sound era. Sound-on-film refers to a class of Sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film usually but not always the same In early 1930, Warner Bros. and First National stopped recording directly to disc, and switched to sound-on-film recording. The Warner studio had to publicly concede that Vitaphone was being retired, but put a positive spin on it by announcing that Warner films would now be available in both sound-on-film and sound-on-disc versions. Thus, instead of making a grudging admission that its technology was flawed, Warner appeared to be doing the entire movie industry a favor.
Theater owners, who had invested heavily in Vitaphone equipment only a short time before, were unwilling (or financially unable) to abandon the sound-on-disc process so quickly. Sound on film was now standard, but demand for sound on discs continued, compelling the Hollywood studios to offer disc versions of new films until 1937. (This is analogous to today's movie studios continuing to issue new films on VHS videotape after the DVD format had eclipsed it. )
Warner Bros. kept the "Vitaphone" name alive as the name of its short subjects division, The Vitaphone Corporation, most famous for releasing Leon Schlesinger's Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, later produced by Warners in-house from 1944 on. Leon Schlesinger ( May 20, 1884 – December 25, 1949) was an American Film producer, most noted for founding Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros Animated cartoon series which ran in many movie theatres from 1930 to 1969 Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros Year 1944 ( MCMXLIV) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Vitaphone name was adopted in the 1950s by Warner Bros. ' record label, as a trade name for high-fidelity recording.
Today there is a group of hobbyists known as "The Vitaphone Project," whose mission is to restore long-unseen Vitaphone productions. The members track down mute picture elements and their corresponding Vitaphone discs, and produce new, synchronized 35mm versions using the latest motion picture and sound technology. (Today's technicians have found that the original Vitaphone discs have superior sound fidelity, and are often preferable to the identical tracks in archival, sound-on-film copies. ) To date the Project has restored several dozen Vitaphone shorts from the dawn of sound, featuring many stars of 1920s vaudeville, radio, and the concert stage.
Though operating on principles so different as to make it unrecognizable to a Vitaphone engineer, Digital Theater Sound is a sound-on-disc system, the first to gain wide adoption since the abandonment of Vitaphone. DTS (also known as Digital Theater Systems) owned by DTS Inc ( is a multi-channel digital Surround sound format used for both commercial/theatrical
Further reading
- Barrios, Richard (1995). A Song in the Dark , Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195088115. (Examination of early sound musicals, with extensive coverage of Vitaphone)
- Bradley, Edwin M. (2005). The First Hollywood Sound Shorts, 1926-1931, McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-1030-2
- Crafton, Donald (1997). The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931, Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 0-684-19585-2
- Liebman, Roy (2003). Vitaphone Films: A Catalogue of the Features and Shorts, McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-1279-8
See also
External links
- Blog describing the history of the Vitaphone Process in detail
- Vitaphone Project dedicated to the restoration of Vitaphone films
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