| Subject: Re: The Big Bopper, Music Videos, & The Birth of MTV |
Author:
Mulligan
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Date Posted: Sun August 01, 2021 15:13:10
In reply to:
Randy Steele
's message, "The Big Bopper, Music Videos, & The Birth of MTV" on Sun August 01, 2021 09:02:09
Soundies are three-minute American musical films, produced between 1940 and 1947, each displaying a song, dance, and/or band or orchestral number. Produced professionally on 35mm black-and-white film, like theatrical motion pictures, they were printed in the more portable and economical 16mm gauge.
The films were shown in a coin-operated "movie jukebox" named the Panoram, manufactured by the Mills Novelty Company of Chicago. Each Panoram housed a 16mm RCA film projector, with eight Soundies films threaded in an endless-loop arrangement. A system of mirrors flashed the image from the lower half of the cabinet onto a front-facing screen in the top half. Each film cost 10 cents to play, and there was no choice of song; the patron saw whatever film was next in the queue. Panorams could be found in public amusement centers, nightclubs, taverns, restaurants, and factory lounges, and the films were changed weekly. The completed Soundies were generally made available within a few weeks of their filming, by the Soundies Distributing Corporation of America.
For today's filmmakers and archivists, Soundies are known for preserving rare performances of African-American artists who had fewer opportunities to perform in mainstream films. Artists such as The Ink Spots, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Dorothy Dandridge, Big Joe Turner, Bob Howard, Billy Eckstine, Count Basie, The Mills Brothers, Herb Jeffries, Cab Calloway, Meade Lux Lewis, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, and Stepin Fetchit all made Soundies (a handful of which were excerpted from longer theatrical films).
(via Wikipedia)
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