1 00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:07,240 Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 2 00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:13,960 Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and Welcome to Tech Stuff. 3 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:17,520 Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 4 00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:19,320 Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I Heart Radio and I love 5 00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:22,680 Speaker 1: all things tech, and today I thought I would do 6 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:26,480 Speaker 1: something a little different from my normal episode. So rather 7 00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:29,800 Speaker 1: than tackle a particular technology or tell you about the 8 00:00:29,840 --> 00:00:32,040 Speaker 1: history of a tech company, or even go into an 9 00:00:32,080 --> 00:00:35,080 Speaker 1: in depth profile of an innovator, I thought instead I 10 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:38,080 Speaker 1: would talk about a more broad topic that kind of 11 00:00:38,120 --> 00:00:42,400 Speaker 1: delves not just into technology, but into business and into culture. 12 00:00:42,760 --> 00:00:47,120 Speaker 1: So it's all about our relationship with media. Specifically, I'm 13 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:50,200 Speaker 1: going to be focusing on stuff like audio and video 14 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:53,599 Speaker 1: and how our relationship with that sort of media has 15 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:58,040 Speaker 1: changed as technology has changed over the years. Those changes 16 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:02,120 Speaker 1: have been pushed by innovation and also the entertainment industry's 17 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:07,800 Speaker 1: reaction to innovation and spoiler alert, sometimes the entertainment industry's 18 00:01:07,840 --> 00:01:11,600 Speaker 1: reaction was resistance. So I think the story also tells 19 00:01:11,680 --> 00:01:15,679 Speaker 1: us a lot about ourselves, not just the stuff we enjoy, 20 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:19,800 Speaker 1: but it tells us more about what we value and 21 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,600 Speaker 1: where we can find that balance between art and commerce, 22 00:01:24,640 --> 00:01:28,319 Speaker 1: which is a pretty tricky topic. So today we're going 23 00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:30,759 Speaker 1: to look at how tech has changed the way we 24 00:01:30,840 --> 00:01:34,800 Speaker 1: access entertainment. And because this is a large topic, it's 25 00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:37,399 Speaker 1: going to take a few episodes. So we're going to 26 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:41,960 Speaker 1: focus on the early days of modern media in this episode. 27 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:44,840 Speaker 1: So we're gonna actually first start because you know how 28 00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:48,520 Speaker 1: I am a couple of centuries ago, before the Industrial 29 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:52,760 Speaker 1: Revolution and the age of electricity. So first, most people 30 00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:55,360 Speaker 1: didn't have a whole lot of time to spare for entertainment. 31 00:01:55,720 --> 00:01:58,360 Speaker 1: If you were working class, you spend most of your 32 00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:02,760 Speaker 1: waking hours doing work, and even those more elevated in 33 00:02:02,840 --> 00:02:06,600 Speaker 1: social class had limited options for their entertainment. Let's say 34 00:02:06,600 --> 00:02:09,440 Speaker 1: that you were one of those fortunate individuals. You're born 35 00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:14,400 Speaker 1: into wealth and social status, so you could go to 36 00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:18,200 Speaker 1: where entertainment was happening, such as a theater or an 37 00:02:18,200 --> 00:02:23,200 Speaker 1: opera house if you're talking about say seventeenth century or later. Um, 38 00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:28,000 Speaker 1: but maybe you go to a tavern, to go into 39 00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:32,440 Speaker 1: a sort of public houses courtyard that's where sometimes various 40 00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:35,720 Speaker 1: entertainments would be performed. Perhaps you could attend a party 41 00:02:35,800 --> 00:02:38,680 Speaker 1: thrown by some fancy person who has decided to host 42 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:42,840 Speaker 1: entertainers for an evening, or maybe you bring the entertainment 43 00:02:42,880 --> 00:02:46,360 Speaker 1: to you, you host your own fancy party. Perhaps you 44 00:02:46,360 --> 00:02:49,880 Speaker 1: have a string quartet in your palatial estate. Now obviously 45 00:02:49,919 --> 00:02:52,799 Speaker 1: that option is limited to a pretty select group of people. 46 00:02:53,360 --> 00:02:55,880 Speaker 1: Or you could take it upon yourself to learn some 47 00:02:56,000 --> 00:02:58,760 Speaker 1: form of entertainment, such as learning to play one or 48 00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:04,960 Speaker 1: more instruments. But entertainment was ephemeral. It was momentary. You 49 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:08,280 Speaker 1: enjoyed it as it was happening, and then it was over. 50 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:12,359 Speaker 1: You had no way to experience it again without reinitiating 51 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:15,040 Speaker 1: the performance itself. And then of course you're going to 52 00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:18,680 Speaker 1: get a variation on what you've just experienced, since it's 53 00:03:18,760 --> 00:03:23,400 Speaker 1: pretty rare that humans can perfectly replicate a performance. So 54 00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:27,560 Speaker 1: being a professional entertainer was a challenging gig in those 55 00:03:27,639 --> 00:03:29,400 Speaker 1: days too, because there was there was no way to 56 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:34,520 Speaker 1: live off of recordings. You could conceivably publish sheet music 57 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:37,800 Speaker 1: for your works, but that was challenging too. It was 58 00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:42,240 Speaker 1: an industry that was rife with piracy. Because music and 59 00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:44,840 Speaker 1: entertainment piracy is not a new thing that has been 60 00:03:44,880 --> 00:03:48,640 Speaker 1: around since the printing press essentially, So take the famous 61 00:03:48,640 --> 00:03:53,200 Speaker 1: playwright William Shakespeare. He wrote in the late fifteen hundreds 62 00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:57,400 Speaker 1: and early sixteen hundreds. He never published any of his 63 00:03:57,480 --> 00:04:02,480 Speaker 1: plays during his own lifetime. Other people sometimes published his plays, 64 00:04:02,920 --> 00:04:05,080 Speaker 1: and there were many versions of his plays that were 65 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:08,000 Speaker 1: printed in what we're called quartos. No need to go 66 00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:11,560 Speaker 1: into why, that's more of a history thing. But these 67 00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:15,600 Speaker 1: quartos were sometimes based off of partial theatrical scripts. They 68 00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:18,960 Speaker 1: might be based off old drafts that were pieced together 69 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:22,719 Speaker 1: from previous performances, or they might even have been cobbled 70 00:04:22,720 --> 00:04:26,279 Speaker 1: together from memory, either by working with an actor or 71 00:04:26,440 --> 00:04:28,920 Speaker 1: someone who had attended a performance and then is essentially 72 00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:31,560 Speaker 1: trying to recreate it as best they can. So they're 73 00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:36,080 Speaker 1: frequently referred to by scholars as being unreliable or bad quartos. 74 00:04:36,600 --> 00:04:39,359 Speaker 1: It wasn't until several years after Shakespeare had died that 75 00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:45,360 Speaker 1: an official version of his plays reached publication, so this 76 00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:47,320 Speaker 1: was not a common thing. In fact, it wouldn't be 77 00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:51,080 Speaker 1: until really Ben Johnson was demanding his plays get published 78 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:53,320 Speaker 1: a little bit later. So if you were a performer 79 00:04:53,360 --> 00:04:55,520 Speaker 1: back in the old days, you either sought out a 80 00:04:55,600 --> 00:04:58,839 Speaker 1: patron who would put the bill for your expenses, or 81 00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:01,320 Speaker 1: you would travel around and get hired to play for 82 00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:03,839 Speaker 1: an engagement, or maybe you'd be part of an ensemble 83 00:05:03,920 --> 00:05:06,680 Speaker 1: with an established theater and depend upon a share of 84 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:09,600 Speaker 1: the box office if you were part time owner of 85 00:05:09,640 --> 00:05:12,479 Speaker 1: that or a part owner of that theatrical company. But 86 00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:16,120 Speaker 1: that was about it. Gutenberg's printing press allowed for the 87 00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:19,120 Speaker 1: rise of the publishing industry, so if you were a composer, 88 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:21,679 Speaker 1: you could land a publishing deal and make a little 89 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:24,000 Speaker 1: bit of money there, although the publishing houses were making 90 00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:26,600 Speaker 1: most of the money. And that's pretty much how things 91 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:30,520 Speaker 1: went until the late nineteenth century, and that's when tons 92 00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:33,680 Speaker 1: of changes happened. The Industrial Revolution was underway and had 93 00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:37,440 Speaker 1: actually really mostly happened by the late nineteenth century, and 94 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:39,919 Speaker 1: suddenly people had a lot more spare time on their hands. 95 00:05:39,960 --> 00:05:44,920 Speaker 1: They could actually dedicate time to recreation and relaxation and entertainment. 96 00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:48,560 Speaker 1: It's also when Thomas Edison and others were changing the 97 00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:52,360 Speaker 1: world by introducing devices uh that could do lots of 98 00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:55,520 Speaker 1: different things. You were getting electric light, electricity in general. 99 00:05:55,760 --> 00:05:58,320 Speaker 1: The birth of radio was right around the corner, and 100 00:05:59,200 --> 00:06:04,040 Speaker 1: the birth of the ability to record and playback audio. Now, 101 00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:06,920 Speaker 1: it's not like the record industry immediately popped up after 102 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:11,279 Speaker 1: Edison demonstrated this capability. It took many years to refine 103 00:06:11,279 --> 00:06:13,440 Speaker 1: the technology to a point where recording was of a 104 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:16,919 Speaker 1: high enough quality to serve as a commercial product, and 105 00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:20,000 Speaker 1: it also took time to develop a better playback device, 106 00:06:20,440 --> 00:06:22,919 Speaker 1: something like the gramophones that you could actually hear the 107 00:06:22,960 --> 00:06:27,920 Speaker 1: recording and a decent volume. The gramophone introduced another innovation 108 00:06:28,240 --> 00:06:32,200 Speaker 1: that helped create the recording industry, which was the flat disc. 109 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:36,640 Speaker 1: So earlier recordings were made on wax cylinders. The cylinders 110 00:06:36,640 --> 00:06:39,919 Speaker 1: had several disadvantages. One was that they weren't easy to 111 00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:43,520 Speaker 1: mass produce, so you were had limited runs when you 112 00:06:43,560 --> 00:06:45,920 Speaker 1: were making these things in the first place. And early on, 113 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,960 Speaker 1: you might make a recording by shouting into the wide 114 00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:52,280 Speaker 1: end of a speaking trumpet, and that would send vibrations 115 00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:55,640 Speaker 1: down the trumpet to a diaphragm in the narrow end 116 00:06:56,080 --> 00:06:59,479 Speaker 1: that had a stylus attached to it, essentially, and the 117 00:06:59,560 --> 00:07:02,000 Speaker 1: vibration would make the stylus carve out a groove in 118 00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:05,960 Speaker 1: a rotating wax cylinder that was moving vertically against well 119 00:07:06,320 --> 00:07:09,880 Speaker 1: rotating and moving vertically against the stylus, so from top 120 00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:14,000 Speaker 1: to bottom you would have one long spiral, and the 121 00:07:14,080 --> 00:07:19,000 Speaker 1: variations of indentation would be the representation of sound but 122 00:07:19,120 --> 00:07:22,040 Speaker 1: this was not a terribly efficient way to make recordings. 123 00:07:22,400 --> 00:07:24,480 Speaker 1: Edison vound ways to improve the system, but it was 124 00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:27,120 Speaker 1: still hard to make a lot of cylinders at once. 125 00:07:27,320 --> 00:07:29,880 Speaker 1: It just wasn't the right format. On top of that, 126 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:33,880 Speaker 1: wax cylinders were fairly bulky. You couldn't store a ton 127 00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:36,640 Speaker 1: of them on a shelf, for example, and they weren't 128 00:07:36,760 --> 00:07:39,640 Speaker 1: very durable. After a couple of dozen playbacks, the quality 129 00:07:39,640 --> 00:07:42,120 Speaker 1: on the recording would degrade to the point where it 130 00:07:42,160 --> 00:07:45,760 Speaker 1: could be unintelligible. And also they couldn't hold very much 131 00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:49,840 Speaker 1: recorded audio in the first place. They were limited just 132 00:07:49,880 --> 00:07:53,360 Speaker 1: a few minutes. So a guy named Emil Berliner came 133 00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:55,280 Speaker 1: up with the flat disc. If you listen to my 134 00:07:55,360 --> 00:07:58,960 Speaker 1: episode about the history of the turntable, I talked about Berliner. 135 00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:02,440 Speaker 1: I also will be repeating some of the information from 136 00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:05,600 Speaker 1: that episode, but it's important to establish it to understand 137 00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:08,720 Speaker 1: our relationship with media. So to make a recording on 138 00:08:08,760 --> 00:08:12,520 Speaker 1: a flat disc originally anyway, he would take a master 139 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:15,480 Speaker 1: disc made out of metal and he would code it 140 00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:18,880 Speaker 1: with lamp black, which is sort of like dipping the 141 00:08:18,960 --> 00:08:23,200 Speaker 1: disc in ink while recording. There'd be a stylus that 142 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:28,160 Speaker 1: would drag against this disk in a spiral from the 143 00:08:28,200 --> 00:08:31,880 Speaker 1: outside edge to the inside edge of this disc. So 144 00:08:31,920 --> 00:08:35,400 Speaker 1: if you've ever seen a record album, vinyl record album, 145 00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:37,720 Speaker 1: that's how the grooves go from the outside and they 146 00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:40,680 Speaker 1: work their way in same sort of thing. Now, while 147 00:08:40,720 --> 00:08:44,439 Speaker 1: it was recording, this stylus would make little lateral oscillations, 148 00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:46,960 Speaker 1: meaning it would shake side to side a little bit 149 00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:52,400 Speaker 1: as the sound was impacting the diaphragm attached to the stylus. 150 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:55,160 Speaker 1: This is an opposition to wax cylinders those relied on 151 00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:58,720 Speaker 1: vertical oscillations. The essentially think of the stylus as going 152 00:08:58,840 --> 00:09:02,400 Speaker 1: in or out of the wax, so it's digging deeper 153 00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:05,439 Speaker 1: or it's not digging as deeply as the sound is 154 00:09:05,520 --> 00:09:08,920 Speaker 1: hitting it. This version, the the disc version was going 155 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:12,760 Speaker 1: left right, not up and down, So the stylus would 156 00:09:12,840 --> 00:09:15,440 Speaker 1: essentially wipe away a little bit of the lamp black. 157 00:09:15,559 --> 00:09:17,280 Speaker 1: So at the end of the recording you would have 158 00:09:17,440 --> 00:09:20,440 Speaker 1: this disc that's mostly black, but you would have a 159 00:09:20,480 --> 00:09:24,880 Speaker 1: spiral of metal showing through the black surface where the 160 00:09:24,880 --> 00:09:28,800 Speaker 1: stylus had had scraped off the lamp black. Essentially, then 161 00:09:29,120 --> 00:09:31,720 Speaker 1: Berliner would take this disc and dip it into an 162 00:09:31,760 --> 00:09:35,240 Speaker 1: acid bath, and that would eat away at the exposed metal, 163 00:09:35,559 --> 00:09:39,640 Speaker 1: leaving the lamp blacked metal untouched. You're lifted out of 164 00:09:39,679 --> 00:09:42,400 Speaker 1: that acid bath, you wipe it down, and you have 165 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:48,439 Speaker 1: essentially a master recording. Berliner then could use a process 166 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:52,280 Speaker 1: called electroplating to create a negative image of this master, 167 00:09:52,679 --> 00:09:57,520 Speaker 1: the negative image meaning that the copy of it would 168 00:09:57,520 --> 00:10:01,880 Speaker 1: have the groove turned into a raised ridge on the negative. 169 00:10:02,320 --> 00:10:06,400 Speaker 1: So what was a a indented groove on the master 170 00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:08,679 Speaker 1: is now a raised ridge that would actually be used 171 00:10:08,679 --> 00:10:12,120 Speaker 1: as a stamp, and you could stamp blank discs with 172 00:10:12,280 --> 00:10:16,320 Speaker 1: this master or this master stamp, and thus transfer the 173 00:10:16,320 --> 00:10:20,800 Speaker 1: master recording two copies. And that meant that Berliner's approach 174 00:10:20,840 --> 00:10:23,040 Speaker 1: was better suited for mass production. It gave it a 175 00:10:23,080 --> 00:10:27,439 Speaker 1: big advantage over wax cylinders. A bit later, innovators combined 176 00:10:27,520 --> 00:10:31,600 Speaker 1: Berliner's mass production method with the practice of recording on wax, 177 00:10:31,720 --> 00:10:35,720 Speaker 1: because recording on wax was easier and created a better 178 00:10:36,040 --> 00:10:41,360 Speaker 1: quality recording than Berliner's approach with the lampblack uh. This 179 00:10:41,559 --> 00:10:45,600 Speaker 1: was a method that Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Tainter 180 00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:49,800 Speaker 1: had developed, and so that was on wax cylinders back 181 00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:52,840 Speaker 1: in the day. Now they're transferring it over to wax discs, 182 00:10:53,520 --> 00:10:56,240 Speaker 1: and the result was a mass producible recording method that 183 00:10:56,320 --> 00:10:59,600 Speaker 1: was able to produce good enough sound quality to allow 184 00:10:59,640 --> 00:11:02,920 Speaker 1: for amercial application of the technology. So at the turn 185 00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:06,679 Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, so right around nineteen the companies 186 00:11:06,760 --> 00:11:11,199 Speaker 1: making the playback devices, namely the Gramophone and Typewriter Company, 187 00:11:11,240 --> 00:11:14,400 Speaker 1: began to sell home grammophones with the help of recordings 188 00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:18,079 Speaker 1: of famous musicians and singers. The allure was really strong 189 00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:21,640 Speaker 1: because not everyone had the means or opportunity to hear 190 00:11:21,679 --> 00:11:25,679 Speaker 1: someone like Enrico Caruso sing, but with a gramophone and 191 00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:30,040 Speaker 1: a record, you could reproduce him singing in your own home. 192 00:11:30,679 --> 00:11:34,200 Speaker 1: Some of those early recordings were so popular that they 193 00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:37,520 Speaker 1: would have to be re recorded because the master recording 194 00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:41,440 Speaker 1: would wear out. The master stamp would wear out after 195 00:11:41,800 --> 00:11:44,640 Speaker 1: a certain number of pressings, so that also led to 196 00:11:44,679 --> 00:11:48,440 Speaker 1: the industry developing a new method in order to create 197 00:11:48,520 --> 00:11:51,560 Speaker 1: multiple stamps from a single master recording. That way, when 198 00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:54,880 Speaker 1: one wore out, they would still have another backup master 199 00:11:55,040 --> 00:11:57,760 Speaker 1: stamp to go with, and they wouldn't have to worry 200 00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:01,280 Speaker 1: about having to rerecord or the whole thing, because it 201 00:12:01,320 --> 00:12:03,280 Speaker 1: would just mean that you have two different recordings of 202 00:12:03,320 --> 00:12:06,640 Speaker 1: the same piece, and one might actually be better than 203 00:12:06,679 --> 00:12:08,760 Speaker 1: the other, and maybe that the first recording was better 204 00:12:08,880 --> 00:12:11,360 Speaker 1: or maybe the second one, but either way they wouldn't 205 00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:15,800 Speaker 1: be exactly the same. Now this time around, you started 206 00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:21,040 Speaker 1: seeing recording companies emerge. Victor and Colombia were big ones, 207 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:24,520 Speaker 1: and from the turn of the century until about nineteen five, 208 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:29,160 Speaker 1: all recordings were made by playing or singing or speaking 209 00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:33,560 Speaker 1: into that wide end of a trumpet, a physical trumpet. 210 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:38,520 Speaker 1: This was the mechanical approach to recording. This was before 211 00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:42,920 Speaker 1: the electric microphone was used in recording sessions, and there 212 00:12:42,920 --> 00:12:46,720 Speaker 1: were engineering challenges that made this pretty tough. If you 213 00:12:46,760 --> 00:12:49,559 Speaker 1: were really close to the horn, creating what was known 214 00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:53,719 Speaker 1: as a forward recording, then your performance would sound more 215 00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:57,920 Speaker 1: vivid and dynamic. You're you're closer to that diaphragm that's 216 00:12:57,920 --> 00:13:02,800 Speaker 1: actually transferring the vibration through the stylus to the recording media, 217 00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:06,800 Speaker 1: usually a wax disc. But the nature of those vibrations 218 00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:09,120 Speaker 1: recorded on the disc meant that the discs you'd produce 219 00:13:09,240 --> 00:13:13,559 Speaker 1: later would tend to wear out faster. They were deeper cuts. 220 00:13:13,640 --> 00:13:16,880 Speaker 1: They were using a material called shellac at the time, 221 00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:21,480 Speaker 1: which was hard and brittle, and fairly thin um, and 222 00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:26,200 Speaker 1: so those deeper recordings would mean that if you were 223 00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:29,560 Speaker 1: to play this playing it back on a turntable, each 224 00:13:29,559 --> 00:13:31,520 Speaker 1: time you've laid it back, it was adding more wear 225 00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:34,520 Speaker 1: and tear to the disc, and so those discs wouldn't 226 00:13:34,600 --> 00:13:37,520 Speaker 1: last as long. The sound quality would be better, but 227 00:13:37,920 --> 00:13:41,520 Speaker 1: they wouldn't last very long compared to other discs. So 228 00:13:41,559 --> 00:13:44,200 Speaker 1: if you recorded further away from the horn, you would 229 00:13:44,200 --> 00:13:46,520 Speaker 1: have a more muted sound, but it would also mean 230 00:13:46,559 --> 00:13:51,120 Speaker 1: that those grooves weren't quite so extreme, so the produced 231 00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:53,440 Speaker 1: discs would actually last longer. So it's something you had 232 00:13:53,440 --> 00:13:58,120 Speaker 1: to balance out. Uh. The technologies limitations also dictated the 233 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:00,680 Speaker 1: type of content that could go on them, and thus 234 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,960 Speaker 1: it shaped the development of music itself. Early recordings had 235 00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:09,000 Speaker 1: to be short. Early wax cylinders and discs had a 236 00:14:09,000 --> 00:14:12,160 Speaker 1: capacity to hold just a couple of minutes of a recording. 237 00:14:12,760 --> 00:14:16,880 Speaker 1: Engineers worked on refining the recording technology and the capacity 238 00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:20,040 Speaker 1: slowly increased, but it was still hovering it around five 239 00:14:20,160 --> 00:14:24,760 Speaker 1: minutes per disc or cylinder in the nineteen twenties. Rarely, 240 00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:28,240 Speaker 1: sound engineers would work with musicians to play a piece 241 00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:31,280 Speaker 1: faster than the normal arrangement, just so it would fit 242 00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:35,040 Speaker 1: on a side of a recording, so you might hear 243 00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:38,240 Speaker 1: about that. It didn't happen as frequently as some people 244 00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:41,560 Speaker 1: tend to talk about, but it was something that occasionally 245 00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:44,560 Speaker 1: happened where maybe you had a piece that would last 246 00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:47,720 Speaker 1: typically five minutes fifteen seconds, but you're limited to four 247 00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:50,720 Speaker 1: minutes forty five seconds per side of a recording, so 248 00:14:50,840 --> 00:14:53,640 Speaker 1: rather than try and split it up, you just speed 249 00:14:53,720 --> 00:14:56,200 Speaker 1: up the tempo and play it faster than you normally would. 250 00:14:56,520 --> 00:15:00,760 Speaker 1: That did happen occasionally, but other times they might work 251 00:15:00,760 --> 00:15:03,720 Speaker 1: with a composer or a musician to tweak a recording, 252 00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:07,400 Speaker 1: to to tweak the the arrangement of the music so 253 00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:09,640 Speaker 1: that they could create a transition in such a way 254 00:15:09,640 --> 00:15:12,120 Speaker 1: that there would be a natural pause that would allow 255 00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:14,360 Speaker 1: you to turn a disc over or to put on 256 00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:17,680 Speaker 1: a second or third, or fourth or whatever disc on 257 00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:21,800 Speaker 1: the playback device. So here we have our first really 258 00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:26,480 Speaker 1: interesting example of how technology truly changed music, and not 259 00:15:26,600 --> 00:15:32,880 Speaker 1: just by increasing its accessibility. The recorded media format dictated 260 00:15:32,960 --> 00:15:36,200 Speaker 1: the form. If you were to compose a piece specifically 261 00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:38,640 Speaker 1: to record it, you know, you're not just putting something 262 00:15:38,680 --> 00:15:41,520 Speaker 1: that already exists to a recording, but you're writing to 263 00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:44,560 Speaker 1: the format, you would have to work within the limitations 264 00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:46,840 Speaker 1: of the medium. You couldn't have a piece be too 265 00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:49,480 Speaker 1: soft in volume because it wouldn't be loud enough to 266 00:15:49,480 --> 00:15:53,600 Speaker 1: transfer the vibrations to the recording horns stylist, so you 267 00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:56,240 Speaker 1: couldn't also be meat loaf. You couldn't write a fourteen 268 00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:59,960 Speaker 1: minute epic ballad because the physical space on the red 269 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:02,800 Speaker 1: warding blanks wasn't enough to fit that many grooves onto 270 00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:08,200 Speaker 1: a side. These limitations would carry on even as technology improved, 271 00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:13,320 Speaker 1: and it's largely why most popular songs these days averaging 272 00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:17,000 Speaker 1: at around three minutes in length. It's not because that's 273 00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:19,080 Speaker 1: about as long as people want to listen to a song. 274 00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:21,760 Speaker 1: It's because back in the old days, three minutes was 275 00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:24,720 Speaker 1: about what you had to work with, give or take. 276 00:16:25,800 --> 00:16:30,280 Speaker 1: Longer pieces required several discs to make a complete recording, 277 00:16:30,480 --> 00:16:33,640 Speaker 1: and it wasn't unusual for a single long piece to 278 00:16:33,720 --> 00:16:37,360 Speaker 1: spend nine or more disks on one piece of music, 279 00:16:37,480 --> 00:16:41,120 Speaker 1: not multiple songs. But you think of some of those 280 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:43,520 Speaker 1: classical pieces, like a symphony that can go on for 281 00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:47,440 Speaker 1: quite a while. You might have nine, ten eleven disks 282 00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:52,600 Speaker 1: representing one symphony. The industry standard recording in playback speed 283 00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:55,640 Speaker 1: was for the disk to spend at seventy eight revolutions 284 00:16:55,640 --> 00:16:59,080 Speaker 1: per minute or seventy eight rpm, and that started at 285 00:16:59,080 --> 00:17:04,719 Speaker 1: around five as the industry standard. This actually wasn't anything 286 00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:07,520 Speaker 1: necessarily to do with sound quality or anything like that. 287 00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:12,840 Speaker 1: It was literally a convenience because there was a plentiful 288 00:17:13,600 --> 00:17:17,480 Speaker 1: number of thirty six hundred rpm motors that you could 289 00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:21,160 Speaker 1: get your hands on if you wanted to build a 290 00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:24,399 Speaker 1: U turntable, and then you would use a forty six 291 00:17:24,440 --> 00:17:28,480 Speaker 1: tooth gear to scale down that revolutions per minute and 292 00:17:28,480 --> 00:17:30,720 Speaker 1: you would end up giving getting so many eight revolutions 293 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:34,240 Speaker 1: per minute. So typically you would store all the discs 294 00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:37,719 Speaker 1: from a single recording in a folder with pockets for 295 00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:42,240 Speaker 1: every disk, and those folders were called albums. Look kind 296 00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:45,200 Speaker 1: of like a photo album. You would have a disc 297 00:17:45,359 --> 00:17:50,600 Speaker 1: album that represented one full recording of whatever piece it was, 298 00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:53,520 Speaker 1: and that's why we call them albums. Now, after the 299 00:17:53,600 --> 00:17:57,480 Speaker 1: First World War, radio began to emerge, and that offered 300 00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:01,280 Speaker 1: up an alternative to owning a gramophone at home. Instead 301 00:18:01,320 --> 00:18:04,080 Speaker 1: of buying a gramophone and records, you could purchase a 302 00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:07,160 Speaker 1: radio and listen to stations. Some of the stations would 303 00:18:07,160 --> 00:18:10,560 Speaker 1: also play recordings. You wouldn't be able to listen to 304 00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:13,240 Speaker 1: what you wanted when you wanted, but you'd also have 305 00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:17,600 Speaker 1: the potential to access a much larger library of recordings, or, 306 00:18:18,520 --> 00:18:21,840 Speaker 1: depending upon the station, you could be listening to live performances. 307 00:18:21,880 --> 00:18:23,919 Speaker 1: In fact, a lot of radio stations depended more on 308 00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:30,120 Speaker 1: live performances than recordings because radio, unlike the recording industry 309 00:18:30,119 --> 00:18:34,080 Speaker 1: at the time, was reliant on electric electric microphones, so 310 00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:37,639 Speaker 1: those were much better at picking up a dynamic range 311 00:18:37,640 --> 00:18:40,280 Speaker 1: of sounds. They could pick up quiet stuff, they could 312 00:18:40,280 --> 00:18:43,640 Speaker 1: pick up a loud stuff. They were much more versatile 313 00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:46,920 Speaker 1: for recording sessions. You didn't have to be right up 314 00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:52,240 Speaker 1: on the horn. They're amazing photos of of uh, small 315 00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:57,960 Speaker 1: orchestras or bands all just crowded around the horn of 316 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:01,199 Speaker 1: a recording device in order to play their music into it. 317 00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:03,639 Speaker 1: And you always had to put the quieter instruments up 318 00:19:03,640 --> 00:19:06,199 Speaker 1: towards the front or else they'd be overpowered by the 319 00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:08,959 Speaker 1: louder instruments. There wasn't as big a concern with that 320 00:19:09,040 --> 00:19:11,680 Speaker 1: with electric microphones. They were much better at picking up 321 00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:14,680 Speaker 1: those dynamic ranges, so you didn't have to worry about 322 00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:20,320 Speaker 1: having everybody right up ons that that horn. So radio 323 00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:25,280 Speaker 1: performances tended to be superior to recorded music on disk, 324 00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:28,960 Speaker 1: and you started to see more people kind of gravitate 325 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:32,479 Speaker 1: towards the radio than the recorded media. So this was 326 00:19:32,560 --> 00:19:36,920 Speaker 1: another shift the way that technology was changing our behavior, 327 00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:40,920 Speaker 1: and the recording industry started to experiment with using electric 328 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:44,560 Speaker 1: microphones as well. They saw the need to respond to 329 00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:47,439 Speaker 1: this new threat of radio. All right, now, when we 330 00:19:47,480 --> 00:19:50,160 Speaker 1: come back, i'll talk about how some improvements in recording 331 00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:52,879 Speaker 1: technology got the industry back in the game and changed 332 00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:54,920 Speaker 1: how we think about media. But first, let's take a 333 00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:05,120 Speaker 1: quick break. In the nineteen twenties, a pair of engineers 334 00:20:05,119 --> 00:20:09,560 Speaker 1: from Bell Telephone Laboratories would revolutionize sound recording. They were JP. 335 00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:13,000 Speaker 1: Max Field and HC. Harrison, and they had already applied 336 00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:17,080 Speaker 1: their ingenuity to making telephones a viable technology. They subjected 337 00:20:17,119 --> 00:20:20,520 Speaker 1: the process of sound recording and replication to scientific study 338 00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:24,120 Speaker 1: for the first time. In August ninety six, they published 339 00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:26,640 Speaker 1: the results of their work in a paper titled High 340 00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:30,080 Speaker 1: Quality Recording and Reproducing of Music and Speech, which you 341 00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:32,200 Speaker 1: can find online. If you are so inclined, you could 342 00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:34,400 Speaker 1: read the whole thing. It's not a very long paper either. 343 00:20:35,040 --> 00:20:38,560 Speaker 1: Max Field and Harrison demonstrated that using electronic means of 344 00:20:38,560 --> 00:20:43,280 Speaker 1: recording would produce higher quality results than the mechanical acoustic 345 00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:46,560 Speaker 1: method that had been in use. Microphones for orchestras could 346 00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:50,439 Speaker 1: be placed a bit further away from the musicians, so 347 00:20:50,480 --> 00:20:52,560 Speaker 1: again they didn't have to be crowded around the horn, 348 00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:55,520 Speaker 1: and microphones can capture the sound quality of the room 349 00:20:55,800 --> 00:20:58,480 Speaker 1: where the recording is made, and that generated what the 350 00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:01,919 Speaker 1: two engineers would refer to as room tone, which is 351 00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:04,840 Speaker 1: still a thing. In fact, we actually try to remove 352 00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:07,720 Speaker 1: room tone from our recording so that you get a 353 00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:11,520 Speaker 1: cleaner sound. But it was thought of as a valuable thing. 354 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:14,679 Speaker 1: It it gave another quality to music, and so it 355 00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:17,680 Speaker 1: was something that was considered an interesting thing to capture 356 00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:21,399 Speaker 1: at the time. Interestingly, in that paper, Maxfield and Harrison 357 00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:26,000 Speaker 1: argue that for playback devices, particularly for home playback devices, 358 00:21:26,359 --> 00:21:29,720 Speaker 1: a mechanical system might be preferable to one using electricity 359 00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:32,560 Speaker 1: for sound reproduction. So recording sound you want to use 360 00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:35,280 Speaker 1: an electric microphone, but playing it back they didn't think 361 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:37,919 Speaker 1: it was that important. So with the mechanical system, you 362 00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:40,479 Speaker 1: have the stylist that vibrates as it travels through the 363 00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:44,080 Speaker 1: grooves of a disk, and those vibrations transferred to a diaphragm, 364 00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:46,879 Speaker 1: which in turn vibrates and changes the air pressure inside 365 00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:49,640 Speaker 1: a horn, and then we hear those fluctuations of air 366 00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:53,200 Speaker 1: pressure as sound. But that's a direct path. The alternative 367 00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:55,879 Speaker 1: is to have the stylus transfer those vibrations to a 368 00:21:55,920 --> 00:22:00,600 Speaker 1: device that can transform the physical vibrations into electrical impulses, 369 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:04,240 Speaker 1: send those impulses to an amplification system to boost the 370 00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:07,639 Speaker 1: very weak signal that the stylus generates, and use that 371 00:22:07,720 --> 00:22:11,320 Speaker 1: boosted signal to drive some other element to vibrate, essentially 372 00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:13,879 Speaker 1: a speaker, and to create the sound we'd hear. Now, 373 00:22:13,960 --> 00:22:16,800 Speaker 1: due to the limitations of technology at the time, that 374 00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:21,560 Speaker 1: really wasn't a viable approach for home electronics. It wouldn't 375 00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:26,360 Speaker 1: be till later, when speakers and amplifiers were more available 376 00:22:26,520 --> 00:22:29,080 Speaker 1: that that would become viable. The paper led to a 377 00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:32,639 Speaker 1: new method of recording called the Western Electric Recording System 378 00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:36,199 Speaker 1: or West TREKS, and the results were pretty fantastic for 379 00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:39,040 Speaker 1: the time. Suddenly a recorded piece of music or spoken 380 00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:41,560 Speaker 1: word could stand up to the quality herd over live 381 00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:46,560 Speaker 1: radio performances. Recording companies like Victor and Columbia quickly adopted 382 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:50,040 Speaker 1: the new methodology. But these recording companies were not eager 383 00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:52,879 Speaker 1: to stick with the Western Electric system for a couple 384 00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:55,840 Speaker 1: of big reasons. One was that the recording companies weren't 385 00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:59,840 Speaker 1: allowed to purchase a recording system outright. Western Electric would 386 00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:03,720 Speaker 1: only lease the systems, so that was an ongoing cost. Secondly, 387 00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:08,399 Speaker 1: Western Electric demanded a royalty fee for every record sold 388 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:11,680 Speaker 1: that had been made through the Western Electric process. And 389 00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:15,480 Speaker 1: let me tell you something, folks, nothing drives innovation more 390 00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:19,720 Speaker 1: than money does. Genius has its place, but money makes 391 00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:22,959 Speaker 1: the world go round, and companies often find great incentive 392 00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:25,760 Speaker 1: to innovate when it could mean keeping more of the 393 00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:29,480 Speaker 1: cash for the company itself. So the recording companies were 394 00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,480 Speaker 1: all at work trying to create alternatives to the Western 395 00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:35,439 Speaker 1: Electric system to get the same results, but through a 396 00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:38,400 Speaker 1: different approach. They had to be careful that their own 397 00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:43,000 Speaker 1: methodologies were distinct from Western Electric in order to avoid 398 00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:47,280 Speaker 1: infringing upon patents, and so alternate methods began to emerge, 399 00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:50,879 Speaker 1: and these in turn created recordings with slightly different qualities 400 00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:53,919 Speaker 1: to them, so you could, in theory, record the exact 401 00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:57,480 Speaker 1: same performance using two different systems and produced two different 402 00:23:57,520 --> 00:24:00,680 Speaker 1: master recordings of that same performance, But the way the 403 00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:04,360 Speaker 1: recorded music would sound when played back would be slightly 404 00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:06,760 Speaker 1: different from one to the other, not so different that 405 00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,600 Speaker 1: you would think you were listening to two separate recording sessions, 406 00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:12,439 Speaker 1: but the tone of the recordings could be different. And 407 00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:16,240 Speaker 1: so technology again was having an effect on music. Now, 408 00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:18,520 Speaker 1: this also touches on something that will pop up again 409 00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:22,320 Speaker 1: in these episodes, which is the quest for fidelity, and 410 00:24:22,359 --> 00:24:25,040 Speaker 1: by that I mean the effort to create a playback 411 00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:28,840 Speaker 1: of a recorded moment that strives to replicate the original 412 00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:33,440 Speaker 1: performance as closely as possible. In an ideal recording system, 413 00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:37,000 Speaker 1: the recorded media would sound exactly the way it sounded 414 00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:39,720 Speaker 1: in the recording studio. So if you were in that 415 00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:42,919 Speaker 1: room listening to the musicians play a song live, and 416 00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:45,520 Speaker 1: then you listen to the recorded version, you wouldn't be 417 00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:48,920 Speaker 1: able to tell the difference. Ideally. Now, there are plenty 418 00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:51,920 Speaker 1: of instances in which those making the recording they don't 419 00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,639 Speaker 1: want a perfect reproduction. There are lots of effects you 420 00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:56,600 Speaker 1: might want to put on audio before you commit it 421 00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:59,800 Speaker 1: to a master recording, like overdubbing or auto tune or 422 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:01,680 Speaker 1: what ever. But that wasn't a big thing in the 423 00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:03,960 Speaker 1: nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, so we're going to ignore 424 00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,680 Speaker 1: that for now. So let's switch gears a bit. We're 425 00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,119 Speaker 1: gonna come back to the music industry before the end 426 00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:12,240 Speaker 1: of this episode. But while the music industry was building 427 00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:16,040 Speaker 1: its foundation, the same thing was happening in the film industry. 428 00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,440 Speaker 1: The birth of that industry was also in the nineteenth century, 429 00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:22,879 Speaker 1: as innovators discovered that by presenting a sequence of similar 430 00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:25,879 Speaker 1: images to the eye and rapid succession, you could simulate 431 00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:29,119 Speaker 1: a moving image. Actually it dates back to before that, 432 00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,320 Speaker 1: but they're serious study put to it in the eighteenth 433 00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,320 Speaker 1: century or nineteenth century rather, so that's the basis of 434 00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:38,879 Speaker 1: film and animation. You aren't really watching motion. You're watching 435 00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,840 Speaker 1: a bunch of still images, like photographs or drawings that 436 00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:44,280 Speaker 1: are put in rapid sequence in front of us. So 437 00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:48,280 Speaker 1: our brains, just like technology, are limited. There is a 438 00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:51,160 Speaker 1: threshold for the speed at which we can view separate 439 00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:55,280 Speaker 1: images and see them as being distinct. In the nineteenth century, 440 00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,960 Speaker 1: scientists hypothesized that it was the retina that could only 441 00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,959 Speaker 1: distinguish different ages if there was a long enough delay 442 00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:05,239 Speaker 1: between them, and so the name for the phenomena was 443 00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,800 Speaker 1: the persistence of vision. But in fact this limitation is 444 00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:12,040 Speaker 1: really in our brains, not our eyes themselves. If you 445 00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:15,679 Speaker 1: present images faster than the threshold can account for, you 446 00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,760 Speaker 1: get the illusion of movement. Twenty four frames a second 447 00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:21,119 Speaker 1: is a good example. At twenty four frames per second, 448 00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:25,359 Speaker 1: our brains cannot distinguish the the individual images and we 449 00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:29,360 Speaker 1: see that as motion. So, just like with the recording industry, 450 00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,639 Speaker 1: the early years of film were ones of experimentation. In 451 00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,840 Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties, George Eastman created a process that would 452 00:26:35,840 --> 00:26:38,119 Speaker 1: allow a camera to take a series of photographs in 453 00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:42,280 Speaker 1: quick succession, thus recording movement. A very short clip it's 454 00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,560 Speaker 1: less than two seconds long. Uh it comes from eight 455 00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,520 Speaker 1: shows a record of what this process could produce, and 456 00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,719 Speaker 1: it's called the round Hey Garden scene. It was created 457 00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:55,639 Speaker 1: by Louis la Prince and all it shows is people 458 00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,280 Speaker 1: walking around in a garden. It's a far cry from 459 00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,840 Speaker 1: a feature film, but it was a building block for 460 00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,280 Speaker 1: what would follow. In the early eighteen nineties, a French 461 00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:09,520 Speaker 1: inventor named Leon Bouley created a device called the cinematic graph, 462 00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,359 Speaker 1: but Bully was never able to produce a physical prototype 463 00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,480 Speaker 1: and so he sold his idea to two brothers, Auguste 464 00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:20,640 Speaker 1: and Louis Lumier. The Lumiers took his idea and they 465 00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,280 Speaker 1: created a new device. They made a lot of changes. 466 00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:25,920 Speaker 1: In fact, it was really more their invention than Boulets 467 00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:30,440 Speaker 1: at the end, but it used the same name cinematograph. Uh. 468 00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:33,200 Speaker 1: It was not just a camera that could capture images, 469 00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,760 Speaker 1: it was also a projector that could display those captured 470 00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,280 Speaker 1: images against a flat surface. In fact, you could process 471 00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:42,600 Speaker 1: the film too. You could do all three in this 472 00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:46,000 Speaker 1: one device. It's was really revolutionary. So earlier devices could 473 00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,760 Speaker 1: capture images on film, but they weren't projectors. So instead 474 00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,679 Speaker 1: you would use this device that was kind of like 475 00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:55,760 Speaker 1: a had a visor I piece. You would actually look 476 00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:58,439 Speaker 1: into the visor and typically you would turn a crank 477 00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:00,760 Speaker 1: as well, though some of them had mors and it 478 00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:03,000 Speaker 1: would play back the frames and you would watch it 479 00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:06,720 Speaker 1: playback in real time, but limited the audience to just 480 00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,919 Speaker 1: one person at a time. The Lumier brothers created a 481 00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:12,680 Speaker 1: technology that allowed for group presentations, which in turn set 482 00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:16,359 Speaker 1: the stage for the theatrical film experience, and their contribution 483 00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:19,520 Speaker 1: was significant enough that cinema became a word we would 484 00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:22,960 Speaker 1: use to describe the art and industry of filmmaking. Their 485 00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:26,439 Speaker 1: version was a hand cranked device. It actually made it 486 00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:28,720 Speaker 1: much more portable. You didn't have to have big wires 487 00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:32,080 Speaker 1: or anything to provide electricity to it. But it also 488 00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,639 Speaker 1: depended upon the camera and projector operator having a steady hand, 489 00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:39,400 Speaker 1: otherwise motion would be herky jerky. As the recording or 490 00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:44,720 Speaker 1: playback speed varied, so there were electronic versions or or 491 00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:47,720 Speaker 1: electric motor versions out there. Edison had already created one, 492 00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,480 Speaker 1: but again, it wasn't a projector. Also, I'm skipping over 493 00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:54,600 Speaker 1: a ton of interesting historical facts about projectors in general, 494 00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:57,320 Speaker 1: but just know they were a critical component of cinema now. 495 00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:01,200 Speaker 1: The Lumiers held a special screening in eight They charged 496 00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:05,040 Speaker 1: people one franc to view ten short films. The total 497 00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:07,960 Speaker 1: running time for all ten films together was about twenty 498 00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:11,680 Speaker 1: five minutes. So the Lumiers combined several things that would 499 00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:14,520 Speaker 1: become important parts of cinema moving forward, the capturing of 500 00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,760 Speaker 1: images in short succession, projecting them back on a large surface, 501 00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:21,240 Speaker 1: and charging money to watch the result. They weren't the 502 00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:24,360 Speaker 1: first to do any of those things individually, but combining 503 00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:28,600 Speaker 1: them in this way meant that Their screening is frequently 504 00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,760 Speaker 1: used as sort of the birthday for modern cinema, but 505 00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,240 Speaker 1: the brothers didn't think this curiosity would stand the test 506 00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,240 Speaker 1: of time, with Louis even proclaiming that the practice didn't 507 00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:41,600 Speaker 1: have a future. George Millier, who made films in the 508 00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:46,120 Speaker 1: late nineteenth and early twentieth century, used the futureless art 509 00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:49,280 Speaker 1: to do more than capture scenes of real life that 510 00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,520 Speaker 1: the Lumiers were just sort of capturing stuff that was 511 00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,120 Speaker 1: happening in front of them. Millier had the idea of 512 00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,360 Speaker 1: using this to create stories. He wanted to build narratives 513 00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:00,640 Speaker 1: with plot. He would edit and cut films. That was 514 00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,240 Speaker 1: a practice that was truly innovative and would become another 515 00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:07,680 Speaker 1: integral component of filmmaking. Edwin s Porter, who had worked 516 00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,120 Speaker 1: for Edison, created a twelve minute narrative film called The 517 00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:14,640 Speaker 1: Great Train Robbery in nineteen o three, and films were 518 00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,280 Speaker 1: starting to get longer and longer, with what is considered 519 00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,240 Speaker 1: to be the first feature length film debuting in nineteen 520 00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,600 Speaker 1: o six that would Charles Tate's film The Ned Kelly Gang, 521 00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:27,480 Speaker 1: had a running time of seventy minutes. The following decades 522 00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:31,440 Speaker 1: saw various filmmakers introduced new techniques to push the art form. 523 00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,400 Speaker 1: At the same time, engineers were working to improve camera 524 00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:38,960 Speaker 1: and projector technologies. Gradually, the hand cranked era gave way 525 00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,720 Speaker 1: to electric motors and projectors that could record in playback 526 00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:44,520 Speaker 1: film at a set speed, so you didn't have to 527 00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,800 Speaker 1: worry about herkey jerky motion anymore. One of the big 528 00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:51,200 Speaker 1: engineering challenges the industry faced was how to put sound 529 00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:53,960 Speaker 1: to film, and there were a couple of different methods, 530 00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:58,000 Speaker 1: but one of those methods was called vitaphone, and vitaphone 531 00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,600 Speaker 1: would rely upon a projector sync nized with a phonograph player, 532 00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,320 Speaker 1: upon which a disk with the film's soundtrack would play 533 00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:09,000 Speaker 1: in synchronization with the playback of the film, which ties 534 00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,520 Speaker 1: together cinema with the recording industry. The big difference here 535 00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,320 Speaker 1: was that while you could have a phonograph in your 536 00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,560 Speaker 1: home and listen to your own records, there was no 537 00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,160 Speaker 1: way as of yet to enjoy a film in your 538 00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,840 Speaker 1: own home. I've got a lot more to say about media, 539 00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,600 Speaker 1: but let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. 540 00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,280 Speaker 1: Like the recording industry, the film industry gave birth to 541 00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:39,920 Speaker 1: new production studios. Early movies were usually produced by engineers 542 00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,000 Speaker 1: and innovators, so sort of independence who were just trying 543 00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:47,400 Speaker 1: out this new technology. These geniuses created that technology, but 544 00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:52,000 Speaker 1: they weren't necessarily as a dept at building compelling stories. Meanwhile, 545 00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:55,320 Speaker 1: the storytellers out there weren't necessarily in a position to 546 00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:59,040 Speaker 1: get hold of cameras and actors and sets and crew 547 00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:01,680 Speaker 1: to put a movie to get other and so enterprising 548 00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:05,720 Speaker 1: individuals began to form studios for that very purpose. The 549 00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,560 Speaker 1: oldest one in the United States is Universal, which was 550 00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:12,320 Speaker 1: founded in nineteen twelve. Paramount would follow later that year, 551 00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:16,000 Speaker 1: but it was originally called the Famous Players Film Company. 552 00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:19,200 Speaker 1: Films had to have a place to play as well. 553 00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:20,760 Speaker 1: It wasn't just enough to make them, you had to 554 00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,400 Speaker 1: have a place to show them. And that's where theaters 555 00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:27,320 Speaker 1: come in. Now. Some theaters were independent operations, and those 556 00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:30,480 Speaker 1: independent operations would negotiate with different movie studios for the 557 00:32:30,600 --> 00:32:34,480 Speaker 1: rights to show different films. Such an independent theater could 558 00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:37,560 Speaker 1: at least in theory, show a Paramount film one week 559 00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,400 Speaker 1: and a Universal Pictures film the following week. But many 560 00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:45,440 Speaker 1: theaters were outright owned by the studios themselves, and they 561 00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:49,080 Speaker 1: would typically only screen films made by the parents studio. 562 00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:53,400 Speaker 1: In addition, studios were buying up film processing companies, which 563 00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:57,600 Speaker 1: brought the entire process of moviemaking from shooting to processing 564 00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:01,080 Speaker 1: to screening under one company. An so, if you want 565 00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:04,040 Speaker 1: to see a movie back in the early twentieth century, 566 00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,320 Speaker 1: you were probably headed to a specific theater owned by 567 00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:10,360 Speaker 1: the studio then made the film you wanted to see. 568 00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,000 Speaker 1: And it was a great situation for the movie studios 569 00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:17,200 Speaker 1: and not so great for just about everyone else. Filmmakers 570 00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:21,280 Speaker 1: and actors would have to sign exclusive contracts to specific studios, 571 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,600 Speaker 1: which might guarantee a number of movies or pictures as 572 00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,800 Speaker 1: they call them in the biz, but would prevent those 573 00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:31,560 Speaker 1: actors and filmmakers from working for any other studio during 574 00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:34,880 Speaker 1: the duration of that contract. It was possible for a 575 00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,800 Speaker 1: studio to sign a popular actor, let's say, to a 576 00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,880 Speaker 1: contract and then not do anything with that actor except 577 00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,200 Speaker 1: prevent them from being in any other studio works. So 578 00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,960 Speaker 1: it was a way of, you know, taking an actor 579 00:33:49,080 --> 00:33:51,719 Speaker 1: off the shelf so that competitor couldn't make use of 580 00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,360 Speaker 1: them if they need be. Studios could also they were 581 00:33:55,400 --> 00:34:00,000 Speaker 1: constantly producing movies. It was just a movie generating bis 582 00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:02,400 Speaker 1: this it was almost like mass production of film, so 583 00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,320 Speaker 1: people were at work all the time that there was 584 00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:11,120 Speaker 1: very little downtime in those movie studios. Moreover, the studios 585 00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:15,439 Speaker 1: were very powerful even with independent theaters. The studios could 586 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:18,080 Speaker 1: throw their weight around. They would negotiate with theater owners 587 00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:21,800 Speaker 1: using a tactic called block booking and sometimes blind bidding 588 00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:25,800 Speaker 1: as well. So in block booking, studios would withhold sought 589 00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:29,160 Speaker 1: after films unless the theater owners agreed to buy copies 590 00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,279 Speaker 1: of other movies from that same studio, and usually they 591 00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:35,760 Speaker 1: were lower quality, mediocre films that no one was really 592 00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:40,440 Speaker 1: clamoring to see, and independent filmmakers who were not working 593 00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:43,320 Speaker 1: in the studio system found this practice to be unfair 594 00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:47,480 Speaker 1: for a few reasons. One was if all the theaters 595 00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:52,520 Speaker 1: in a region are beholden to studios because they've agreed 596 00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:56,200 Speaker 1: to these block booking tactics and it's filled up their theaters, 597 00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:59,120 Speaker 1: there may not be any play time for them to 598 00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:03,719 Speaker 1: run into in film. For another, sometimes independent filmmakers would 599 00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:08,200 Speaker 1: partner with studios for distribution, but then the studio would 600 00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:12,000 Speaker 1: use that independently produced film to again be part of 601 00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,080 Speaker 1: block booking and say, if you want to screen this movie, 602 00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:19,200 Speaker 1: you also have to take these other twelve crappy films, 603 00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:23,239 Speaker 1: and sometimes the block would be such a large block 604 00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:27,040 Speaker 1: of programming that a theater's entire year's worth of programming 605 00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:30,520 Speaker 1: would be taken up in one deal. And it was 606 00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:34,759 Speaker 1: seen as a very anti competitive practice. Even early on 607 00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:38,239 Speaker 1: in the silent era, this was seen as a problem. So, 608 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:40,560 Speaker 1: like I said, it created kind of a monopoly. And 609 00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,040 Speaker 1: so then the United States, the Department of Justice began 610 00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:46,320 Speaker 1: to push back against the film industry. Way back in 611 00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:50,120 Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one, the Federal Trade Commission or FTC declared 612 00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:53,440 Speaker 1: that the block booking method that the studios were using 613 00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,640 Speaker 1: was anti competitive, and they also began to investigate the 614 00:35:56,640 --> 00:36:00,440 Speaker 1: industry further. That culminated in nineteen twenty eight with a 615 00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:05,520 Speaker 1: lawsuit against Paramount Pictures. The case also named nine other studios. 616 00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:09,879 Speaker 1: Paramount was of paramount importance, but they were all kind 617 00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,160 Speaker 1: of lumped in together. The case actually took two years 618 00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,000 Speaker 1: to complete. In the Department of Justice, one a decision 619 00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:18,880 Speaker 1: that stated the film studios did in fact represent a 620 00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:22,680 Speaker 1: monopoly and they want a judgment against block booking. But 621 00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:27,239 Speaker 1: rather than enforce a ban on block booking, nothing was done, 622 00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:30,560 Speaker 1: And it wasn't that the government changed its mind about 623 00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,160 Speaker 1: the practice, but rather, this was also the time when 624 00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,640 Speaker 1: the Great Depression was hitting and films were a type 625 00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:39,319 Speaker 1: of escapism and they were seen as an important way 626 00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:43,799 Speaker 1: to preserve morale. So President Roosevelt's administration decided not to 627 00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:47,400 Speaker 1: break up the studio theater relationship or to enforce a 628 00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:50,880 Speaker 1: ban on block booking, and things continued as before for 629 00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:53,680 Speaker 1: a time in order for more films to come out. 630 00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:56,799 Speaker 1: The Roosevelt administration was afraid that by going in and 631 00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:00,520 Speaker 1: regulating the industry during a time of depression, uh it 632 00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:03,600 Speaker 1: would mean that films would stop coming out, people wouldn't 633 00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,520 Speaker 1: have that escapism, and things would get even worse. The 634 00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:12,000 Speaker 1: time of the studio dominance would finally end in May nine. 635 00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:15,719 Speaker 1: That's when the Supreme Court settled the issue once and 636 00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:18,719 Speaker 1: for all, declaring block booking to be anti competitive and 637 00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:21,200 Speaker 1: that the movie studios had to sell off their theater chains, 638 00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:23,719 Speaker 1: and that broke up the studio system. Now there were 639 00:37:23,760 --> 00:37:26,279 Speaker 1: still film studios, but they would only be in the 640 00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:30,160 Speaker 1: business of making movies, not the entire chain or vertical 641 00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:34,160 Speaker 1: of film from production to screening. This was good news 642 00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:37,560 Speaker 1: for independent filmmakers and for independent theater owners, but they 643 00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:40,080 Speaker 1: had another technology that was just beginning to emerge that 644 00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:42,600 Speaker 1: was a big cause of anxiety, which would be television. 645 00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:44,840 Speaker 1: TV had been around for a bit, but it wouldn't 646 00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:47,480 Speaker 1: be until the nineteen forties and fifties that started to 647 00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,600 Speaker 1: become a larger concern. Now, jumping back over to the 648 00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,440 Speaker 1: music industry, just to close out this episode, I want 649 00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,200 Speaker 1: to talk about the development of the forty five and 650 00:37:56,239 --> 00:37:59,719 Speaker 1: the long playing album or LP. So for decades re 651 00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:02,719 Speaker 1: or than music was limited by capacity problems on a 652 00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:05,239 Speaker 1: single disc or cylinder, and by this time we're just 653 00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:08,319 Speaker 1: talking discs. No one was making cylinders anymore. There's just 654 00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,040 Speaker 1: only so much space you can use on a surface 655 00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,719 Speaker 1: to carve out a groove. The technology and material that 656 00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:17,560 Speaker 1: recording studios had to work with meant that the grooves 657 00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:21,320 Speaker 1: had size limitations too. You couldn't make the grooves too small. 658 00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:25,520 Speaker 1: But that changed thanks to Peter Carl Goldmark. Now, if 659 00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:28,319 Speaker 1: you listen to my episodes about our CIA, you heard 660 00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:32,280 Speaker 1: me mention gold Mark, who worked for our CIA's rival Columbia. 661 00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:36,200 Speaker 1: Gold Mark had a team of staff and they began 662 00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:39,440 Speaker 1: to investigate the possibility of developing a long playing record 663 00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,200 Speaker 1: album that would work when play back at thirty three 664 00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,920 Speaker 1: and one third revolutions per minute. So remember the industry 665 00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:49,240 Speaker 1: standard at that time was seventy eight revolutions per minute, 666 00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:53,399 Speaker 1: largely because recording and playing records on older materials at 667 00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:57,279 Speaker 1: slower speeds resulted in lower quality audio. There had been 668 00:38:57,280 --> 00:38:59,279 Speaker 1: a couple of times where people had tried to do 669 00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,840 Speaker 1: thirty three a third playback albums. They weren't long playing 670 00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:06,240 Speaker 1: albums because they still had a limited number of grooves 671 00:39:06,239 --> 00:39:10,440 Speaker 1: on them, but it was never financially viable. It was 672 00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:14,160 Speaker 1: never economically viable to launch with those technologies. So this 673 00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,160 Speaker 1: was a new attempt. So Goldmark wanted to do two things. 674 00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:20,320 Speaker 1: He wanted to reduce the revolution speed and increase the 675 00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:22,680 Speaker 1: number of grooves you could fit on one side of 676 00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,279 Speaker 1: a twelve or ten inch record disc. Doing both of 677 00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:28,520 Speaker 1: those things would extend the playing time for a record. 678 00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:30,239 Speaker 1: If you had a twelve inch record, you could get 679 00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:33,480 Speaker 1: more than twenty minutes of audio per side, and that 680 00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:36,120 Speaker 1: would remove a lot of the frustrating limitations the recording 681 00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:40,680 Speaker 1: industry had been dealing with since it had started. So again, 682 00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,960 Speaker 1: earlier efforts had been thwarted by those technical and economic challenges. 683 00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:46,640 Speaker 1: It would take a few years for the economy to 684 00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:49,359 Speaker 1: recover and for World War two to end. That also 685 00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,160 Speaker 1: happened during this time, and then you would get the 686 00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,560 Speaker 1: right environment to launch a new format for recorded media. 687 00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:59,080 Speaker 1: Within that time, gold Mark worked on perfecting his vision. 688 00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:03,000 Speaker 1: He formed teams focused on specific problems. So one team 689 00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:05,480 Speaker 1: would work on a turntable design meant to play at 690 00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:08,239 Speaker 1: that thirty three and a third rpm and with a 691 00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:10,960 Speaker 1: stylist that's capable of fitting in a much smaller groove. 692 00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:14,479 Speaker 1: Another team worked on fine tuning the material they would 693 00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:17,840 Speaker 1: use to make albums. They had been depending on shellac, 694 00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:19,719 Speaker 1: but that was not going to work, so then they 695 00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:23,600 Speaker 1: started practicing with vinyl. They found that vinyl was more durable, 696 00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:26,840 Speaker 1: it produced less noise, and it worked well at that 697 00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:29,080 Speaker 1: thirty three and a third speed, so they went with that. 698 00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:33,200 Speaker 1: Another team worked on creating the right recording instruments, including 699 00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:35,560 Speaker 1: a cutting head that would make those small grooves in 700 00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,640 Speaker 1: the first place. They were called micro grooves, and it 701 00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,520 Speaker 1: would take nearly a decade of work before the technology 702 00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,279 Speaker 1: and the economy were both ready. So the thirty three 703 00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:47,480 Speaker 1: and a third LP record debuted in nineteen forty eight. 704 00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:49,920 Speaker 1: That was the same year the Supreme Court busted up 705 00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:52,520 Speaker 1: the studio systems, and because you could fit as much 706 00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,640 Speaker 1: music on a single disc as would normally require a 707 00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:59,600 Speaker 1: dozen or so discs, those single discs were also called albums. 708 00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:02,800 Speaker 1: So if you ever wonder why it's called a record album, 709 00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:04,640 Speaker 1: it's because in the old days you had a physical 710 00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:09,200 Speaker 1: album full of multiple discs that represented a piece of music. 711 00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,120 Speaker 1: Now you could fit all of that and more on 712 00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:16,399 Speaker 1: one disc. The following year, nineteen forty nine, was when 713 00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:19,520 Speaker 1: r c A would release the forty five record format. 714 00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:22,479 Speaker 1: While the thirty three and a third album's measured twelve 715 00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:25,200 Speaker 1: inches across, forty five were seven inches, and they were 716 00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:27,240 Speaker 1: called forty five because they would play back at forty 717 00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:29,879 Speaker 1: five revolutions per minute rather than thirty three and a third. 718 00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:32,280 Speaker 1: R c A produced them in a variety of colors, 719 00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,440 Speaker 1: originally using color to designate the genre of music that 720 00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:38,720 Speaker 1: the albums belonged to. Actually, I shouldn't call them albums. 721 00:41:38,760 --> 00:41:41,560 Speaker 1: The records belonged to the forty fives at the time 722 00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:44,719 Speaker 1: could hold around five to seven minutes of music if 723 00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:47,520 Speaker 1: you were to optimize them. Most popular songs at the 724 00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:50,920 Speaker 1: time still clocked in and around three sometimes four minutes. 725 00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,200 Speaker 1: Forty five's typically would have a single song per side, 726 00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:58,000 Speaker 1: but by the late nineteen eighties the technology had improved 727 00:41:58,000 --> 00:41:59,680 Speaker 1: to the point where you could fit more than ten 728 00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:02,319 Speaker 1: min it's to a single side of a forty five, 729 00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:05,440 Speaker 1: and so you have three standards all battling it out 730 00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:07,799 Speaker 1: at the same time, you had seventy eight, forty five 731 00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:11,960 Speaker 1: and LPs. The seventy eight would eventually bow out. In fact, 732 00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:15,080 Speaker 1: they bowed up first, fading away in the nineteen fifties, 733 00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:17,640 Speaker 1: and then the forty five and LPs would continue to 734 00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,840 Speaker 1: shape music. Popular music groups would collect songs together to 735 00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:25,520 Speaker 1: create an album. Albums were something that only a few 736 00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:29,359 Speaker 1: artists had been able to produce before that a lot 737 00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:33,040 Speaker 1: of them would produce a single song or two songs maybe, 738 00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:36,280 Speaker 1: and just release one disc so to do the singles, 739 00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,400 Speaker 1: but in seventy eight format rather than forty five. But 740 00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,800 Speaker 1: now it was possible to group lots of songs together. 741 00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,680 Speaker 1: They would also release singles on forty five, which in 742 00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:49,840 Speaker 1: turn could help encourage fans to buy the longer albums 743 00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,520 Speaker 1: and discover other songs that weren't in single format, and 744 00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:57,320 Speaker 1: later artists would begin to explore other possibilities within the medium, 745 00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:01,240 Speaker 1: including concept albums, and a const album is one where 746 00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:04,760 Speaker 1: all the songs of the album are thematically or totally 747 00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:07,040 Speaker 1: linked in some important way, so that the songs can 748 00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:11,160 Speaker 1: be considered not just individually but collectively. Now, you could 749 00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:15,080 Speaker 1: argue that the concept album debuted before the LP, but 750 00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:17,640 Speaker 1: it was a novelty at the time because it was 751 00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:21,319 Speaker 1: such an endeavor to produce an album consisting of numerous discs. 752 00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:24,960 Speaker 1: But the Woody Gut three album dust Bowl Ballads, you 753 00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:27,160 Speaker 1: could say that was the first concept album. They all 754 00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:29,520 Speaker 1: had to deal with the same sort of subject material, 755 00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:34,560 Speaker 1: and that particular album consisted of six discs, and it 756 00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,000 Speaker 1: was sold in two collections of three discs each, so 757 00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:38,880 Speaker 1: you had kind of a part one and a part two. 758 00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:43,280 Speaker 1: So six discs, twelve sides, all dealing with the songs 759 00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:46,279 Speaker 1: about the same subject matter. That would arguably be the 760 00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:49,520 Speaker 1: first concept album. But the LP made those sort of 761 00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:52,080 Speaker 1: projects much easier to produce, and that led to some 762 00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:55,799 Speaker 1: really interesting experimentation in music and form. It would lead 763 00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:59,880 Speaker 1: to very interesting, weird concept albums and then things like 764 00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:04,200 Speaker 1: rock operas and other uh extensions of the art. So 765 00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:07,279 Speaker 1: we're gonna leave off from this at this point. We're 766 00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:11,160 Speaker 1: gonna wrap this episode up, uh, And just to remind everyone, 767 00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:14,799 Speaker 1: this is the time where albums and singles are now 768 00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,120 Speaker 1: available and you can purchase them and play them at home, 769 00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:20,719 Speaker 1: assuming you had a turntable. At the time, there were 770 00:44:20,719 --> 00:44:23,640 Speaker 1: films and theaters under a new system that emerged from 771 00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:27,080 Speaker 1: beneath studio control. Television, which I'll talk about more in 772 00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:29,840 Speaker 1: the next episode, had debuted in the nineteen twenties, but 773 00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:32,759 Speaker 1: electronic TVs had really only become available in the late 774 00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:36,120 Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, and we're just starting to emerge from a 775 00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:40,440 Speaker 1: niche industry right around the late forties. In the next episode, 776 00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:44,040 Speaker 1: we're going to look at TV and Hollywood's involvement with television, 777 00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:46,920 Speaker 1: and we'll also touch on radio a little bit, and 778 00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:49,240 Speaker 1: then we'll talk about the rise of the home theater 779 00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:51,759 Speaker 1: industry and how that shook things up, as well as 780 00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:56,680 Speaker 1: the emergence of new forms of media formats, and we'll 781 00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,960 Speaker 1: continue to look at how that shaped the media itself 782 00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:03,120 Speaker 1: and how it shaped the way we consume media and 783 00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:06,359 Speaker 1: our our thoughts about media. So this is, like I said, 784 00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:08,719 Speaker 1: a pretty broad topic, but one that I really wanted 785 00:45:08,719 --> 00:45:11,920 Speaker 1: to tackle because I think it's fascinating personally. UM, and 786 00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:14,840 Speaker 1: if you guys have any suggestions for other broad topics 787 00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,640 Speaker 1: you would like to hear, maybe two or three episodes 788 00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:20,840 Speaker 1: about why not send me a message the email addresses 789 00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:24,360 Speaker 1: tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com or pop 790 00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:27,279 Speaker 1: on over to our website that's tech stuff podcast dot com. 791 00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:31,000 Speaker 1: You'll find links there to our social media presence, as 792 00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:33,799 Speaker 1: well as the archive of all our past episodes and 793 00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:36,319 Speaker 1: a link to our store. Every purchase you make there 794 00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:39,319 Speaker 1: goes to help the showing. Greatly appreciate it, and I'll 795 00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:46,920 Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is a 796 00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,680 Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more 797 00:45:49,760 --> 00:45:53,160 Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, 798 00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:56,440 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.