Did you guys ever tried to have “photoplay” music for your films?

[Silas Buchanan]

I know I sometimes put on a record when watching an 8mm film, but I was wondering if anyone back in 8mm’s heyday tried it, like with records or a mechanical toy. Anyone?

[Rob Young]

Silas, that takes me back to being a kid, about 6 or 7. I had my uncle's borrowed super silent projector and a silent 200ft Disney of Herbie Rides Again. So for sound, I would borrow a cassette tape of film music and, if you held the play button half way down on the cassette player, you would get this really speeded up music. It was very funny and seemed to suit the movie!

There was a company that did 200ft films with matching sound on a vinyl lp...someone will remind us of the name.

I had a Laurel & Hardy. The idea was that you had the projector ready on 3 of the leader count and when you heard the beep on the record, you started the film. If you were lucky it was kind of in sync...for a few seconds anyway!!

[Melvin England]

Hi Rob. As I have mentioned elsewhere on this forum, I have a couple of those Golden Book Films - Storytime Series which are cartoon drawing stories (not moving animation) on a silent 200' spool with and accompanying 33 1/3 rpm 7" vinyl disc with the soundtrack. I did transfer one of them to a sound stripe with quite a good result. One of my very few forays into sound syncing.

[Steve Klare]

I got this idea that I could "improve" silents by playing CD music wild with a film. It basically failed because the music's mood hijacks the film's and since both music's and film's moods often change quickly I got weird moments where (for example) our hero has plummeted off a cliff and the music suddenly turns very happy! ("Wait!...Wasn't he the good guy?!)

(They can't all be The Wizard of Oz with The Dark side of the Moon in the speakers!)

I did actually shoot a film once where I had the songs picked out even before I loaded the camera, I filmed and edited to fit the music, I got the film striped and I recorded the music on the stripe. That works because It was planned as a single entity from the start. The music and the film reinforce each other instead of arguing.

There is personal film trivia here. I got the striping done at EVT magnetics in the UK and they sent the results to Tim Christian, a former Forum member and dearly departed friend of mine. He checked the stripe and then shipped the film to the US.

-since he watched the film with his wife, I've actually had a UK premier, just once, in a living room in East Anglia.

[Dave Bickford]

Back in the day (1978/79) I recorded real life sound effects to accompany a silent Woody Woodpecker cartoon. It was awesome! It always synched up because I used the same projector and cassette recorder for both recording and playback. Sadly, I no longer have either the film or the cassette. And certainly not the projector (crappy GAF Dual 8).

[Silas Buchanan]

Silas, that takes me back to being a kid, about 6 or 7. I had my uncle's borrowed super silent projector and a silent 200ft Disney of Herbie Rides Again. So for sound, I would borrow a cassette tape of film music and, if you held the play button half way down on the cassette player, you would get this really speeded up music. It was very funny and seemed to suit the movie!

There was a company that did 200ft films with matching sound on a vinyl lp...someone will remind us of the name.

I had a Laurel & Hardy. The idea was that you had the projector ready on 3 of the leader count and when you heard the beep on the record, you started the film. If you were lucky it was kind of in sync...for a few seconds anyway!!

That sounds awesome! Do you remember what cassette you used by chance?