Early Years of Sound 1928-1933

Great Depression & the Movies Depression (began 1929) Movie theaters lowered prices to draw in larger audiences Double or triple features Give-aways

Challenges from Sound Theaters didn’t have speakers or sound systems Actors had to take speaking lessons and limit movement Cameras became less mobile and were put in glass booths to hide their sound

How dialogue affected the music: Couldn’t mix sounds in post-production All dialogue, sound effects, and music had to be recorded at the same time As a result, most early sound films have little music Blackmail (1929)—start at 32:00 Made by Alfred Hitchcock England’s first “talkie” Originally shot as a silent film and then converted to sound mid-production Silent scenes have synchronized music and dialogue scenes have none

Good Use of Music Hallelujah (1929) start at 13:00 -dubbed all music and dialogue in during post-production First film by a major studio using an all-black cast The Blue Angel (1930) start at 1:45 - Singing recorded live (like a musical)

Musicals Musicals became popular So many were made that for several years they were box office “poison” until 42nd Street revived the genre in 1933

Cartoons & Music Steamboat Willie (1928): fully exploited sound technology using music and sound effects Silly Symphonies: short stories set to music (no dialogue—sometimes singing) Carl Stalling: created music for many early Disney cartoons and then moved to Warner Bros. and composed for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies

King Kong (1933) Score by Max Steiner Steiner hired to make the monster scary Established the practice of using “leitmotifs” for specific characters Themes: Kong & Ann

Classical Film Score of the 1930s Extensive use of music Full range of orchestral colors Relied on melody-dominant post-romantic style Principal themes and moods were established during the opening credits Musical support for moods, settings, characters and action Frequent borrowing of familiar melodies Unity through leitmotifs and thematic transformation

Important Films 1935 1937 1938 Bride of Frankenstein, Franz Waxman Use of leitmotifs for Monster & Bride 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs First full length animated film 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood, Erich Korngold Established the “fight scene formula”

Animated Features Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated film (1937) Earned more money than any film in the 1930s except for Gone with the Wind Music plays throughout Distinction between developed songs sung by humans and simple tunes for the dwarfs Disney animated films were the top three grossing films in the 1940s (Pinnochio, Dumbo, Bambi) Disney stopped making feature films during WWII to make cartoons that supported the war effort

Fight Scene Formula Full Orchestration, emphasis on brass and percussion Loud dynamics Passages of quick notes Irregular and hard accents Motivic References