About this Item
11 x 8.5", 44 mimeographic (?) leaves, from typed originals, with 24 leaves of blue-line photographs and schematics of the equipment. Punch-bound at one time, though metallic binding element is not present.__+__ Good condition. Document pp 1-44, lacking 26 and 27 (which seems to be a two-page section); images/blueprints 1-28, lacks 17,18, and 22. Problematic in a few spots, but this is a rare item, and may be the sole survivor. __+__ The text includes: General introduction (pp 1-7, 4 illustrations); the Ribbon Microphone (8-12, 3 illustrations); Microphone Distribution Panel, (13-14pp, 2 illustrations); Microphone Mixing Panel (15-17, 2 illustrations); Compensator Panel (18-21, 2 illustrations); Recording Amplifier (22-25pp, 2 illustrations); Ground Noise reduction Amplifier (28-30, 2 illustrations); 35mm Film Recorder (31-34, 2 illustrations); 16mm Film recorder (page 35, 2 illustrations); Film Phonograph Reproducing Equipment (36-39 pages, 2 illustrations); Phototube Amplifier (40-41, 1 illustration); 35mm to 16mm Film Re-recorder, 42-44pp, 2 illustrations). __+__ This a sound-on-film incunable. This means the pamphlet was printed within the first five years of the first "talking" (synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image) motion picture. The first feature length film using sound throughout (1) the length of the movie was The Jazz Singer, which was released in 1927 and used a sound-on-disc(2) system of recording. That means that the audio portion of the film was recorded onto records, and then synchronized in playback with the film to match up the audio and video--this technology was obviously not the future.__+__ The technology of sound-on-film would take the day, and in very short order, leading to four different systems, of which the Photophone was one. Photophone's share of the prospective studio users was pretty good: the earliest major producers/licensees included Walt Disney Productions (after 1932), RKO Radio Pictures, republic Pictures, Warner Brothers, and Pathe. And on the Film Phonograph Reproducing Equipment: "the need for combining two or more sound tracks, the adding of sound effects to an original recording, or matching around levels of scenes in the final editing of a picture has brought re-recording into an increasingly important position in sound picture production". The work is in general a technical report and sales pitch for the new system.__+__ Provenance: from the estate of Harold E. Sunde. (1910-1990), an engineer for Radio Corporation of America, was responsible for the explanation and demonstration of the RCA "Photophone" invention, one of the earliest simultaneous sound-on-film recorders and projectors. His work also included the introduction of the equipment to England and the Soviet Union, where true sound-on-film motion pictures were seen for the first time. [++] Notes: 1. Earlier on in the mid-1920's there were efforts of using sound in film but limited to music or very specific areas of the film, most of which in the end was silent. 2. The movie was made with the Vitaphone system, which was not long for this world, soon to be replaced by the more sophisticated sound-on-film systems.__+__ "In 1925 GE started a program to develop commercial sound-on-film equipment based on Hoxie's work. Unlike the Phonofilm and Movietone systems in which the audio modulated the intensity of a recording lamp which exposed the soundtrack, thus creating a variable-density track, the GE system employed a fast-acting mirror galvanoemter to create a variable-area soundtrack. A number of demonstrations of this system, now known as Photophone, were given in 1926 and 1927. The first public screenings with this system were of a sound version (music plus sound effects only) of the silent film Wings which was exhibited as a road-show in around a dozen specially equipped theatres during 1927."--Wiki. Seller Inventory # ABE-1594609673780
Contact seller
Report this item
