TALKIE, PHONOGRAPH, RADIO, ALL IN ONE

A new “home talkie” device houses in one cabinet a projector for standard sixteen-millimeter film, a phonograph for the sound accompaniment or for ordinary records, and a radio receiver. Words or music accompanying the pictures are played by sixteen-inch disks, synchronized with the film. The hinged top of the cabinet contains the projecting screen.

Wow, it’s hard to imagine that in 1938 Hollywood only had 17 stunt men and and 6 stunt women. I wonder what the count is now?

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Three Seconds from Death

THERE are seventeen men and six women in Hollywood who live entirely by seconds, seldom being more than a count of three from disaster while working. Among the highest paid individuals in the world per employed minute, they are seen daily by millions, yet are unknown except to friends and fellow workers.

This little group composes the “stunters” of the movies. Their job is to manufacture thrills—to cash in on hairbreadth escapes.
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Talkie Unit Helps Clinch Sale

JUST as visualized in the Charles Chaplin picture, Modern Times, the salesman can now break down sales resistance with a talking film device produced by a Ft. Wayne, Ind., manufacturer.

The carrying case, containing a projector, amplifier, screen and shadow box, records, needles, and films is very compact.

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What Makes MICKEY MOUSE Move?

Illustrated by Walt Disney

Fifty highly trained artists and scores of sound engineers unite to bring fast-moving animated talking cartoons to screen. Here’s how amazing job is accomplished.

by EARL THEISEN – Honorary curator motion pictures, Los Angeles Museum

MAKING Mickey Mouse move is not a mysterious technical process that Walt Disney does behind studio walls. It is an interesting thing that everyone can understand. The methods of animating a cartoon are fascinating. The fact that a hand-drawn picture can show motion is little short of miraculous.

A cartoon studio, in many respects, may be compared with a real life studio. In both they have stars or characters, a story or scenario, a director, and sets. In the Disney studio, the stars are cartoon pictures painted on sheets of celluloid and the sets are not made of wood by a carpenter, but are water color paintings made by an artist. The cartoon director is known as the “layout” man. As the term implies, it is his duty to lay out the story. He does this in the form of rough pencil sketches which serve as a guide for the artists who draw the story action. These sketches illustrate the various things the cartoon character does in the story. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sound Tricks of Mickey Mouse

Squeaks, squawks, oinks and music—it’s another animated cartoon hit set to music in a brand new way. Read how the hay baler joins a symphony.

by Earl Theisen
Illustrated by Walt Disney

MUSIC and noises in the animated cartoon interpret the action of the story. The narrative theme of the music and what is called the “sound effects” punctuates and emphasizes the story.

By playing on the aural nerves with symbolic sounds and noises the psychological reaction of the audience is controlled and varied according to the dramatic and emotional needs of the cartoon story.
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Camera Stunts That Make Thrilling Movies

by EARL THEISEN

Curator of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles Museum

LIKE the human eye following motion, the camera lens is made to follow the action of the movie stars on the settings. When the movie camera is made to “dolly” through a door into a room, the audience gains the impression of walking into the room. By photographing from angles the cameraman impresses psychological reactions such as confusion, unrest, grotesqueness, danger, or suspense with something of the same reaction as the eye in real life.
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Genuine KEYSTONE MOVIEGRAPH

SHOWS BIG SIZE MOVING PICTURES

Safe for the Home $6.95

Non-inflammable Safety Films

Reel of Charlie Chaplin—”GOLF PRACTICE”
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Crowd Sees Speaker in New Address System

THRONGS of spectators may clearly view an orator, as well as hear him, through a new German public-address system based upon television principles. The installation presents an image of the speaker, magnified many times life size, upon an elevated screen in plain sight of the entire audience, while his voice is being heard through loudspeakers of conventional design.
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TWO PICTURES AT ONCE GIVE MOVIES THIRD DIMENSION
A new way of giving pictures an effect of depth, has been devised by a Bridgeport, Conn., inventor, who foresees its application in the movies. His method provides a miniature picture that is viewed with one eye, while a full-sized picture is viewed with the other. Since the two pictures are taken from slightly different viewpoints, a stereoscopic effect is obtained. The advantage of this method when applied to motion pictures, he points out, is that a theater patron may view a movie either in the ordinary way or with added depth, as he chooses. Read the rest of this entry »

I suppose this would work if they didn’t have to talk…

Dry Ice Makes Breath Visible

MOTION picture directors can produce scenes in any climate by means of trick settings and clever mechanical devices. Critics have charged, however, that some snow scenes lacked realism because they lacked the usual phenomenon of breath becoming visible upon striking cold air.

Dr. Frank G. Nolan, Hollywood physician, has solved the problem. He has invented a device for motion picture actors that makes their breath visible in “frozen North” scenes taken in the sunshine of California. The device is similar to a dental plate and fits over the teeth of the actor.

The secret of the invention is that it enables the player to hold dry ice in the mouth without harmful results.

“Talkies” Heard Through Bones In First Theater for Deaf

WHAT is claimed to be the only theater in the world offering talking picture entertainment for the deaf is now operating in Chicago.

Hearing is made possible by an “oscillator” which literally enables the hard-of-hearing to “listen” through their bones. Every seat in the Chicago theater is equipped with the new device. Read the rest of this entry »

Shark Octopus Undersea Battle Filmed
A most remarkable battle between a shark and an octopus has been photographed by a daring cameraman for the film, “Samarang”—(Out of the Deep). With his camera and equipment inside a diving bell, open at the bottom, the internal air pressure being sufficient to keep the water out at shallow depths, he placed a piece of meat in the water to attract the shark, the octopus already being in the vicinity. The battle which ensued between shark and octopus lasted twenty minutes, but it was quite one-sided. Read the rest of this entry »