srinivas ganti

http://www.screenindia.com/archive/a...ontent_id=4953

SILENT MOVIES AND GRAMOPHONE

Suresh Chandvankar


About the time when the Gramophone Company adopted the new 'Dog and Horn'
trademark, the record manufacturing activity was in full swing at Calcutta.
The new premises at Sealdah were already established. This was also the time
when the silent movie industry was making inroads. Silent films were shown
in tents, empty garages, and small halls, or in open spaces at night. In
large cities, these films were exhibited in theatres built for drama
troupes. The projections were rudimentary and hand-operated. Even in Europe
the small cinema operators moved from place to place in caravans. Based on
that era, the famous Czech director Jerry Menzel produced a film titled
Those Magnificent Men With Their Cranking Machines and this film was
screened at a recent MAMI film festival in Mumbai. In this film, the silent
films were tagged on to cylinder phonographs for songs and dialogue. It was
quite interesting to see how the system operated in that period.

In India, particularly in cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Delhi,
silent movies were becoming quite popular. In these films the 'action' was
the mainstay and contained lots of fights, horse-riding, jumping and stunts.
Whenever dialogue were very much in need, the clipping, with printed matter
and dialogue would appear. Gramophone records were used rampantly to provide
sound effects. One person operated the hand-cranked projector and the other
was involved in playing appropriate records on gramophone. Also, there used
to be a person in front of the screen narrating the story and the events in
the film.

In 1909, during the visit of British Emperor George V, a big exhibition was
organised in Madras in which a Crown Megaphone, brought by a British
Company, happened to be a major attraction! In this machine, the projector
and the gramophone were connected together so that the sound and the picture
were seen and heard simultaneously. However, synchronisation of picture and
sound could not be accomplished properly. This was particularly apparent
during the dialogue and songs. A person named Raghupati Venkayya, a
photographer by profession, purchased all this machinery and started a
cinema theatre in a tent erected near Madras high court. Similar attempts
were made by Hiralal Sen in Calcutta, Patwardhan, Divekar and Chitre, and of
course by Dadasaheb Phalke in Maharashtra. They used a theatrical model,
which was in vogue for dramas. In front of the screen, there used to be a
pit to accommodate instrumentalists playing sarangi, harmonium, violin,
tabla etc. They used to play music as per the scene on screen. In
horse-riding and fighting scenes, some even used empty coconut shells to
make the desired sound.

Foreign films were accompanied with the orchestrations. One of the musicians
of that period, Francis Nazareth, has recorded in his memoirs that they used
to freely play the symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and others during
these shows. Some of the British residents used to import notation books and
the gramophone records. The instrumentalists used to sit in the wings of the
hall, or behind the screen, and provide required music and sound effects.
Nazareth himself was a violinist and a pianist of repute.

Despite all these efforts, there was a growing realisation that in order to
achieve the required synchronisation between sound and the picture, it is
necessary to record on film-strip along with the picture frame. Several
persons were working and technology was very slowly developing to
revolutionise the film industry.

srinivas ganti

http://www.screenindia.com/archive/a...ontent_id=4953

SILENT MOVIES AND GRAMOPHONE

Suresh Chandvankar


About the time when the Gramophone Company adopted the new 'Dog and Horn'
trademark, the record manufacturing activity was in full swing at Calcutta.
The new premises at Sealdah were already established. This was also the time
when the silent movie industry was making inroads. Silent films were shown
in tents, empty garages, and small halls, or in open spaces at night. In
large cities, these films were exhibited in theatres built for drama
troupes. The projections were rudimentary and hand-operated. Even in Europe
the small cinema operators moved from place to place in caravans. Based on
that era, the famous Czech director Jerry Menzel produced a film titled
Those Magnificent Men With Their Cranking Machines and this film was
screened at a recent MAMI film festival in Mumbai. In this film, the silent
films were tagged on to cylinder phonographs for songs and dialogue. It was
quite interesting to see how the system operated in that period.

In India, particularly in cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Delhi,
silent movies were becoming quite popular. In these films the 'action' was
the mainstay and contained lots of fights, horse-riding, jumping and stunts.
Whenever dialogue were very much in need, the clipping, with printed matter
and dialogue would appear. Gramophone records were used rampantly to provide
sound effects. One person operated the hand-cranked projector and the other
was involved in playing appropriate records on gramophone. Also, there used
to be a person in front of the screen narrating the story and the events in
the film.

In 1909, during the visit of British Emperor George V, a big exhibition was
organised in Madras in which a Crown Megaphone, brought by a British
Company, happened to be a major attraction! In this machine, the projector
and the gramophone were connected together so that the sound and the picture
were seen and heard simultaneously. However, synchronisation of picture and
sound could not be accomplished properly. This was particularly apparent
during the dialogue and songs. A person named Raghupati Venkayya, a
photographer by profession, purchased all this machinery and started a
cinema theatre in a tent erected near Madras high court. Similar attempts
were made by Hiralal Sen in Calcutta, Patwardhan, Divekar and Chitre, and of
course by Dadasaheb Phalke in Maharashtra. They used a theatrical model,
which was in vogue for dramas. In front of the screen, there used to be a
pit to accommodate instrumentalists playing sarangi, harmonium, violin,
tabla etc. They used to play music as per the scene on screen. In
horse-riding and fighting scenes, some even used empty coconut shells to
make the desired sound.

Foreign films were accompanied with the orchestrations. One of the musicians
of that period, Francis Nazareth, has recorded in his memoirs that they used
to freely play the symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and others during
these shows. Some of the British residents used to import notation books and
the gramophone records. The instrumentalists used to sit in the wings of the
hall, or behind the screen, and provide required music and sound effects.
Nazareth himself was a violinist and a pianist of repute.

Despite all these efforts, there was a growing realisation that in order to
achieve the required synchronisation between sound and the picture, it is
necessary to record on film-strip along with the picture frame. Several
persons were working and technology was very slowly developing to
revolutionise the film industry.