Music and Film - 1920's and 1930's

When film first began in the 1890's (Faculty Washington 2014), it was not a popular medium and didn't being to be so until the 20's and 30's. And during this period there were more films a year then there are now which could possibly be because they had no TV so going to watch a film was their equivalent. Early films were in black and white due to the technology not being advanced enough for color, this was to come in 1967. (BBC 2016) They were also silent due to sound and film together not being available and although sometimes live musicians played, this was not very practical. Therefore to communicate the story the actors used big gestures and were often very slapstick

Charlie Chaplin was famous for his silent comedy as he created a character called 'The Tramp' who wore a mustache and bowler hat, and he played off this character for many of his silent films. Then in 1919 he founded a company so that he could be in complete control and even when sound films began to advance, he refused to move to sound films. Although many of his films have been recreated with sound over the top. Below we can see he used exaggerated body language and facial expressions so that the audience can understand the plot and to add comedic value to the film.

(TheChaplinFilms 2014)

When films started coming out that weren't silent they were known as talkies. These disturbed a lot of people as they found it weird that people were talking out of a screen but they grew to be more popular as people got used to it. However there were only moments of sound due to the amplification and synchronization of sound still being difficult and expensive to produce.The first official talkie was The Jazz Singer released in 1927 (IMDB 2016) and it only  had small sections of dialogue and still relied on everything that silent films did to portray the story but it was an advancement in what had been seen before so people received it very well as something new and exciting.

Seeing the success that The Jazz Singer received Walt Disney decided to create the first synchronized soundtrack cartoon was Steamboat Willie in 1928 (Moma 2004). It explored the use of dietetic sound which is where the sound source is visible and then non dietetic sound which means that the sound source is not visible on screen nor as it been implied to be in on the action. For example narrator's commentary, mood music or sound affects for dramatic effect. This capture people's attention because although there was no dialogue the use of the catchy whistle followed by humor sounds of noises from the boat and elsewhere made it very comedic and engaging for an audience.

(Walt Disney Animation Studios 2009)