Chronomedia 1924
Predictions from 1924
D W Griffith
1875-1948; pioneer American film director
I am quite positive that when a century has passed, all thought of our so-called
speaking pictures will have been abandoned. It will never be possible to synchronise the
voice with the pictures. ...
One hundred years hence, I believe, the airline passenger lines will operate
motion-picture shows on regular schedule between New York and Chicago and New York and London.
• ‘The Movies One Hundred Years From Now’, in Colliers, 3 May 1924
R W Hallows MA
Writer on technology
Twenty years ago or even less people flocked to see a magic lantern display,
looking upon it as little short of miraculous. To-day we regard the magic
lantern as quite a back number beside the the cinematograph, which throws upon
the screen not mere still pictures, but those which show every action just as it
takes place. In two or three years—it will be no more than this—the
cinematograph in its present form will seem as much out of date as the magic
lantern does now. We shall not be content to see records of events that happened
some time ago; we shall want to see upon the screen the things that matter at
exactly the same time as they take place.
Let us imagine we are visiting a picture theatre one evening in 1926. The
theatre itself is very much the same as those that we know to-day, but there is
one exception. There is no orchestra, nor is there even a pianist to provide the
music. But that does not mean that the pictures are to be presented with no
musical accompaniment. In fact, as we enter, the place is filled with delightful
strains, which issue from the horn of a great loud-speaker placed at one side of
the screen. The piece reaches its final chords as we take our seats, and we
learn from the voice of the distant announcer that it was played in some
far-away city.
As the music ends, a second loud-speaker
at the other side of the screen strikes up. Its duty is not to deliver music,
but to give us, as we shall see, the words of speakers and the blending sounds
of thousands of voices that have been borne through the ether from vast
distances in a fraction of a second.
"Ladies and gentlemen,"
says a voice, each syllable being audible in every corner of the great theatre,
"it is one minute to ten. At ten o'clock the principals in the great fight
for the middle-weight championship of the world will enter the ring here in New
York." As the voice ceases we can hear the confused murmuring of the
enormous crowd which is waiting 4,000 miles away to witness the contest. And now
the screen is illuminated. Upon it appears, beautifully clear, a picture of the
ring with its rope barriers surrounded by tier upon tier of men and women in the
closely-packed arena. ...
Every phase of the fight is as clear
to us as though we were sitting in the most expensive seats by the very ring
side. We follow its changing fortunes to the very end, and as one of the men
lies huddled up and motionless upon the boards we see the referee's beating hand
and hear his voice as he counts out the vanquished.
Remember that we have been witnessing
not a fight that took place a fortnight previously, or even on the day before;
the events that we have just seen upon the screen took place in America
practically at the same time as we saw them. Actually the difference in time is
about one forty-fifth of a second, for that is all that ether waves require to
cross 4,000 miles of land and sea.
During the afternoon this same
cinematograph has been showing football matches as they actually took place. The
audience has seen as well, and grown just as excited , as if it had been upon
the football ground itself, and not within the four walls of a theatre miles
away. Thrilling finishes on the racecourse have been thrown upon the screen, not
silently, but with the accompanying roar that comes from thousands of throats
when the horses enter the straight.
As an interlude the pictures have
taken the audience into the hunting field with some famous pack, where is sees
the fox, the hounds, and the riders, hears the huntsman's "Gooone
away" and the sound of his horn. All through the afternoon and evening
interesting and exciting events at home and in foreign countries are shown at
the very moment of their occurrence. ...
All this may sound fantastical to us
at present, but there is nothing impossible or even unlikely in it. Still
pictures have already been sent with great success by wireless, and from the
still to the moving is but a step. Thousands of fertile brains are engaged now
upon the problems of transmitting by wireless scenes such as those which we have
described. No one can doubt that in a very short time now their efforts will
lead to complete success. ...
The wireless musical cinema will be a
wonderful institution, for it will annihilate distances in this world of ours.
Australia was once four or five months away by sailing ship. To-day the fast
steamer has brought it to within only a few weeks. In a year or two it will be
but a fifteenth of a second from us; words spoken or actions that take place
there, will be brought to our ears and our eyes in that time by the loud-speaker
and the projector of the wireless musical cinema, not only in public places of
entertainment, but actually in our own homes.
• 'The Wireless Musical Cinema: A peep into the future' in "Broadcast Listeners" Year Book
1924 London: Radio Press, 1924]
Chronomedia 1924
