The aesthetics of early feature-film scores were shaped by narrational problems introduced by multi-reel features and their longer durations. Using The Patchwork Girl of Oz, I show how stylistic devices like silences and musical pun- ctuation were used to address the coherence and pacing of multi-reel storytelling.

This article details the historical factors that shaped Hollywood’s adoption of magnetic recording during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It draws upon economic theories of technological change, archival correspondence, technical records, analyses of postproduction workflows, and delineations of the structural constraints that limited how the f…[Read more]

This chapter investigates how the introduction of stereo complicated Hollywood’s vococentric practices. It also reveals how sound technicians developed mixing techniques that preserved the salience of dialogue in multi-channel soundscapes. The author refers to such techniques as monocentrism and illustrates monocentric norms by analyzing the c…[Read more]

“The company builds cars and destroys men” was the promotional tagline of one of the posters for “Blue Collar” (1978). Shot in Detroit and Kalamazoo, Michigan, the film stars Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto playing three Detroit auto workers in financial despair who break into and rob the offices of their own union. “Blue Collar”…[Read more]

La producción de los medios de comunicación constituye una expresión de la sociedad que los gesta. Los grupos sociales que intervienen en la producción televisiva actualmente son herederos de la práctica funcionalista y trasmisiva de los medios tradicionales de comunicación (prensa plana, radio y televisión). En esa lógica los temas que se represe…[Read more]

Los textosaudiovisualesdemandan una combinación de actividades entorno a larepresentación ydecodificación. El proceso se encuentra condicionado pordiferentesrolesen los procesos de producción y consumo televisivo. Se plantea como objetivo de la investigación: diseñarun modelo de producción para las comunidades de práctica televis…[Read more]

Considerando a política da autoria associada à história da luta anticolonial e às suas relações com o cinema francês, este artigo aborda o filme anticolonialista Afrique 50 (1950). Distinguindo entre o filme como produto e como processo, discuto o problema das autorias rasuradas no documentário associado à assinatura autoral de René Vautier.…[Read more]

This article corrects misconceptions regarding the history of film stereo. I show that the technical and aesthetic innovations regularly credited to Dolby Stereo, to sound designers like Walter Murch, and to films like Apocalypse Now (1979) were not revolutions but extensions of surround-sound practices that Hollywood codified in prior decades. I…[Read more]

In the 1930s, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences implemented a technical standard—known as Academy Mono, or the Academy Curve—that dramatically impaired the sound quality of motion pictures. This article accounts for why the major studios agreed to this restrictive standard. I argue that they adopted Academy Mono to curtail the pow…[Read more]

This article corrects misconceptions regarding the history of film stereo. I show that the technical and aesthetic innovations regularly credited to Dolby Stereo, to sound designers like Walter Murch, and to films like Apocalypse Now (1979) were not revolutions but extensions of surround-sound practices that Hollywood codified in prior decades. I…[Read more]