MTM lesson 10 - Music and Film 2024.pdf

Music & Film http://homepage.mac.com/oldtownman/recording/motionpicture1.html Bing Crosby (1903-1977) “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin in the film Holiday Inn, 1942 “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin Composed for musical Holiday Inn 1942: Made into movie, Paramount Pictures Sung by Bing Crosby – “...

Music & Film http://homepage.mac.com/oldtownman/recording/motionpicture1.html Bing Crosby (1903-1977) “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin in the film Holiday Inn, 1942 “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin Composed for musical Holiday Inn 1942: Made into movie, Paramount Pictures Sung by Bing Crosby – “Crooning” thanks to electrical recording – Radio crooner à Hollywood star Single released on Decca, 1942 (from film’s master recording) Has sold 50 million copies since, the top-selling physical single (Wikipedia) àThe Film plugged the song àExample of Hollywood’s top quality recording technology Today’s topics I. Sound in motion pictures II. Early film music / soundtracks III.Film music internationally IV. Music helped sell movies I. Sound in Motion Pictures: Three Eras Silent Films (1890s-1929): with live music: – Pianists, organists, pit orchestras – High sound quality – Started with excerpts from classical music with cliché emotions. Gradually original music was composed. I. Sound in Motion Pictures: Three Eras Silent Films (1890s-1929): with live music: – Pianists, organists, pit orchestras – High sound quality Sound-on-Disc (1900-1930s): Sound Discs – Film projector and disc-gramophone started together – Synchronization Problems: record skip, film glitch Sound-on-Film (1927-): – Sound track on the film strip – No synchronization problems Sound on Cylinder Edison’s kinetophone and kinetoscope with phonograph (1890s-1915) Sound on Disc Vitaphone & Warner Bros, The Jazz Singer, 1927, Al Jolson Singing in the Rain (1952) About Hollywood’s transition from silent films to “talkies” (films with recorded sound) Poked fun at real problems: – Sound recording problems – Out-of-synch sound-on-disc films – Actors with unappealing voices from silent films replaced – Competing film companies Competing Technologies & Companies Sound-on-Disc Sound-on-Film Kinetophone, 1913 (Edison) Vitaphone, 1924 (Warner Bros, Western Electric) others Phonofilm, 1919 (Lee De Forest, Theodore Case) Movietone newsreels, 1927 (Fox Studios, Case) ERPI (Western Electric) Photophone (RCA), still used Fantasound (RCA, Disney) others Sound track Movie Theaters Converted in 1930s Vitaphone à Photophone (Not all equipment shown is from 1930s) Amps and Speakers Remained Fantasia (Disney, 1940) Fantasound RCA and Bell Technologies Recording: multi-track, click track, overdubs Playback: Stereo and center speakers Too expensive for theaters to install Limited distribution RKO converted film to mono soundtrack Why was sound-on-film technology superior to sound-on-disc? If time… What did music critics and musicians think of music accompaniment to films and the transition from silent films to talkies? A music critic writes about live music for silent films: – Doron K. Antrim, “Possibilities of Movie Music— Present and Future,” Metronome, 15 Feb 1926 A music union president about music in talkies: – An Interview with Joseph N. Weber, “Will MachineMade Music Displace Real Music in Our Theaters? Metronome, Sep 1928 II. Early Film Music / Soundtracks Diegetic: music within the action, coming from the visible scene (or source music) Extra-diegetic/non-diegetic: background music added to the scene, neither visible on screen nor implied to be off-screen The two types can be combined. Film music in early-to-mid 20th century Reused famous classical compositions Slowly emerging original film scores Main stylistic influences on soundtracks: – European romantic-style orchestral and operatic music (e.g., Richard Wagner) – French impressionism (e.g., Claude Debussy) – Cabaret, vaudeville, popular music, jazz – Cliché sounds leitmotif Max Steiner, highly influential soundtrack composer for talkies from 1929 to 1965 King Kong (1933) “Traditionally viewed as the prototypical extra-diegetic score, King Kong featured a clear leitmotivic structure, illustrative music synchronized with specific on-screen activity, a degree of dissonance to suggest terror, and an intelligent use of silence to emphasize diegetic sound (notably in the climactic scene atop the Empire State Building, in which the sound of the biplanes’ machine guns predominates). All these characteristics have remained central to mainstream film music.” (Mervyn Cooke, “Film Music,” Grove Music Online) Casablanca (1942) “In his later music for romantic melodramas, including Gone with the Wind (1939), Steiner preserved a link with silent-cinema traditions by incorporating allusions to easily recognizable melodies such as Civil War songs and national anthems where dramatically justified. In Casablanca (1942) he transformed the diegetic popular song ‘As Time Goes By’ to provide narrative comment in the background score.” (ibid.) Creative Exercise You are the film composer Opening sequence in remake of King Kong (2005), actual score by James Newton Howard IV. Film Music Internationally student presentations III. MUSIC HELPED SELL FILMS Musical Films: Hits of the Depression Ginger Rogers, Busby Berkeley, Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), songs by Harry Warren & Al Dubin Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Swing Time (1936), music by Jerome Kern & Dorothy Fields Oscar Micheaux, Swing! (1938) featuring Dolly Jones, trumpet; various composers Showboat (1936 version), 1927 musical by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II Marx Brothers, Duck Soup (1933), music by Bert Kalmar & Harry Ruby, and many covers Judy Garland, Wizard of Oz (1939), score by Herbert Stothart, songs by Harold Arlen & E. Y. "Yip" Harburg Herbert Stothart conducting the MGM Studio Orchestra for The Wizard of Oz, MGM studios, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)#/media/File:Orchestral_recording_for_The_Wi zard_of_Oz_(1939).jpg Cut for time Jazz on Film Short films, predecessors to music videos “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin performed by Paul Whiteman (1930) Symphony in Black, by Duke Ellington with Billie Holliday (1935) How do the films portray the musicians? How do the films depict the music? Compare the visual styles