{"id":6462,"date":"2013-07-01T14:00:33","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T20:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=6462"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:48:14","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:48:14","slug":"talks-about-our-first-talking-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=6462","title":{"rendered":"Talks about our first talking film"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year\u2019s issue of C-U Confidential<\/strong><\/a> concluded with a short anecdote on the late University of Illinois<\/strong> electrical engineering professor Joseph Tykocinski-Tykociner<\/strong> and his near-forgotten achievement in mating photographed sequential images with synchronized audio. The piece was timed to appear near the 90th anniversary of his invention\u2019s demonstration on campus and as a postscript to the Tykociner presentation offered by UIUC media librarian Zak Boerger<\/strong> at the third New Art Film Festival<\/strong>. Part of Boerger\u2019s preparation involved creating a digital copy of the innovator\u2019s film tests from an older archival tape for the NAFF\u2019s audience to see and, more importantly, hear.<\/p>\n

We recently discovered the UIUC Library<\/strong> has made the tests available as streaming video which gives us an opportunity to examine movie history and also incentive to learn more about its significance. Here is a Tykociner text biography<\/a> compiled by university archivists in February, incorporating said video at its conclusion. The transfer is highly imperfect given the age of the Beta tape from which it is sourced as well as the original element, a 1954 film dupe of the 1922 tests. Historians and techies interested in the path traveled by the material should review this UIUC Archives<\/strong> holdings page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Easier listening is a vintage audio program uploaded by WILL\/Illinois Public Media<\/strong> and produced in 1952 by UIUC on the occasion of their 83rd anniversary that highlights Tykociner\u2019s tests. Look under the header \u201cIllinois Technology, Applied\u201d here<\/a> for context, or here for streaming audio of the show in two parts<\/a>. From the seven-minute mark to about 12:30 of part one, Professor Tykociner himself talks about his sound-on-film methodology while voice actors recreate his demonstration, portraying a younger Tykociner as well as his wife and colleagues as they appeared in the tests.<\/p>\n

Finally, we direct your attention to an article published early last month<\/a> in Inside Illinois<\/span><\/strong>, a faculty and staff paper issued by the UIUC News Bureau<\/strong>, discussing librarians\u2019 ongoing survey of media materials stored in the UIUC Library holdings and scattered about various departments. As cautioned by Boerger during his Tykociner presentation at the NAFF and reflected by several UI professionals quoted here, the university \u2013 let alone modern society \u2013 needs to better manage what its members create lest we lose evidence of our history and progress to physical media decay or digital instability.<\/p>\n

~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

p.s.<\/em> We\u2019re not sure how this person managed to share the Tykociner tests on YouTube<\/strong>, but until further notice we\u2019ll include it as a bonus for those dearest readers who flatter us by paying attention to every word we post!<\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fresh links lead us to consider once again the sound-on-film technology developed by Joseph Tykocinski-Tykociner nearly a century ago, especially since the fruits of his labor are finally available for study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,15,23,31,20],"tags":[1114,925,1111,1112,1113],"class_list":["post-6462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-images-du-cu","category-media-coverage","category-preservation","category-the-old-school","category-videos-du-c-u","tag-illinois-public-mediawill","tag-joseph-tykociner","tag-uiuc-electrical-engineering","tag-uiuc-library","tag-zak-boerger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}