Have you ever seen the movie Singin’ in the rain? If you have not, you must catch up on it, since it is a real masterpiece of Hollywood musicals. Even if musicals are not your cup of tea, I recommend you to watch it anyway. Made in the ’50s but set in 1927, Singin’ in the rain offers a light and funny, but still effective, view of how the advent of sound in the cinema industry changed it all. You can’t imagine how shocking and problematic this change has been. But that’s why we are here today, to find out together what these issues have been.

First of all, let’s start with some historical bites. The first sound movie was Don Juan of 1926. However, the first sound movie which was so successful to be now regarded as the movie that ended the silent era, was The Jazz Singer released in 1927. Unlike Don Juan, which contained only music, The Jazz Singer was the first movie to introduce spoken dialogues. Both of the movies were produced by Warner Bros: the company had developed a sound film system called Vitaphone, which consisted in phonograph recordings played in sync with the motion pictures. In order to mantain the synchronization both in the recording and projection stage, all the visual and sound appliances (camera and phonograph for the recording, projector and turningtable for the projection), were interlocked or powered by a common source.
Nevertheless, this historic invention had been initially rejected by the industry and the theaters owners, due to the great expenses of the equipping and the new obstacles that a change of this kind would have brought. It didn’t take long before the audience was bewitched with this new way of cinema and couldn’t help demanding for it. That was when the other studios started following the lead of Warner, engaging in a fierce competition in the production of sound movies or, as they used to call them, the talkies.

But what kind of obstacles and changes the invention of sound movies brought?

1. Houston, we have a problem
   The technology behind the sound was still rudimentary and it was unthinkable to manage to close-off the sound and remove the background clatter of the cameras. Contramptions had to be isolated in soundproof booths, from which cameras peeped out and filmed thanks to fixed telephoto lenses. Obviously, this was a limitation for camera movement and placement. Moreover, since sound mixing was still primitive, all the sounds planned for the same shot (dialogues, music, sound effects) should be recorded simultaneously, as the filming was running. That is why, for example, live orchestras had to be present off screen to accompany the performers and musical sequences were performed in continuity.
2. Perfect pitch
   Maybe you haven’t thought about it, but this was kind of a big problem. The great celebrities of silent era never had to use their voices and the majority of their audience did not know how their voices really sounded or how they spoke. When sound movies came out and talking became part of the acting job, actors had to start dealing with elocution but also with the sound of their voices, which might not be as pleasant as expected by their funs. They also had to start memorizing their lines, which involved not little effort. Last but certainly not least, they had to learn how to act with their voices, that is to say, how to sound dramatic, funny, authoritative, heroic and so on. The way of acting had to change completely, since the exagerated miming of the silent era seemed nonsense and odd if accompanied by spoken dialogues, which instead required a more naturalistic reciting.
3. In search of new talents
   The initial trend for the studios was to film revue movies as a quick way to test their stars abilities before the microphones —and thus see who could measure up with the transition from silent to sound. A new season of talent scouting started and many renowned actors of the silent era were replaced by newcomers. That is how the myth of the faded stars, perfectly told in the movie of 1950 Sunset Boulevard, started and the star-system became an increasingly more aggressive market.

SOURCES: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/movies/homevideo/17kehr.html#:~:text=The%20gradual%20transition%20from%20silent,expectations%20%E2%80%94%20before%20it%20was%20complete.https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/brief-history-of-sound-in-film/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitaphone