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"So Amazingly Perfect They Are Really Weird": Bringing Sound Back to the Edison Kinetophone. 1913
Saturday, November 19, 2:30 p.m.
Illustrated lecture by George Willeman, The Library of Congress
Approximately 60 min.

Museum of Modern Art
11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019

Link: http://moma.org/calendar/events/2519?locale=en

On February 17, 1913, after many years of R+D, Thomas Alva Edison introduced the Edison Kinetophone to an enthusiastic New York audience. The Kinetophone was a fairly complex mechanical means of creating talking pictures. Unlike previous systems, in which actors would be required to lip sync to preexisting recordings on camera, the Kinetophone was one of the earliest film technologies to record sound at the same time as the image. More than 200 of these Kinetophones were produced between 1913 and 1914, but only a handful of the films and their accompanying sound cylinders survive. The Library of Congress, in cooperation with the Thomas Edison National Historical Park, has reconstructed eight of these Kinetophones, some of which have not been seen—or heard—since their debut 103 years ago. Library of Congress preservationist George Willeman presents six of them, including Nursery Favorites; The Deaf Mute, Part 1; and The Musical Blacksmiths, in an illustrated lecture.

While technically "possible" to record live sound at the time of filming the picture element, my understanding was the sound was recorded first and the performers lip-sync'd the sound for the picture to avoid having any recording horn visible in the picture elements.

Thank you for posting this here, Jerry. I hope it's a resounding success! If I were nearer to the venue, it would be on my must-do list, at the very top.

Best,
Fran

Phototone wrote:While technically "possible" to record live sound at the time of filming the picture element, my understanding was the sound was recorded first and the performers lip-sync'd the sound for the picture to avoid having any recording horn visible in the picture elements.

That is what most of us previously THOUGHT.....but the sound was recorded live. Pictures of the studio show there was a very large Edison style flower horn suspended over the actors (the recording machine is on a scaffold) In one of the films the lower edge of the recording horn can be barely glimpsed- but the best thing is, as the actor moves across the stage the horn moves to follow him- there was a long rod attached to the horn to do this.

Another proof is that the voices SOUND as if they were recorded some distance from the horn.

In "The Edison Minstrels" the onscreen orchestra is conducted by a very visible Eugene Jaudas.

This is a particular fetish of mine and I would love be able to go. Thanks for posting this. Any samples on-line?

JRT

Lenoirstreetguy wrote:This is a particular fetish of mine and I would love be able to go. Thanks for posting this. Any samples on-line?

JRT

Just the couple of clips that have been around for years.

The only one I have seen is Nursery Favorites. It is obvious this is lip-synced. At least to me.

I know that Edison bought out Higham's friction system for reproduction on the Kinetophone: but I wonder whether they investigated the possibility of using that technology for recording?

Bill

Lucius1958 wrote:I know that Edison bought out Higham's friction system for reproduction on the Kinetophone: but I wonder whether they investigated the possibility of using that technology for recording?

Bill

That is what the commentator said, though the Higham amplifier wasn't named- but what I recall him saying was that the records were made live and then played back through an amplifying device which produced a louder dub.

In any case I'm now convinced that at least some of them were recorded live in front of the camera. The voices have a distant quality. If they'd lip synced then they'd have used records where the performers stood close to the horn.

Here is a bit of the demonstration film in a previous synchronization. The Edison site has the complete film which involves the actor smashing a plate, but one of the cylinders is missing. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRqQhUQTaUc[/youtube]

estott wrote:

Lucius1958 wrote:I know that Edison bought out Higham's friction system for reproduction on the Kinetophone: but I wonder whether they investigated the possibility of using that technology for recording?

Bill

That is what the commentator said, though the Higham amplifier wasn't named- but what I recall him saying was that the records were made live and then played back through an amplifying device which produced a louder dub.

In any case I'm now convinced that at least some of them were recorded live in front of the camera. The voices have a distant quality. If they'd lip synced then they'd have used records where the performers stood close to the horn.

Here is a bit of the demonstration film in a previous synchronization. The Edison site has the complete film which involves the actor smashing a plate, but one of the cylinders is missing. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRqQhUQTaUc[/youtube]

" . . . can be seen and heard one-hundred years from now!" Indeed.