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The Stereo Impulse

其他書名	High-fidelity Cinema and the Making of Modern Surround Sound Aesthetics
出版	University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2018
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=eQJ40AEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋This dissertation examines the economic and social factors that led Hollywood to establish aesthetic ideals for incorporating stereophonic sound technology into motion picture storytelling practices. Contrary to current scholarship, which prioritizes multi-channel audio during and after the 1970s, I argue that the media industry codified its contemporary ideals for stereophonic sound design between the late 1920s and the late 1950s. By examining an assortment of surviving documents-including technical correspondence, patents, oral histories, lawsuits, transcripts from industry meetings, and surviving stereo mixes-I reveal the contentious debates that led the industry to arrive at a definition for what stereo was conceptually and what constituted proper stereo technique. I contend that the widespread adoption of stereo practices by the end of the 1950s was fueled by a host of social forces, such as the showmanship of engineers, corporate alliances, union battles, desires to control the exhibition marketplace, and a structural dependency on preexisting practices. Nevertheless, this institutional infighting engendered a set of preferred techniques for telling stories through multiple loudspeakers, techniques which were widely adopted because they proved economically beneficial to major studios and theater chains. As a result of the broader institutional and commercial value of these stereophonic practices, I argue that films released in Dolby Stereo, digital 5.1, and other contemporary formats continue to embody the aesthetic ideals for three-dimensional sound design that engineers and technicians successfully codified during the studio era. In sum, this dissertation treats stereophonic sound as a case study that illuminates both the broader logic behind the industry's codification of stylistic norms, as well as the economic and social forces that govern Hollywood's resistance to technological change.