LOOP Presents: Soundies!

LOOP Presents: Soundies! is an cinematic jukebox of rare musical films from the origins of sound on film until it's decline with Scopitone technology. The film series is in connection with the Berkeley Underground Film Society at The Tannery in Berkeley, CA. A musical Kaleidoscope of film shorts, this program highlights the earliest examples of sound on film until it's decline.

In 1919 and 1920,the Phonofilm system, which recorded synchronized sound directly onto film, was used to record vaudeville acts, musical numbers, political speeches, and opera singers. The quality of Phonofilm was poor at first, improved somewhat in later years,
but was never able to match the fidelity of sound-on-disc systems such as Vitaphone, or later sound-on-film systems such as RCA Photophone or Fox Movietone. In 1928, the sound-on-film process RCA Photophone was adopted by newly created studio RKO Radio Pictures and by Paramount Pictures.

Soundies were three-minute musical films, produced in New York City, Chicago, and Hollywood, between 1940 and 1946, often including short dance sequences, similar to later music videos. Scopitone is a type of jukebox featuring a 16 mm film component. Scopitone films were a forerunner of music videos. The Italian Cinebox/Colorama and Color-Sonics were competing, lesser-known technologies of the time.

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16mm/B&W/Color/Sound/70 min.