What was before Synchronized Sound?
Before there was synchronized sound, there were silent films and cartoons. The plot was told through actions and miming rather than dialogue. If there were words, they appeared on blank slides with the dialogue printed on it. Imagine if a comic book had blank panels with just speech bubbles in it. Walt Disney Studios' first works, the Alice Comedies, are examples of silent films. The first time sound was experimented with was in 1889. Thomas Edison and a few of his associates were toying with recorded music along side a moving picture. In 1926, "Don Juan" was released by Warner Bros. Though it had no dialogue, it was accompanied by a musical score. The following year, Warner Brothers released "The Jazz Singer", which included some sound effects and several lines of dialogue. These were both created by a record player that would play along side the projector.
What is SYNCHRONIZED Sound?
The dictionary defines synchronized sound as being a "motion-picture film with sound effects and dialogue recorded on it." While the silent films had records playing along side the films, synchronized sound had the audio recorded on the film itself. Usually, the sound was several frames away from the images that corresponded because the the audio pickup was set either above or below the lens assembly of the projector. The two types of technologies used in sound-on-film are optical or magnetic. The magnetic technology was not invented until 1950. The only technology available was Optical. A transparent line was recorded on one side of the film.The width of the line was determined based on the frequency of the sound. An exciter lamp provided a bright light to focus upon the transparent line as the film passed through the auto pickup. The light was converted to an electrical current by a photocell. The current was then sent to a preamplifier, which boosted the signal and sent it to the amplifier. From there, it went to the speakers and became audible sound.
Steamboat Willie
Despite people's common belief, Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie" was not the first Mickey Mouse cartoon created. Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks had created two previous Mickey Mouse cartoons, "Plane Crazy" and "The Gallopin' Gaucho." The two shorts could not attract the interest of a distributor. Walt thought adding sound to the Mickey Mouse cartoons would increase their popularity. Disney was approached by Pat Powers, who had just created a "cloned version" of the Phonofilm system which he renamed "Powers Cinephone." Powers convinced Walt Disney to use Cinephone to create the sound for "Steamboat Willie." The production began in July of 1928 with an estimated budget of $4,986. In the final soundtrack, the music was conducted by Carl Edouarde and performed by the Green Brothers Novelty Band. On November 18th, 1928, "Steamboat Willie" premiered in New York City at Universal's Colony Theater. It ran for two weeks at a price of $500 a week, which came out of Walt Disney Studios' pocket. The two previous Mickey Mouse cartoons were reproduced with sound and went on to become popular as well.
"The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I thought they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action again. It was terrible, but it was wonderful! And it was something new!" -Walt Disney on the previewing of "Steamboat Willie" to his employees and their families.
Fun Fact
"Steamboat Willie" was not the first official cartoon with synchronized sound. Several others were created several months before, however they failed to gain popularity due to the unreliability of the sound and the cheapness of some of the cartoons.