Phonofilm

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Phonofilm was the name of a sound film process that the American technician Lee de Forest developed in 1919. It was a sound-on-film system based on a principle that was used almost at the same time, around 1919, by the German inventor trio Hans Vogt , Jo Engl and Joseph Masolle in their “Tri-Ergon” process .

Procedure

The sound picked up by the microphone is converted into electrical differences and amplified in vacuum tubes so that it can control a lamp, which turns the electrical differences into brightness fluctuations. These are mapped onto the photographic film (hence sound-on-film ) via the slit optics, a kind of inverted microscope, and recorded there alongside the image information in the form of a narrow sound track. Since the sound information is contained in the form of fluctuations in the intensity of the light, one also speaks of intensity methods, in English of variable density .

For playback, the sound track on the running picture film is illuminated by a sound lamp burning with constant brightness. The light intensity fluctuations recorded on it are converted into electrical differences by a photocell , which can be amplified and converted back into sound by loudspeakers.

meaning

De Forest's contribution to sound film consists on the one hand in his invention of a gas-filled three-electrode tube (triode), the " audion " which is also used for radio reception , with which weak signals could be amplified, and on the other hand in the realization of the "photographed sound" on the picture film, which, in contrast to all pin-tone systems that work with two different information carriers, the film for the picture and the gramophone record for the sound, has no synchronization problems. Image and associated sound information are permanently linked to one another on a common carrier. Nothing can diverge. Duplication is also simplified because image and sound information can also be copied together as they are stored on the same film strip.

To evaluate his patents, De Forest founded a film company, DeForest Phonofilm Co. , With which he made numerous short sound films in the USA between 1923 and 1925 and equipped more than 30 cinemas worldwide with sound film equipment. The short strips, which were initially only produced to arouse the interest of the major studios, are now regarded as rare documents in the history of jazz and entertainment culture.

He also had current events recorded, e.g. For example, the politicians Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt with their election speeches, or the Swedish-born ocean aviator Charles Lindbergh , whom he had filmed both on his departure from England and on his arrival in New York, where he was presented by Mayor Jimmy Walker on May 13. June 1927 was awarded a medal; The arrival of the Duke of York in Farm Cove in 1927 was also the subject of a sound film report that was shown on May 12, 1927 in Sydney in the "Lyceum" cinema. Finally, in 1928, the Armistice Day celebrations were recorded on phonofilm and awarded by the British Sound Film Corporation.

DeForest also used his sound system for film art. “Plastigrams”, an experimental 3-D film by the inventors Frederick Ives and Jacob Leventhal from 1922, was provided with a soundtrack in 1924, as was “Siegfried”, Fritz Lang's first part of the “ Nibelung ”, which premiered in New York was accompanied on August 23, 1925 with an orchestral music on optical sound.

But although his apparatus was working satisfactorily and although producer Adolph Zukor had given an introductory speech promoting the optical sound system as early as 1923 on the occasion of the performance of the two full-length “Paramount” films, The Covered Wagon and Bella Donna , which were set to music using the phono system, the necessary funding remained on the part of investors. Hollywood showed little interest in DeForest; In 1928 he had to sell his patents. The same thing happened to the German inventors of “Tri-Ergon”, who had to sell their patent to Fox in 1926 because the German film industry was not interested in it at the time.

The early German-British sound film co-production “The Red Circle” by Friedrich Zelnik based on the crime novel by Edgar Wallace was produced in 1929 using the DeForest Phonofilm process.

literature

  • Randy Alfred: March 12, 1923: Talkies Talk ... on Their Own. In: Science. December 3, 2008.
  • James zu Hüningen: Phonofilm. In: Lexicon of film terms. (last changed on October 13, 2012)
  • Tony Martin-Jones: Phonofilming the Duke of York opening Australia's Federal Parliament. In: Film history index. Edition 3.1 (from July 16, 2014). ( online at: apex.net.au )
  • John Reid: Films Famous, Fanciful, Frolicsome & Fantastic (= Hollywood classics. Volume 15). Lulu.com Publisher, 2006, ISBN 1-4116-8915-1 .
  • Jan Reetze: Media Worlds: Appearance and Reality in Image and Sound. Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-642-84932-9 , p. 34 f.
  • Friedrich von Zglinicki: The way of the film. History of cinematography and its predecessors . Rembrandt Verlag, Berlin 1956.

Web links

  • List of De Forest Phonofilms (243 Titles)
  • youtube.com A Few Moments With Eddie Cantor. De Forest Phonofilm made at the midtown Manhattan studio in 1923.
  • youtube.com Bard and Pearl (Vaudeville stars Jack Pearl and Ben Bard perform one of their routines) - early 1923 experimental Sound-on-film (phono film) by Lee DeForest. Played in NYC at the Rivoli theater.
  • youtube.com The Victoria Girls perform the Doll Dance : De Forest Phonofilm made at DeForest's Clapham studio in 1928. Directed by Hugh Croise.

Illustrations:

  • Photo of Lee deForest in front of the optical sound camera, holding a tube in his hand, with his assistant Owen Freeman.
  • Photo by Lee deForest with his sound film recording device (microphone, sound camera), ca.1925 (Science Photo Library No.19709)
  • Photo by Lee deForest in front of his sound film projector
  • Phonofilm by Lee deForest with optical soundtrack in intensity writing (Variable Density Format)
  • DeForest Phonofilms poster
  • Poster for the Australian motion picture theater “Strand” in Newcastle, New South Wales, for a screening of “DeForest Phonofilms (Talking Pictures)” with a filmed address by the Duke of York 1927: See and hear the Duke on the screen!

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see medienkunstnetz.de
  2. ↑ cf. fernsehmuseum.info
  3. ↑ cf. Hans Jürgen Wulff and Georg Maas, article “Nadelton” in the dictionary of film terms
  4. ↑ For example, films like Songs of Yesterday (1922), Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake Sing Snappy Songs (1923), and Ben Bernie and All the Lads (1925)
  5. ↑ it shows representatives of the musical and the variety show in the USA, z. B. A Few Moments with Eddie Cantor (1923), the vaudeville stars Jack Pearl and Ben Bard with one of their stage sketches, the Yiddish- speaking reciter Monroe Silver with his scene “Cohn on the phone”, or the “Victoria Girls” who did her in 1928 famous dancing medley , performed by Nacio Herb Brown's “The Doll Dance”.
  6. ^ Al Smith and Franklin D. Roosevelt were filmed during the 1924 Democratic National Convention, held June 24 to July 9 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Coolidge became the first US President to appear in a sound motion picture when DeForest filmed him at the White House on 11 August 1924 . See deforestradio.com
  7. ^ Charles Lindbergh (1927) filmed at Clapham Studios in London on Lindbergh's departure from the UK. See deforestradio.com
  8. ↑ Charles Lindbergh Reception (1927) Lindbergh receives Medal of Valor from NYC mayor Jimmy Walker on June 13, 1927 Cf. deforestradio.com
  9. ^ The Duke and Duchess of York Arrive at Farm Cove (1927) film first shown 12 May 1927 at the Lyceum in Sydney, Australia . See deforestradio.com
  10. ^ Armistice Day of 1928 (1928) produced by Phonofilms (Singapore) and released by British Sound Film Corporation. See deforestradio.com
  11. ↑ Cf. deforestradio.com  : “Plastigrams” (1924) 1922 experimental 3-D film by Frederick Ives and Jacob Leventhal, re-released with Phonofilm soundtrack on September 22, 1924 - cf. also HJWulff, article “Plastigram” in the Lexicon of Film Terms , Reid p. 15.
  12. ^ "Die Niebelungen" [sic] (1924), part I, "Siegfried" (only at the US premiere in NYC on August 23, 1925) . See deforestradio.com
  13. ↑ It is unclear whether in whole or in part, see: A musical soundtrack was recorded in the short-lived DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, but sources vary on whether this record soundtrack was of the entire score or about two reels worth of the film. The Phonofilm version of the film was only shown this way at the premiere at the Rivoli Theater in New York City. See en.wiki
  14. ↑ Adolph Zukor Introduces Phonofilm (1923) for release of The Covered Wagon and Bella Donna, two Paramount Pictures feature films with soundtracks filmed in Phonofilm . See deforestradio.com
  15. ↑ cf. Zglinicki p. 629 f.
  16. ↑ Original title The crimson circle , in Germany also “Around Europe”. The following were involved: British International Pictures (BIP), British Sound Film Productions and Efzet Film, cf. IMDb and filmportal.de
  17. ↑ cf. "The red circle". In: “Illustrierter Film-Kurier” (Berlin), publisher: “Film-Kurier” GmbH, Verlag Alfred Weiner, No. 1095, March 1929, p. 8; but there were also silent copies in the distribution.