The History of Sound at the Movies

The inclusion of sound at the movies was one of the most dramatic changes in all of film history. Dive into the early experiments of Edison trying to incorporate sound from film’s inception, through the experiments in the early 1920s, the Jazz Singer and the industry sound overhaul, and finally the multi-channel surround and modern movie sound technologies.

If you have any further questions be sure to check out our questions page on Filmmaker IQ:

[alexpskywalker]

I think you are the most underrated channel on Youtube.  Amazing work, as always.

[SpanglySundew]

You should do a lesson on the restoration of films. Films that have been saved, lost, found and the processes that have been used to preserve films.

[strangersound]

This channel is like jacking into the Matrix training programs. Watching two of them will give you a headache, and I mean that in a good way. The amount of information delivered in such a concise manner is nothing short of mind blowing. It's content creators like this that make YouTube invaluable. :)

[BijouCinema]

I gave it a like before the video even loaded because what ever you talk about is interesting., so basically I already know I'm in for a treat. Thanks

[MDMart]

Your videos on insight to filmhistory, are amazing. I think I've said that before, but such an amazing yet underrated channel, deserves to hear it again.
Good job, John, you're one of the few YouTubers who I can't wait for when they will upload their next masterpiece. So keep up the good work

[billchambers]

ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL DOCUMENTARY!!!!  I have long been interested in the technological elements of sound recording -- the transition from acoustical recording to electrical recording, Vitaphone, sound-on-film, etc -- but I still learned much in this video.  The sound clips from the early days are priceless.  This is possibly the best documentary on "the coming of sound" that I have seen.  Thanks for creating it and posting it.

[DaveTexas]

Great video! I studied film/TV production in the ‘80s with an emphasis on post-production audio sweetening. I got to do the sound for everyone’s projects because so few people in film school cared much about the audio. Our audio sweetening studio was set up with three synced tape systems — an eight-track 1/2" machine, a two-track 1/4" machine, and a two-track digital tape machine. While we could theoretically mix for multichannel sound, the only way to export the sound was to a stereo S-VHS machine, so everyone’s projects ended up being stereo at best.

All this work in the analog field ended up making me a dinosaur as soon as I had graduated. I didn’t know anything about digital recording or editing tools. Likewise, I got my Masters degree in photography, learning film processing and printing techniques in the early ‘90s, only a decade or so before film became essentially obsolete. There’s nothing like being the guy who learns the skill of making buggy whips right before the automobile is introduced.

So, three decades later I’m a classical musician working for an opera company. I have a killer sound system set up in my house, though! I’m still more interested in the audio of a film than the video portion…

[seanmckinnon]

Four years after this video was released we have object based audio like Dolby Atmos which render "objects" "on the fly" during playback to use up to 64 discreet channels to place these sound "objects" in specific places in a room regardless of speaker location or room size.

[lcdmonitor]

John, still one of your best episodes, I show this to my friends often. The scene regarding the Jazz Singer, really illustrates how amazing the sound transition was... Imagine being in the audience and the film switches to recorded dialog and then back to title cards... At that moment anyone watching would have realized that "silent film" was dead... There's only a few times in history where such technological realizations were so abrupt.

In any case your work is always of the highest quality Mr. Hess and glad you continue to contribute.

[iammifl]

Filmmaker IQ  Thanks for making these. Learning so much from it. The way the videos are layed out and the way you explain the topics is just great.

[brianstraight]

I find your videos utterly amazing, you speak with such enthusiasm, knowledge and love for cinema and its history it's just infectious to watch.  It's always just brilliant.

[dinosaurfilms]

Star Wars did "kind of ok" at the box office. Yeah I think so too.

[scottmarshall]

Cinerama had three surround speakers, left, right, and center, switched manually, literally by a person sitting at the audio console. Perspecta didn't switch the mono track to one of the three screen speakers at a time. It dynamically and smoothly varied the volume of each speaker individually, so the sound could go to one only, any two, or all three in varying amounts with split-second timing. For example, a full orchestra playing would come from all three screen speakers, and if a cymbal crashed on the right, the right speaker would get louder and fade back just for the duration of the crash. Most of the time, the effect was indistinguishable from sound recorded and played with three channels because, like Dolby, it took into consideration psycho-acoustic listener considerations (I've studied Perspecta articles and patents and attended a theater screening of a Perspecta feature).

[AdamMcDermott]

Brilliant. I haven't seen a video of yours in a while. I was so excited when I saw this pop up in my subscription feed. Time to put on popcorn and soak this in:)

[atallguynh]

@29:51... my wife is obsessed with that sound. Just loves it.

[CFernandez]

Can I just say, getting to listen to your courses is the reason why I wash dishes in my household. 😂

[cashman]

The Quality of your content is just incredible.

[headrushindi]

These are the very best documentaries I have ever seen on the subject ofd film. Mr Hess is  a fantastic host. professionAL, entertaining, and immensley knowlegeable.. Bravo I have enjoyed your  documentaries very much

[retrolectrovideo]

I am always excited getting a new vivid course like this on film history ((-:

[sebass]

The sound of the chalk on the board is very pleasing