PhonoMultimedia
 
Combining Sound
and Images into Multimedia Entertainment
PhonoMultimedia are examples of
recorded sound combined with different types of images - magic
lantern slides, postcards, book illustrations, moving pictures
on film and television productions.
Magic
lantern shows with period phonograph recordings have been
created as examples of what could have been seen and heard
by audiences at the turn of the twentieth century.
Other
PhonoMultimedia (e.g., books, postcards, sheet music)
have been created accompanied by period phonograph recordings.
Magic Lantern Shows Accompanied
by Period Phonograph Recordings
In the early 1890's the Phonograph
and the magic lantern provided multi-media entertainment to
paying audiences. The following have been recreated using
magic lantern stories and cylinder phonograph records.
Adventures
of a Cyclist
- A Magic Lantern Presentation accompanied by The Edison
Concert Band playing Ye Ancients March, Edison Gold Moulded
Record No. 8946 (1905).
Adventures
of Mr. Snapshot - A Magic Lantern Presentation
accompanied by The Edison Military Band performing American
Students’ Waltzes, Edison Record No. 8740 (1904)
America
- A Magic Lantern Presentation with artwork by Joseph
Boggs Beale and accompanied by The Indestructible Military Band
performing The Star Spangled Banner and America,
Indestructible Record No. 3943 (1908)
Annie's
Treat -
A Magic Lantern Presentation accompanied by an 1896 Regina
music box playing The Nightingale Song.
Break
the News to Mother
- A Magic Lantern Presentation accompanied by J.W. Myers singing
Break the News to Mother, Columbia Records.
A
Christmas Carol
- A Magic Lantern Presentation using Newton &
Co. Slides (1884) of Charles Dicken's story accompanied by “The
Carol Singers” performing "God rest you, merry gentlemen"
on Edison Blue Amberol Record No. 3346 (1917)
The
Cyclists' Elopement
- A Magic Lantern Presentation illustrated by Bamforth &
Co., (1897) accompanied by Peaceful Henry played by The
Edison Concert Band, Edison Gold Moulded Record No. 8562 (1903).
Peaceful
Henry - Edison Record No. 8562 Release Notes:The
Edison Phonograph Monthly 1903;
Sheet Music, Dealer Program
A similiar 8-panel cartoon titled
"On the Wrong Tack - A Story of a Bicycle Elopement and
How it Succeeded" by F.
M. Howarth was in an 1894 Puck magazine.
Panel 1 from "On
the Wrong Tack, Puck, 1894
Another 12-panel
elopement cartoon titled "A Blessing in Disguise - The
Story of a Successful Bicycle Elopement" by F.
M. Howarth was in an 1898 Puck magazine.
Panel 2 from "A
Blessing in Disguise, Puck, 1898
Killarney
- A Magic Lantern Presentation accompanied by Miss Marie Narelle
singing Killarney, Edison Gold Moulded Record
No. 9081 (1905).
Nursery
Rhymes - A Magic Lantern Presentation Illustrated
by W. Butcher & Sons, London (ca. 1910) accompanied by Thousand-and-One
Nights Waltz played by the Edison Concert Band (1908)
Moving Pictures Accompanied
by Period Phonograph Recordings
Snowball
Fight in Lyon, France 1897 - This Lumière
brothers film has been upscaled, colorized with AI added frames
to enhance smoothness and facial expressions. This Phonographia
version has used that version and accompanied it with Snow
Queen performed by the Indestructible Military Band (1909)
The Phonoscope,
February 1898
The Phonoscope for February
1898 in their section New Films for "Screen Machines"
announced that "Macguire
& Baucus" was marketing "SNOW BALLING."
According to The
Thomas A. Edison Papers the Macguire & Baucus "company
entered the motion picture business in 1894. During the period
August-October 1894 it acquired the exclusive rights to sell
and exhibit Edison's kinetoscopes and kinetoscope films in Europe,
Mexico and South America, the West Indies, Australia, Burma,
Ceylon, and India." "On December 7, 1897, Edison brought
suit against the company for infringement of his motion picture
patents."
In that same edition of The
Phonoscope an article with pictures featured the London
office of Macquire & Baucus, Ltd. noting they "have
long been sole agents for Great Britain, her colonies and the
United States for the Lumiere photographic films, perforated
to American (standard) gauge. As every well-informed exhibitor
knows, these Lumiere films are justly celebrated."
Workers
Exit the Lumière Factory in Lyon, France 1895
- A Lumière brothers film upscaled, colorized and accompanied
by Everybody Works But Father sung by Bob Roberts, Edison
Records (1905)
The
Phonograph and Santa - An excerpt from Thomas
A. Edison’s 1905 moving picture “The Night Before Christmas”
accompanied by Gene Autry’s 1953 record “Up on the Housetop.”
Ring
Out the Bells for Christmas - Phonograph ephemera
accompanied by Ring Out the Bells for Christmas, Edison
Record No. 9806 (1907)
Uncle
Josh and the Lightning Rod Agent
- Uncle Josh's encounter with a Lightning Rod Agent from his
1905 book Uncle Josh's Punkin Centre Stories by Cal Stewart,
"The Talking Machine Story Teller."
Uncle
Josh on a Bicycle
- Uncle Josh's rides a bicycle for the first time from his
1905 book Uncle Josh's Punkin Centre Stories by Cal Stewart,
"The Talking Machine Story Teller."
A
Christmas Carol
- A dramatized presentation featuring illustrations from
"A Christmas Carol" print editions (1844–1915) and the
recording of “The Awakening of Scrooge” on Edison Amberol Record
No. 12378 (1911) performed by Bransby Williams as Ebenezer Scrooge
as he awakens on Christmas Day.
The
Earliest Combination of Sound and Film Made by W.K.L. Dickson,
circa 1894/1895
WATCH
to see and hear the original Edison Kinetophonographic
movie that combined sound and film made by W.K.L. Dickson.
Courtesy the Library
of Congress
PBS Mini-Documentaries
related to the Phonograph and Kinetoscope
Edison:
From the Telephone and Telegraph Comes the Phonograph
- An American Experience video
Discover how one
invention led to another when Thomas Edison and his Menlo
Park laboratory team refined Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone
and, along the way, invented the phonograph, a device, said
the New York Times, destined to "entirely eclipse"
the telephone.(1)
The
Phonograph - An American Experience PBS video
On December 7, 1877 Thomas Edison
demonstrated his phonograph at the New York City offices of
the nation’s leading technical weekly publication, “Scientific
American.” This video features that event and the fame it brought
to Edison (2:14 excerpted from the 2015 PBS American Experience
“Edison.”)
The
Kinetoscope - An American Experience PBS video
In the 1890s, Thomas
Edison worked with his assistant and part-time photographer,
William Dickson to create a motion picture camera. They created
a series of short films that could be viewed on a coin-operated,
peephole viewing cabinet called a kinetoscope. (3 minutes 32
seconds from 2015 PBS American Experience).
Miscellaneous
PhonoMultimedia
Edison Kinetoscope Parlor 1896, The
Phonoscope
The Vitascope,
The Phonoscope, November
1896
"What
the Phonograph is to the ear, the Vitascope is to the eye.
The camera records the view, the Phonograph bottles up the
sound, and the Vitascope
preserves the action for future use..."
Our
Correspondents, The Phonoscope,
November 1896
Edison offered
lantern slides of his "Old Couple" decalcomania
to Edison Dealers, especially designed for use at moving picture
shows, magic lantern exhibitions, etc., at a price of 35c
each in plain black and white, or 90c in colors. Edison
Phonograph Monthly, February 1910.
Munsey's Magazine,
April 1901 (quarter page ad, The Collection of Phonographia)
(PM-1827)
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