Silent After Sound

According to this article, why did hollywood switch over to "talkies" so fast? Why was 1928 such a pivotal year for silent cinema?

Hollywood was able to switch over to "talkies" fast because of the growing demand for movies with speaking audio and the technological innovation that supported it. With the introduction of The Jazz Singer released on October 1927, the movie industry understood that there was going to be a huge demand for audio-linked films from the reactions from the audience. Technological innovation backed this demand through the invention of the Movietone. 

The Sound of Star Wars

What was the effect of Star Wars on the movie industry? How did it affect the audience at this time? What were the long term historical trends that Star Wars set into motion after this?

As much as the visuals of Star Wars was appealing, the sound system in the movie was also revolutionary. The movie contributed to "cementing Dolby Sound's dominance in sound." Through Star Wars, sound designers realized the big experiences they were able to convey through sound. Because sound was such an important aspect of the film, movie theaters were forced to play stereo in order to allow the audience to get the full experience. The audience was able experience being immersed into the film through the wide dimension of sound. After Star Wars, the audience's audio expectations were raised significantly higher, demanding more immersive experiences. 

Hollywood VS. TV

Why was Hollywood threatened by television? What where three key reasons it became a threat?

1. In the post war era, the halted technological innovation was restarted to become one of Hollywood biggest threats. The families who saved money since the Great Depression were able to spend their money on homes in the suburbs. Because there were limited amounts of movie palaces in the suburbs, families turned to TV for entertainment. 

2. As the industry began to see the growing demand for TV entertainment, major TV networks began scrambling to purchase interests in TV stations. These were majorly successful, allowing them to gain a majority control of TV studios.

3. The federal government was quick to smack down the movie studio's ambitions to control television. Without the control over the new media, and the new industry gaining power, movies were faced with the reality of the ever decreasing profits. With the introduction of the Cold War, many actors, director,s and screenwriters were blacklisted if they were thought to be sympathizing with Communists.

The Jazz Singer

What were some technological issues that came up when it was first being implemented? What was significance of "The Jazz Singer" in film sound history?

In order to perfectly synchronize the audio with the visual, a Kinetophone was first invented. However, this device had very weak amplification abilities. Thus, the sound was only able to be heard one person at a time. Some versions of audio recording devices using disks were invented later, one of them being the Phonoscene. However, this method had poor amplification abilities and lost sync quickly. The Tri Ergon process was then invented, allowing audio to be recorded directly on the film. The Jazz Singer only included a couple clips with audio. However, these couple clips introduced Hollywood to the world of cinema with sound. Later on, most if not all films included synchronized audio.

8 Milestones of Recording

How do you think these technological advances affected filmmaking? Which 3 of these advances do you think are the most important to video and film? Why?

Technological advances allowed audio to be captured clearer, more aspects to be manipulated in post production, and production of audio to be more efficient. For example, the gramophone was one of the first devices to capture audio. Compared to the phonograph which was inefficient due to the cylinder shape of the audio recording, the gramophone was in a disk shape, making it easier to be stored. Another significant technological advancement was the Multitrack Recording. This allowed multiple tracks to be layered on top of one another which meant vocals and instrumentals were now able to be recorded separately. This way, a mistake in one part did not force the rest of the band to restart all over again. One of the more recent technological advancement in audio is the Dolby B system. This system was introduced as a result of the hiss noise from the casette recording. With the Dolby B technology, the efficiency of the casette tape and clear audio was able to coexist.

Questions About Early Sound

Take a moment to write down 2 questions about the history of sound at the movies that you would like to learn about. What do you want to know about these aspects of sound history?

1.  What kind of devices were use to capture audio?

              I want to learn how the shotgun microphone was developed and when the occupation as a boom operator became popularized.

2. When was the concept of foley audio developed?

             What kind of technology was needed for audio to be stacked on top of each other?

Bit Rates

How would you describe the differences between the bit rates? Why do each of them sound different from each other?

The audio tracks with higher bit rates seem to capture a larger spectrum of audio signals. In the first audio track where it displayed 320 kbps, it had a stinging clearness to each sound signal. However, as the bit rates fell, the audio sounded more muted. The high notes were especially not able to be heard clearly. Each of these tracks sound different from each other because the higher the bit rate, the more audio information is able to be stored in the file.