Transcript Early Years of Sound

Early Years of Sound
1928-1933
Great Depression & the Movies
• Depression (began 1929)
– Movie theaters lowered
prices to draw in larger
audiences
– Double or triple features
– Give-aways
Challenges from Sound
• Theaters didn’t have speakers or sound
systems
• Actors had to take speaking lessons and limit
movement
• Cameras became less mobile and were put in
glass booths to hide their sound
How dialogue affected the music:
• Couldn’t mix sounds in post-production
– All dialogue, sound effects, and music had to be
recorded at the same time
• As a result, most early sound films have little music
• Blackmail (1929)—
start at 32:00
– Made by Alfred Hitchcock
– England’s first “talkie”
• Originally shot as a silent film and then converted to sound midproduction
• Silent scenes have synchronized music and dialogue scenes have
none
Good Use of Music
• Hallelujah (1929)
start at 13:00
-dubbed all music and dialogue in during postproduction
- First film by a major studio using an all-black cast
• The Blue Angel (1930)
start at 1:45
- Singing recorded live (like a musical)
Musicals
• Musicals became popular
– So many were made that for several years they
were box office “poison” until 42nd Street revived
the genre in 1933
Cartoons & Music
• Steamboat Willie (1928): fully exploited sound
technology using music and sound effects
• Silly Symphonies: short stories set to music
(no dialogue—sometimes singing)
• Carl Stalling: created music for many early
Disney cartoons and then moved to Warner
Bros. and composed for Looney Tunes and
Merrie Melodies
King Kong (1933)
• Score by Max Steiner
– Steiner hired to make the monster scary
– Established the practice of using “leitmotifs” for
specific characters
– Themes: Kong & Ann
Classical Film Score of the 1930s
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Extensive use of music
Full range of orchestral colors
Relied on melody-dominant post-romantic style
Principal themes and moods were established
during the opening credits
• Musical support for moods, settings, characters
and action
• Frequent borrowing of familiar melodies
• Unity through leitmotifs and thematic
transformation
Important Films
• 1935
– Bride of Frankenstein, Franz Waxman
• Use of leitmotifs for Monster & Bride
• 1937
– Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• First full length animated film
• 1938
– The Adventures of Robin Hood, Erich Korngold
• Established the “fight scene formula”
Animated Features
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first fulllength animated film (1937)
– Earned more money than any film in the 1930s except for
Gone with the Wind
– Music plays throughout
• Distinction between developed songs sung by humans and simple
tunes for the dwarfs
• Disney animated films were the top three grossing
films in the 1940s (Pinnochio, Dumbo, Bambi)
• Disney stopped making feature films during WWII to
make cartoons that supported the war effort
Fight Scene Formula
• Full Orchestration, emphasis on brass and
percussion
• Loud dynamics
• Passages of quick notes
• Irregular and hard accents
• Motivic References