This weeks lecture had made me think about the crucial transition from silent cinema to cinema accompanied by sound that we known and love today. What had changed during the transition and is there any way we can change sound in the future to achieve a next level.
I would place the first stage of evolution into sound cinema in 1925 when the Warner brothers, who had opened their first cinema in Pennsylvania in 1903 introduced sound into their film replaced the live orchestra that was the norm for cinema during those times. With the use of the Vitaphone it was possible to record music and replay the melody throughout every film in a warner brothers theatre, this also abolished the need to hire an orchestra. Although during that time the public was attached to silent film they did not want to hear the actors voices therefore theater companies decided to stick with silent film and record only music using the phonograph rather than record voices, yet as more films with music were produced the spectators realised that sound was not only just a fad and everyone grew into the vocal cinema.
Although along with this advancement of technology new problems that occurred recording this new type of film for example several qualitiy silent film actors did not have a pleasurable voice to accompany there on screen performance. Studios had to be built away from noisy areas in order to record quality sound and new equipment had to be bought in order to record these films and also to play them in theatres which effected the theater companies drastically.
[1] Through time sound quality evolved such as the introduction of optical sound using 70mm magnetic that furthered reduced noise while adding stereo channels which was first used experimentally during Warner films ‘superwoman’ (1978) and Apocalypse now (1979) before becoming the industry standard.
Gathering this information made myself think of the dilemma if sound in cinema can evolve any more than what it has today, every since those days of the creation of sound cinema we have evolved into surround sound in theaters and in home cinemas. As we reside in a world that is currently evolving technology in an alarming rate is there still room for improvement for sound in cinema?
For example, [2]Dolby released new technology named Dolby Atmos which was tested on Disney’s Brave in 2012 which introduced a new audio system that created an illusion of ‘an infinite number of speakers’.
Can voice and sound in cinema evolve to a further state and possibly revive theater cinema to what it was during the silent era in this day and age?
[1] http://www.cinematechnologymagazine.com/pdf/dion%20sound.pdf
[2] http://investor.dolby.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=683359
liammccosh 