Showing posts with label early films. Show all posts
Showing posts with label early films. Show all posts

Thursday, February 20, 2020

Because EVERY DAY is McCay Day!

Found an Edison recording from 1909 with selections from the operetta "Little Nemo" by Victor Herbert's.  Of course it just HAD to be blended with McCay's animation from 1911!!




Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Don't Be Nervous (1929) - clip demonstrating sound technique

1929 wasn't a good year for movies that moved.  Sound generally meant a camera bolted in place, boxed to create a quiet camera and dehydrated cameraman.  And for the sound itself, it wasn't high fidelity - it practically had to fight to get onto the soundtrack.  Watch The Broadway Melody (1929) to track MGM's learning curve (spoiler alert - it isn't too curvy), or examine the Marx Brothers in their first film for Paramount, The Coconuts, to observe the direct method to prevent crackly paper from destroying a take.

Lloyd Hamilton, himself


So for a two-reeler from Educational Pictures in 1929 to not only handle sound pretty well, but to add a split-screen AND interactive soundtrack is pretty amazing.  Lloyd Hamilton, generally unknown today, was appreciated by his contemporaries (Buster Keaton particularly among them), provided this example of how he handled "the talkies."  I know I was rather stunned - from Don't Be Nervous, directed by William Watson. 





The whole thing is here:
https://archive.org/details/DONTBENERVOUSLloydHamiltonTalkie