The Film Daily (1928)

THE -<^E^ DAILV Sunday, August 12, 1928 NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE FAST GROWING FIELD OF SYNCHRONIZATION SOUND By ARTHl RECORD MUSIC PRESAGES TALKERS BACKWARD STEP, BIG CHANGE IN SOUTH KING VIDOR BRIEVES Atlanta — Success of record music in theaters throuprhout this territory, presages revolutionary changes, it is believed here. A number of theaters arc using the Victor service, which provides a selection of records for individual pictures, and others cueing their own shows from stock records, from the cue sheets prepared by distributors. The Imperial, Jacksonville, wired for Vitaphone and Movietone, haci great success with the non-synchronous system, popularly known as "baby Vitaphone." As the amplification is through the regular Western Electric equipment, it is difficult toi patrons to distinguish between synchronous and non-synchronous accompaniments. The Metropolitan here, resorted to the double turntable immediately following "The Jazz Singer." After an eight weeks' consecutive run of this first Vitaphone film it behooved the Metropolitan to uphold its standard. But no Vitaphone feature-length picture was available. So Manager Carter Barron met the situation with "baby Vitaphone." He continued to present Vitaphone playlets and subsequently added Fox Movietone News, but the musical accompaniment for the feature picture is the result of his own enterprise. He uses the cue sheet as a guide, and each week buys the stock records necessary to score the picture. The F^mpire, Atlanta, installed the Orchestraphone and loud speakers and ever since its opening, months ago, has cued pictures from stock records. Some two months ago Manager Alpha Fowler inaugurated a new feature which likewise utilizes Orchestraphone. This is a song slide feature with the Orchestraphone providing the music. From the Orchestraphone, located in the pit. a buzzer system connects with the booth, and the organist signals the operator. In this way there is smooth coordination. Another suburban theater that is using a non-synchronous device of a different character is the Tenth Street of which Frank Harris is manager. He employs the double turntable, installed near the booth, and connected up with loud speakers located on either side of the screen. He chooses records from stock to fit the cue sheet. Movietone News at Seattle Seattle — 1'(>\ Movietone Xews will have a truck and two men here on permanent assignment, beginning Aug. 15. fVest Coast Bureau, THE FILM DAILY Los Angeles — Sound accomipaniment and effects are valuable, but talking pictures are a backward step, declares King Vidor, director, who finds himself unable to reconcile himself to the new "craze." "For years wc have strived to get away from the place where wc had to have two or more people .<;it down at a table and start talking to each other so we might explain the action through titles," Vidor said. "At least for three years I have flatly refused to film such scenes, believing that the screen had reached a point where more subtle pantomime and deftness of direction sufficed. Now, in the talking picture, we will come right back to the table and the abundance of conversation. "Personally, I can see no advantage in having spoken dialogue in motion pictures. It is something I feel is entirely out of place, and may tend to des,troy the quality of the films to be made with its incorporation. Sound attachments, however, are something entirely different again and I can see their value to the film production. 1 look for musical scores that will fit the theme of the picture more suitably than or chestrations have in the past. Noise effects also will add interest to a production. "But with the sound accompaniment, my interest in the new devices ends. I was unwilling to lielievc what I read when I returned to Paris from Italy and found the American papers full of the 'talkie' innovations. I did not believe it when 1 landed in New York and made an investigation of my own. I regret I cannot share the enthusiasm for this voice recording device. I honestly do not anticipate its success beyond the novelty stage. "Motion picture directors for years have been trying to do what artists have succeeded in doing, bring upon a flat screen something in the way of a pictorial presentation of some vista of human realism. You remember the time when some animal artists used to put bars in front to lend an added touch of realism? It destroyed the very illusion they had been seeking. Fancy a portrait, for example, in which, for added realism, the artists had it fixed up so the subject might wink at the spectators; so it is, I believe, with the screen. The art and charm is in the silent pantomime, not in the tricks we might have it perform." Ties Up with Sound Opening Pawtucket, R. I. — Coincidental to the installation of both Vitaphone and Movietone at the Strand, Publix house. Manager C. F. Millett arranged a lobby display which he billed as "Modern Miracles." The exhibition offered a new model automobile. f-'"rigidaire, washing machines and other comparatively new inventions. SOUND EILM CRAZE HITS MEMPHIS WITH A BANG Memphis — This city's wholesale "surrender" to sound pictures has served only to increase the "fever" throughout the territory, and it's just too bad for the exchanges in selling film. Exhibitors view with apathy the sales sheets on silent pictures, not knowing just what course to take, and hoping for moderate priced sound reproducing systems. Memphis — This city is capitulating to the sound picture craze, after holding aloof for several months. A rush for sound equipment is under way between first run houses of the city. Loew's Palace has opened with Vitaphone and Movietone. The Strand is being wired, after being dark for a year and Loew's State, combination house, goes to a soutid picture policy in a few weeks. The Pantages also has announced that Western Electric equipment is to be installed. The Lyceum also is planning to switch from a stock policy and pictures, to sound pictures. This would give the city seven sound houses. Rush to sound pictures was a sad blow to the Memphis Auditorium commission. Early in the summer the commission announced it was installing the double equipment ami would play the "talkies" with "Jazz Singer" for the debut. At that time the Orpheum, which will open probably in November, was the only sound picture threat. Last week the loop houses climbed aboard and the Majestic is the only first-run house not wired. Liebeskind Representing Movietone Cleveland — N. Liebeskind is here in charge of Fox Movietone News and Entertainments, as special representative with headquarters in Cleveland. He covers Cleveland, Detroit, Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Fitzmaurice to Make First Los .Angeles — Cieorge Fitzmaurice is to direct "Changelings," which is to be the initial First National picture employing dialogue. Denny in "Talkie" H^'est Coast Bureau, THE FILM DAILY Hollywood — Alice Day has been selected for a role in "Red Hot Speed," Reginald Denny's first talking picture for Universal. Several others also have been added to the cast, including Thomas Ricketts, Charles Byer, Fritzie Ridgway and Burr Mcintosh. Joseph Henabery will direct. Gladys Lehman and Matt Taylor have prepared the scenario and the talking dialogue. Appeals Made on Sound Censoring Philadelphia — State censors have appealed to the Supreme Court their fight for right to censor sound pictures, which was denied by the lower court in case against Fox. Warners has appealed a decision which is directly opposite, with the lower court holdmg that a Vitaphone subject is censorable. SEES SOUND ENHANCING VALUE OF SILENT FILMS, Players without voice training can master sound picture technique easily, beauty and personality will remain as now at a premium, and motion pictures will continue to be primarily motion pictures enhanced with dialogue and sound effects, backed by good judgment and seasoned showmanship. This is the summation of the beliefs expressed by Harry Rapf, M-G-M studio official in regard to sound pictures. "If it makes pictures more entertaining, audiences will demand it and producers will use it in every picture," Rapf said, "but if it doesn't help the entertainment value of a photoplay it'll be deader than a dodo in a short time." | "We have all the players we need. Mo1 tion picture companies aren't going to disrupt the stage by a grand rush for legitimate actors. The camera is the same harsh critic it always has been, the camera still rules, and always will rule, in pictures. "Many persons appear to believe that because we now may reproduce sound on the screen that it will put a premium on voices that have been built up for the stage. For the stage it is necessary to have a voice that may be heard in the twentieth row. as well as it can be heard in the first row. "That sort of voice isn't needed for the microphones. They'll pick up a whisper in close-ups, for instance. An actory voice is no good for the screen. A man or woman with a pleasant natural voice is all that is necessary. "The sound pictures may best be likened to the radio. Timing is the most important feature in speech, and we will get timing through direction. "I know there has been a feeling, even among producers, that the era of beautiful faces on the screen will pass before the sound reproducers. Don't you believe it. 1 say that screen personalities will last as long as the screen lasts. The eye requires beauty, and beauty it's going to have. "Entertainment is the same now that it always was and always will be. All we have to do, and all we are going to do, so far as I Icnow, is use .sound as it should be used to enhance the entertainment value of our pictures. When sound will be a good thing we will use it. We are not losing our heads over it. "Sound pictures are getting by now because they are a novelty. They will be getting by on their quality within six months. The pictures you hear a short time from now are going to be so far ahead of what you hear now, that you wouldn't realize that they were done by the same mechanical means. But always the camera will be the thing in pictures, not the microphone, and don't forget it." i State, L. A. Goes Sound H'est Coast Bureau, THE FILM DAILY Los Angeles — Movietone will make its debut at Loew's State Aug. 17, with the opening of Greater Movie Season in Los Angeles. On that day the theater will present Fox Movietone News Weekly as a regular feature. I "Dick" Fox Gets Han-a-Phone Richard C. Fox, who operates the exchange of that name at Buffalo, has acquired distribution of Han-aPhone in upstate New York. Buffalo Han-a-Phone Corp., is being formed to * market the device.