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The Phonoscène was a forerunner of sound film. It combined a chronophone sound recording with a
chronographfilm shot with actors
lip-synching to the sound recording. The recording and film were synchronized by a mechanism patented by
Léon Gaumont in 1902. The first Phonoscènes were presented by Gaumont in 1902 in
France.[3]
Phonoscènes were played on an apparatus known as a
Chronophone or a later development of it known as a
Chronomegaphone. Both variants typically had two turntables and two speaker horns, and both used
compressed air to amplify the sound.[4][5]
Phonoscènes were typically the duration of one
gramophone record, including only one song, but longer
sound-on-disc films were made of
operas. Faust (1907) ran for 1 hour and 6 minutes,[6] with 22 scenes,[7] presumably with the audio content on 22 separate discs. The method of production, because it involved lip-synching, was only well-suited to recording singing, not spoken drama. Most Phonoscènes were in French language, but some were in English, German, or Italian.[6]
The sound recordings were mostly issued on 16 inch discs, but also some 12 or 10 inch discs, based on a collection of around 100 such recordings in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division of the
Library of Congress.[8]
^Keazor, Henry and Wübbena, Thorsten (eds). "Introduction" to Rewind, Play, Fast Forward: The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video, transcript Verlag (2010)
ISBN978-3-8376-1185-4
^Burch, Noël. La Lucarne de l’infini. Naissance du langage cinématographique Paris, Nathan, 1991, chapter 10, p. 226, 5th footnote (quotation: "en puissance, le premier long métrage «parlant» !" ("in power, the first feature "talking" film !") English version: Life to those shadows University of California Press, Berkeley, BFI Londres, 1990
^
abcdSchmitt, Thomas. The Genealogy of Clip Culture, in Henry Keazor and Thorsten Wübbena (eds.) Rewind, Play, Fast Forward: The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video, transcript Verlag (2010), pp. 45 et seq.,
ISBN978-3-8376-1185-4
^Daily Telegraph, London 5 April 1907, compiled by Gaumont press services conserved at the
Bibliothèque du film in Paris (quotation: An afternoon entertainment of "Singing Pictures" at Buckingham Palace afforded much enjoyment. The Queen's command was received at the Hippodrome yesterday morning, instructing a private exhibition ... to be given in the Palace, commencing at three o'clock. ...[T]he instrument, placed in the [throne room], cast the pictures through the folding-doors [into the Green Drawing Room] upon a screen hung behind a bank of palms.
^Daily Mail, 5 April 1907 (quotation: ...the Queen showed her pleasure by commanding the putting on of extra pictures after the ordinary programme had been completed. The entertainment lasted about an hour.
^Altman, RickSilent Film Sound, Columbia University Press (2005), p. 159,
ISBN978-0-231-11662-6 (quotation: Interest in synchronized sound systems was renewed in early 1907 with reports of the Chronophone's successful performance at the London Hippodrome.
^Altman, RickSilent Film Sound, Columbia University Press (2005), p. 158,
ISBN978-0-231-11662-6 (quotation: Films called Phono-Scènes were provided by ongoing in-house production overseen by Alice Guy, who directed the images after the sound-on-disk portion had been prerecorded by others.
^Schmitt, Thomas, « Scènes primitives. Notes sur quelques genres comiques "hérités“ du café-concert », in 1895 : revue de l’Association française de recherche sur l’histoire du cinéma (AFRHC),#61, 2010, p. 174.
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