Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris
About Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris
At the Gaumont pose theater in Buttes-Chaumont, a camera behind Alice Guy records her directing a phonoscène. An assistant in dark glasses rehearses the singers beside the horns. The number they are setting is the Capulet ball from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette.
Cast & crew
More about Alice Guy Films a 'Phonoscène' in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris
The Cinémathèque française files the reel as anonymous, not as a film Guy directed, and dates it 9 January 1907, number 300 in the Gaumont phonoscène catalog. Numbers 301 and 302 are the other Roméo et Juliette phonoscènes. A 2K scan was made in 2014 from a Gaumont printing element.
Themes
Background
Through 1906 and into spring 1907, Guy's job at Gaumont was the chronophone phonoscènes, short pictures built to match a disc.
Making
The camera stays on Guy's back and on the rehearsal. It does not cut to the finished chronophone number.
Technique
The studio camera sits on a mobile cast-iron stand next to an Elgéphone driven by compressed air. The Cinémathèque notes that these cameras still could not record the voices directly.
Music
This making-of is silent. The phonoscène she is directing was built to run in sync with a phonograph, and the Elgéphone and two horns are in the frame.
Preservation
A Gaumont printing element was scanned in 2K in 2014 for the Cinémathèque française.
Notes
- Guy later said the singers were doing an excerpt from the opera Mignon. The Cinémathèque identifies the ballet as the Capulet ball instead.
- The assistant in dark glasses, shielding his eyes from the lamps, is probably Étienne Arnaud, who later directed.
- The Cinémathèque calls it one of the first making-ofs, and the first one built around the first woman to direct.
- Gaumont Pathé Archives supplied the element. Manuela Padoan and Agnès Bertola are thanked on the Cinémathèque record.
Scenes
- Guy, seen from the back, directs the singers.
- Arnaud, in dark glasses, places the actors beside the horns.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-alice-guy-films-a-phonoscne-in-the-studio-at-buttes-chaumont-paris)
