1. Early Years of Sound

2. Great Depression & the Movies
Depression (began 1929)
Movie theaters lowered
prices to draw in larger
audiences
Double or triple features
Give-aways

3. Challenges from Sound Theaters didn’t have speakers or sound systems
Actors had to take speaking lessons and limit movement
Cameras became less mobile and were put in glass booths to hide their sound

4. How dialogue affected the music:
Couldn’t mix sounds in post-production
All dialogue, sound effects, and music had to be recorded at the same time
As a result, most early sound films have little music
Blackmail (1929)—start at 32:00
Made by Alfred Hitchcock
England’s first “talkie”
Originally shot as a silent film and then converted to sound mid-production
Silent scenes have synchronized music and dialogue scenes have none

5. Good Use of Music Hallelujah (1929) start at 13:00
-dubbed all music and dialogue in during post-production
First film by a major studio using an all-black cast
The Blue Angel (1930) start at 1:45
- Singing recorded live (like a musical)

6. Musicals Musicals became popular
So many were made that for several years they were box office “poison” until 42nd Street revived the genre in 1933

7. Cartoons & Music
Steamboat Willie (1928): fully exploited sound technology using music and sound effects
Silly Symphonies: short stories set to music (no dialogue—sometimes singing)
Carl Stalling: created music for many early Disney cartoons and then moved to Warner Bros. and composed for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies

8. King Kong (1933) Score by Max Steiner
Steiner hired to make the monster scary
Established the practice of using “leitmotifs” for specific characters
Themes: Kong & Ann

9. Classical Film Score of the 1930s
Extensive use of music
Full range of orchestral colors
Relied on melody-dominant post-romantic style
Principal themes and moods were established during the opening credits
Musical support for moods, settings, characters and action
Frequent borrowing of familiar melodies
Unity through leitmotifs and thematic transformation

10. Important Films 1935 1937 1938 Bride of Frankenstein, Franz Waxman
Use of leitmotifs for Monster & Bride
1937
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
First full length animated film
1938
The Adventures of Robin Hood, Erich Korngold
Established the “fight scene formula”

11. Animated Features
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated film (1937)
Earned more money than any film in the 1930s except for Gone with the Wind
Music plays throughout
Distinction between developed songs sung by humans and simple tunes for the dwarfs
Disney animated films were the top three grossing films in the 1940s (Pinnochio, Dumbo, Bambi)
Disney stopped making feature films during WWII to make cartoons that supported the war effort

12. Fight Scene Formula
Full Orchestration, emphasis on brass and percussion
Loud dynamics
Passages of quick notes
Irregular and hard accents
Motivic References