Photokinema
Encyclopedia
Photo-Kinema was a sound-on-disc
system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum.
reading an original poem "A Sunset Reverie", labor leader Samuel Gompers
speaking on labor issues, Judge Ben Lindsey on the need for a separate juvenile court
system, Irvin S. Cobb
reading from his works, and a lecture by James J. Davis
, Secretary of Labor
in the Harding administration.
Kellum also filmed musical numbers, including a performance of the song "De Ducks" by African American
musicians F. E. Miller
and Aubrey Lyles
who wrote the book for the musical Shuffle Along
(1921), and The Famous Van Eps Trio in a Bit of Jazz (1921), featuring Fred Van Eps
, father of musician George Van Eps
.
A filmed performance by Sir Harry Lauder
made in Phono-Kinema is preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive
but the disc with the sound is lost.
to record singing and sound effects sequences for his movie Dream Street
(1921). Employing the Phonokinema system, Griffith turned what was originally a silent film
into a sound film
. Earlier crude sound-on-disc systems had been invented 1894-1914 by Thomas Edison
(Kinetophone, Kinetophonograph), Cameraphone in the US, Gaumont
(Chronomegaphone) and Pathé
in France, and a few British systems. However, after these few early attempts to synchronize short films with phonograph records, Dream Street was the first feature film
in which the human voice could be heard on a specially-made disc.
Some prints of Dream Street show Griffith speaking in a brief introduction to the film. However, the sound quality was poor, and Dream Street was only shown with sound at the premiere engagement in New York City
. Two brief segments with sound were Ralph Graves
singing, and background crowd noises during a scene showing a crap game
.
The silent version premiered on April 12, 1921 at the Central Theatre in New York City. On April 27, Griffith and Ralph Graves recorded their respective sound segments at Orlando Kellum's Photokinema office at 203 West 40th Street.
The premiere of the sound version of Dream Street took place on May 2, 1921 at Town Hall in New York City with Griffith's introduction. On May 15, the film also featured two other short sound sequences — Ralph Graves singing, and background noise in a scene showing a craps game
. Unfortunately, no other theaters could show the sound version of the film, since no other theaters had the Photokinema sound system installed.
On Sunday, May 29, Dream Street moved to the Schubert-Crescent Theater in Brooklyn
in a program with Phonokinema short films. However, business was poor and the program soon closed.
Phonofilm
sound-on-film
system which premiered in New York City
on 15 April 1923. Phonofilm was itself overtaken by the Vitaphone
sound-on-disc system, premiered in New York with Don Juan
on 6 August 1926, and by other sound-on-film
systems such as Fox Movietone
in 1927 and RCA Photophone
in 1928.
According to Internet Movie Database
, two low-budget Western
s released in 1930, Sagebrush Politics and The Apache Kid's Escape, the latter film with Western star Jack Perrin
, were the last two films released in the Phonokinema system.
In 1982, Kellum's widow donated the surviving films made with the Phonokinema process to the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Sound-on-disc
The term Sound-on-disc refers to a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or playback sound in sync with a motion picture...
system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum.
1921 introduction
The system was first used for a small number of short films, mostly made in 1921. These films presented subjects such as actor Frederick WardeFrederick Warde
Frederick Barkham Warde was an English Shakesperian actor who relocated to the United States in the late 19th century.In the late 1870s he partnered with actor Maurice Barrymore and the two agreed to tour plays around the United States. Warde would have one section of the country while Barrymore...
reading an original poem "A Sunset Reverie", labor leader Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
speaking on labor issues, Judge Ben Lindsey on the need for a separate juvenile court
Juvenile court
A juvenile court is a tribunal having special authority to try and pass judgments for crimes committed by children or adolescents who have not attained the age of majority...
system, Irvin S. Cobb
Irvin S. Cobb
Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was an American author, humorist, and columnist who lived in New York and authored more than 60 books and 300 short stories.-Biography:...
reading from his works, and a lecture by James J. Davis
James J. Davis
James John Davis was an American steel worker and Republican Party politician in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He served as U.S. Secretary of Labor and represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate...
, Secretary of Labor
United States Secretary of Labor
The United States Secretary of Labor is the head of the Department of Labor who exercises control over the department and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all other issues involving any form of business-person controversies....
in the Harding administration.
Kellum also filmed musical numbers, including a performance of the song "De Ducks" by African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
musicians F. E. Miller
F. E. Miller
Flournoy Earkin Miller was an African American composer, singer, writer, and actor who appeared in vaudeville with Aubrey Lyles as Miller and Lyles....
and Aubrey Lyles
Aubrey Lyles
Aubrey Lyles was an African American songwriter, lyricist, and vaudeville performer, appearing with F. E. Miller as Miller and Lyles...
who wrote the book for the musical Shuffle Along
Shuffle Along
Shuffle Along is the first major successful African American musical. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, the musical premiered on Broadway in 1921.-Plot:...
(1921), and The Famous Van Eps Trio in a Bit of Jazz (1921), featuring Fred Van Eps
Fred Van Eps
Fred Van Eps was a noted banjoist and banjo maker. The "Van Eps Recording Banjo" was a well-known model until 1930.-Biography:...
, father of musician George Van Eps
George Van Eps
George Van Eps was an American swing and Mainstream jazz guitarist noted both for his recordings as a leader, and for his work as a session musician. He was also the author of instructional books that explored his approach to guitar-based harmony...
.
A filmed performance by Sir Harry Lauder
Harry Lauder
Sir Henry Lauder , known professionally as Harry Lauder, was an international Scottish entertainer, described by Sir Winston Churchill as "Scotland's greatest ever ambassador!"-Early life:...
made in Phono-Kinema is preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive
UCLA Film and Television Archive
The UCLA Film and Television Archive is an internationally renowned visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles. It holds more than 220,000 film and television titles and 27 million feet of...
but the disc with the sound is lost.
D. W. Griffith and Dream Street
The process was most famously used by D. W. GriffithD. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
to record singing and sound effects sequences for his movie Dream Street
Dream Street (film)
Dream Street is a silent movie directed by D. W. Griffith, and starring Carol Dempster, Charles Emmett Mack, and Ralph Graves in a story about a love triangle set in London, and based on two short stories by Thomas Burke, "Gina of Chinatown" and "Song of the Lamp"...
(1921). Employing the Phonokinema system, Griffith turned what was originally a silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
into a sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
. Earlier crude sound-on-disc systems had been invented 1894-1914 by Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
(Kinetophone, Kinetophonograph), Cameraphone in the US, Gaumont
Gaumont Film Company
Gaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....
(Chronomegaphone) and Pathé
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
in France, and a few British systems. However, after these few early attempts to synchronize short films with phonograph records, Dream Street was the first feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
in which the human voice could be heard on a specially-made disc.
Some prints of Dream Street show Griffith speaking in a brief introduction to the film. However, the sound quality was poor, and Dream Street was only shown with sound at the premiere engagement in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Two brief segments with sound were Ralph Graves
Ralph Graves
Ralph Graves was an American screenwriter, film director, and actor who appeared in 93 films between 1918 and 1949....
singing, and background crowd noises during a scene showing a crap game
Craps
Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank...
.
The silent version premiered on April 12, 1921 at the Central Theatre in New York City. On April 27, Griffith and Ralph Graves recorded their respective sound segments at Orlando Kellum's Photokinema office at 203 West 40th Street.
The premiere of the sound version of Dream Street took place on May 2, 1921 at Town Hall in New York City with Griffith's introduction. On May 15, the film also featured two other short sound sequences — Ralph Graves singing, and background noise in a scene showing a craps game
Craps
Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank...
. Unfortunately, no other theaters could show the sound version of the film, since no other theaters had the Photokinema sound system installed.
On Sunday, May 29, Dream Street moved to the Schubert-Crescent Theater in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
in a program with Phonokinema short films. However, business was poor and the program soon closed.
Phonokinema overshadowed by other systems
Phonokinema was soon overshadowed by the Lee De ForestLee De Forest
Lee De Forest was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use...
Phonofilm
Phonofilm
In 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...
sound-on-film
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...
system which premiered in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on 15 April 1923. Phonofilm was itself overtaken by the Vitaphone
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
sound-on-disc system, premiered in New York with Don Juan
Don Juan (1926 film)
Don Juan is a Warner Brothers film, directed by Alan Crosland. It was the first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack, though it has no spoken dialogue...
on 6 August 1926, and by other sound-on-film
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...
systems such as Fox Movietone
Movietone sound system
The Movietone sound system is a sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures that guarantees synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures...
in 1927 and RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
in 1928.
According to Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
, two low-budget Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
s released in 1930, Sagebrush Politics and The Apache Kid's Escape, the latter film with Western star Jack Perrin
Jack Perrin
Jack Perrin was an American actor specializing in westerns.-Biography:He was born Lyman Wakefield Perrin in Three Rivers, Michigan; his father worked in real estate and relocated the family to Los Angeles, California shortly after the turn of the century.Perrin served in the United States Navy...
, were the last two films released in the Phonokinema system.
In 1982, Kellum's widow donated the surviving films made with the Phonokinema process to the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
See also
- VitaphoneVitaphoneVitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
- PhonofilmPhonofilmIn 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...
- MovietoneMovietone sound systemThe Movietone sound system is a sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures that guarantees synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures...
- RCA PhotophoneRCA PhotophoneRCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
- Kinetophone
- Kinetophonograph
- Sound filmSound filmA sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
- sound-on-filmSound-on-filmSound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...
- List of film formats