Silent films had pianists but no voice actors.

A

Aspiring Mogul

I've been wondering about this for awhile.

As I understand it, during the silent movie era, musicians would play in the theatres to provide sound with the film. But I wonder why they didn't have voice actors to provide the dialogue. I mean, if they can employ live pianists, why not employ voice actors?

Not very important, but I just wanted to get this off my chest.
 
Hmm, that's actually a very good question.
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It depends where you saw the film. In bigger cinemas in the cities, they actually had an orchestra playing a score written specifically for the film. Only the smaller towns had just a pianist. A few of the biggest cinemas actually employed two full-time orchestras to cover multiple showings. Exact synchronisation with the picture was not essential, if the music was out by 5 or 10 frames it wasn't the end of the world but dialogue out of sync by only two or three frames looks wrong. Also, don't forget that the cameras and projectors of the day were nowhere near as mechanically accurate (or reliable) as they are today, film speed was supposed to be 24fps but it varied a lot, even from second to second.

There were a number of experiments in the early and mid 1920's to sync sound to picture. Interestingly, all these experiments involved the recording not of dialogue but of music, in an attempt to cut down on the huge expense of live orchestras in many cinemas! The main technical limitation stopping sync'ed sound was the lack of suitable power amplifiers. In the early/mid 1920's, technology had advanced to the point where power amplifiers had a maximum output of about 2 watts! When in 1927 the Jazz Singer was released, it took the film world by surprise, not many seem to have considered the idea of sync'ed dialogue. That's why these early films with sync'ed sound were not called sound films but "Talkies". Virtually over night the "silent" movie was dead and tens of thousands of musicians lost their job. Production was a nightmare for early Talkies as mixing/balancing, overdubbing and sound editing was not possible. That means that all dialogue, sound FX and the music had to be balanced purely through the live performance on set in sync with the filming!

G
 
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Just a thought, but the "actors" would have a very tough time syncing the dialog believably.

Just a little history...

In the big movie houses in New York, Philly, Boston, etc. they would also have a large group of what we now call Foley artists behind the stage. As the films moved to smaller venues the orchestra would go down to an ensemble. Previously percussion was played by several percussionists; one played bass drum, another snare, a third cymbals, etc. To replace several people a single percussionist would put together a huge con-TRAP-tion with all sorts of odds and ends to replace the Foley crew and the several percussionists. (These people were also highly valued on the vaudeville circuit and later on the radio.) The percussionist with the biggest "traps" kit would get the gig. This is the genesis of the modern drum kit.

One of my paternal grandfathers sisters was a traps player; maybe that's where I get it from. :D

Here's Aunt Emily with her trap kit:

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Here's a great article about sound effects and silent film:

http://web.archive.org/web/20031203095914/http://www.windworld.com/emi/articles/soundeffects.htm

Most silent films had complete, fully orchestrated scores. As the films filtered down to the smaller movie houses the scores would often be lost in transit, or the band leader would not want to spend the time condensing the score for a smaller group of musicians. So they would use familiar songs and familiar pieces of classical music. This is the root of many musical clichés.

One more thing; in Japan there were performers who would perform the dialog. They would also verbally and physically perform the sound effects. Some of these performers became so popular they were the attraction rather than the film.

From filmsound.org:

http://www.filmsound.org/film-sound-history/sound-in-japan.htm

THE TRANSITION TO SOUND IN JAPAN

by Freda Freiberg
One major factor in the Japanese film industry's successful survival of the transition to sound was its ability to convert to sound very slowly - over a ten year period - because of the popularity and strength of the indigenous variety of "silent film". Film in Japan was never experienced by the audience in silence; instead, the screening of silent films was accompanied by the live performance of narration and music in the theatre. The narrators were popular entertainers:

"The narrators not only recounted the plot of the films, they enhanced the emotional content by performing the voices and sound effects and providing evocative descriptions of events and images on the screen - much like the narrators of the bunraku puppet theatre. The most popular narrators were stars in their own right, solely responsible for the patronage of a particular theatre.
The combined performance-cum-screening was in many ways more lively, entertaining and dramatic than the new sound film. Thus, while the industry was experimenting with the new medium of sound, and consolidating its resources, it could and did continue to produce, distribute and exhibit the silent product in great numbers, without losing money."
 
Interesting Alcove. I knew about the "Traps" and occasional Sound FX performances but not about the Japanese performers and dialogue. The film world is full of these connections and little gems of information.

I used to be good friends with a man who died quite a few years ago aged 98. He ran away from home in about 1910 to join the circus as a drummer. Eventually he became one the world's most respected orchestral percussionists but he did quite a bit in film in the early 20's, through to the 1950's. You remember the "Rank Films" ident, the guy wearing the shorts and hitting the big gong? That was staged, the guy was an army sergeant and the gong was made mostly of paper. The actual audio recording used on all those films was my friend (who was 5'4") and the actual gong (now owned by my ex-wife) was just 20" in diameter!

G
 
Very interesting - thanks for the info, everyone. :)

But foreign films are often dubbed, and Arnie's first film, "Hercules goes to New York", was dubbed. So it can be done. If the actors were off by a few frames, they could have learned how to improvise.

Another issue is the ongoing concern that technology destroys jobs. Well, the musicians did get unemployed, but the advent of sound gave rise to the sound production industry, and the technicians are presumably better paid than pianists. Does anyone want to go back to the days without sound just to give jobs to pianists?
 
Yes, dubbing is often done. But how often is it done LIVE? Not even getting into the stage actor/film actor discussion, anyone who has done any ADR knows it's not as easy as it looks. Even if you're off by just a little, the audience notices and it comes across like a poorly dubbed godzilla film. Which is why the Benshi lasted as long as they did (as well as a bit of underground resurgance)...the performance was MORE than just speaking the lines. It was commentary and a complex performance art in a culture that already had established that art form (narrated puppet shows. They're around in the west, even today, but it's a cult thing rather than a mass-cultural thing).

Who knows? Maybe if the dialogue card didn't catch on in the US, we would have had stage actors reading lines in silent movies. And if you wanted to try that, you certainly could, as an arthouse/novelty performance. No one wants to go back to hiring pianists all the time, though on the other side of the coin, occasionally seeing a film with a live score is a pretty awesome experience. The 3 Rivers Film Fest has at least a couple performances every year.
 
You also have to keep in mind that the (moving) picture was all; the bulk of the information was put across visually and by the emoting of the actors. There isn't a dialog card between every line of dialog, after all.

One more thing; what actor would want someone else performing their lines? Most of the silent film era actors got their start on the stage, and I'm sure that their egos would not allow it. :D
 
If a movie was made to be “dubbed” live it would restrict where it
could be shown. No producer would make a movie that could only
be shown in a few theaters. Small theaters in small towns could
afford to pay a piano player - they could not afford to pay two to
four actors.

In the days of silent film there was considerably more live theater
and vaudeville so people went to the movies for different reasons.
Theater for great dialogue - movies for great action.

And dubbing from one language into another in the sound era is
very, very different than actors reading lines live in a movie theater.
That's not a fair comparison.

Aspiring Mogul said:
Does anyone want to go back to the days without sound just to give jobs to pianists?
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No. But playing with that idea:

A film takes what, a dozen sound people total? If it’s a silent film and
a pianist is needed in each theater showing it then 400 to 500 people
are employed - seven days a week for several weeks.

Lose 12 jobs to add 400.

When the film is shown in a big theater in a big town there are 12 to 25
musicians employed so you can add, maybe, 150 to 300 jobs nationwide.
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
Another issue is the ongoing concern that technology destroys jobs. Well, the musicians did get unemployed, but the advent of sound gave rise to the sound production industry, and the technicians are presumably better paid than pianists.
Click to expand...

You are misrepresenting the situation, we're not talking about a few pianists, we're talking about entire orchestras (as already mentioned). Only between the years 1929 and 1930 a reported 22,000 cinema musicians lost their jobs in the USA alone! Probably fewer than a hundred sound technician jobs were created in Hollywood, doesn't quite equate!

G
 
That would mean "actors" would have to perform at the Cinema. That would be a "Play"
Probably easier to get an orchestra then actors who fit the voices of the performers.

Aspiring Mogul said:
I've been wondering about this for awhile.

As I understand it, during the silent movie era, musicians would play in the theatres to provide sound with the film. But I wonder why they didn't have voice actors to provide the dialogue. I mean, if they can employ live pianists, why not employ voice actors?

Not very important, but I just wanted to get this off my chest.
Click to expand...
 
Speaking of weird cinema/live performance things, this thread made me think of "shadow casts." Usually for cult films (Rocky Horror is known for it, but one of the theaters near me has had a Repo! shadowcast and one for The Room). If you're not familiar with the practice, a cast stands in front of the screen and acts out the movie as it plays. It's....weird. I don't get it myself, but in certain circles, they're popular. I suspect people have more fun doing it than watching it. Either way, it's definitely one of the stranger aspect of cinema culture.
 
Chico Marx used to play piano at silent film theatres. One night he was getting laid and Harpo filled in for him. The problem was, Harpo only knew one song.:yes:
 
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