The trick that made Mickey Mouse famous

Check out the BTS of how I made Steamboat Willie's optical sound - free! This is where I have links to the programs I used.
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More info and sources at bottom.
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Okie dokie - first some credits.
Check out Not An Animation Historian who gave me scans!
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The Steamboat Willie model is Creative Commons via Adrian Cojocaru. What a genius!
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Nice similar vid over at Technology Connections you can watch if you wanna nerd out more.
• Movies made sound with...
Finding His Voice - Fleischer Bros. explainer of optical sound
archive.org/de...
Sound Recording - Encyclopedia Britannica. Very helpful breakdown.
archive.org/de...
Disney's World: amzn.to/3tEl3jF
Source of a lot of the orchestra narrative and the India Ink fact.
Working With Walt: amzn.to/3TOBK6E
Source of the Wilfred Jackson quote (that whole thing is a quote) and some other factoids.
A Mickey Mouse Reader: amzn.to/3vqeUrQ
Source of other Steamboat Willie anecdotes.

[@lifeonthemark8210]

Another fun fact about Steamboat Willy: if you’re watching a version provided by Disney, chances are you’re watching a censored version. Apparently having your brand mascot play music through animal abuse is “inappropriate”. So, a good deal of that usually gets chopped out.

[@ALegitPooperVideos]

Disney Plus has the uncensored version

[@jonathanree4524]

Plane Crazy is also basically Mickey sexually assaulting Minnie in a DIY airplane, might be part of the reason it hasn't stuck around like Steamboat Willie lol

[@billybollockhead5628]

@@jonathanree4524well in steamboat Willie, her skirt gets lifted and she’s lifted up by her underwear.

[@GuyMcPherson69]

​@@ALegitPooperVideosAin't that a surprise

[@Attmay]

That was true until they restored the uncut version sometime in the 90s.

[@AlexanderGee]

I worked on the companion app for Despicable Me called "Minionator" which provided subtitles for the Minion characters. Since we didn't have long to build it we watched the movie's audio on an FFT and looked for patterns of simple tones we could detect and derive time information from. Whistles, and a section of Pharrell Williams autotuned voice were two I remember we picked. We also got them to redo the buttons sounds when the Minions are interacting with equipment in the movie to make them clearer for our software. So we were using the descendant of this audio sync trick to sync a third stream of information to the movie. This kind of not world leading but very well executed marketing of which we were a small part is what made Minions a thing.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

wow! that's crazy. very cool. i need to find the minionator now

[@zlobzor]

Interesting that you manage to get them to change the sound design! Is this an app that was supposed to go with the cinima release, or home viewing?

[@tortysoft]

Most impressive . Sadly no longer available - unless you know better :-)

[@OfficialOacus]

YOU WORKED ON THAT!? NEAT!

[@jaymogrified]

It’s fascinating how often the specific historical context is key to a piece of media/art becoming iconic. It now makes much more sense that Steamboat Willie was a catalyst for Disney’s success.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yes this definitely happens a lot!

[@Turb0Yoda]

Heh- great timing- I just came back from the Walt Disney museum in San Fran. They did cover this at some point in the displays

[@screetchycello]

Right? The Mona Lisa is as famous as it is because it got stolen in 1911 and there was a ton of publicity for years about about it and it just entered the cultural memory as "the most famous painting".

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

self plug kzbin.info/www/bejne/mmPaqmp8pZeZp9k@@screetchycello

[@JoeContext]

A lot of Mickey trivia tends to be a bit "Mario 2 was Doki Doki Panic" obvious (or more recently, just reciting the legal limitations to him being public domain) so it's pretty cool to see some stuff I actually never knew before

[@Attmay]

Yeah, they are basically recycling and regurgitating the same content Disney has been putting out themselves for years, just with more buffoonish mispronunciations.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yeah it's nice my local college library had a pretty good animation section - really was necessary to go into non-digitized stuff to get some answers. i think you wouldn't necessarily even know that mickey was variable density if you didn't get into books! i also chatted with an animation historian ray pointer a little bit, and he was helpful to get me in the right direction - i didn't bring him up here because i wanted to make sure any errors were mine alone.

[@MaxOakland]

Haha Doki Doki Panic is something I come across all the time nice to see it in this different context

[@fireaza]

Media history is insane. You'd have to be some kinda mad genius to have "light" be the solution to a sound problem. This is sorta the first steps towards laser-based storage, when you think about it!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

totally! makes sense yet blows my mind still

[@geckoo9190]

About that, light is always the final solution, it has microscopical precision and its easy to handle, the hard part is to adapt whatever you want to make to use light.

[@CallMeRabbitzUSVI]

​​@@geckoo9190 Not final solution, quantum entanglement and such will make ftl (faster than light) transfers and interations a thing in the near future

[@Bacopa68]

What I wonder is why did this tech not end up with other applications. Why weren't the State of the Union or the King's Speech recorded this way? Why was wire recording a thing when this already existed?

[@jonnyeh]

It's also crazy how Dolby Digital/DTS was encoded on the sides of the film in a similar way decades later.

[@FleischerToons]

Big thanks to Max Fleischer and Lee De Forest for bringing sound to animated cartoons!

[@Bacopa68]

And for putting Cab Calloway as the singing voice of Koko in Betty Boop. Best version of "St James Infirmary Blues" is in Fleischer's Betty Boop version of Snow White.

[@mspysu79]

The "Powers CinePhone" system used by Disney for his early sound cartoons, is an almost direct copy of the DeForest system that was left after DeForest and Case parted ways (Because DeForest treated Case like crap) Case took his inventions that made the DeForest system better over to Fox to create the "Fox Movietone" sound film system. If you listen to other film sound systems of the time such as Vitaphone sound on Disc, Western Electric sound on film, Fox Movietone, or RCA Photophone sound on film, they all sound better than Powers CinePhone. But because Pat Powers really did not have to invest a lot into getting the system up and running it was a lot cheaper than using other systems. Disney would switch to the RCA Phonofilm sound system in November 1932, in 1935 Disney would move over to RCA co-owned RKO for distribution until 1956. Disney would continue to use RCA Photophone until RCA got out of the film sound business in the early 80's.

[@matthewvillage]

i studied this and the impact that sound had on the popularity of animation for my dissertation!! amazing rabbit hole of a subject

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

that's awesome. sorry if it seems like I gave the Fleischers short shrift. They have my heart.

[@tessiepinkman]

Fantastic video, Phil! I realized now that you've already answered the question with this video, that I always wondered what made Mickey stand out and what made him the ginormous phenomenon he became. This isn't the first time you've answered questions I didn't know I had, and I thank you dearly for that! You are awesome. Have a great week! :)

[@briannakadlecik4304]

I wish that I would have had this video during my Film as History class in college. Trying to understand the technology for color and sound in film nearly broke my brain. Great video! I had always wondered what it was about Steemboat Willie that made Mickey Mouse so iconic.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

you might like those old informational films i linked in the description - they did a pretty amazingly good job

[@aiocafea]

i am actually glad and hoped you did the recreation for the sound tapes, i think it's best for people to see the real-time sinchronisation to internalise how transforming signals feels great and very wonderful video, especially considering the short length!!!

[@backyardr.c.6280]

THIS video is a great example of how to use the version of Micky that just entered the PD.

[@UnanimousDelivers]

I thought your Steve Jobs analogy was going to be how Xerox Parc and a few others used mice, mouse pointers, and graphical user interfaces long before Apple "invented" that whole concept for the Macintosh.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Apologies for taking a little while to get to this one, but I already knew a fair bit about sound on film. However, I love your sociological comparison to the buzz generated around Toy Story. I knew Mickey wasn’t the first sound on film, but had no idea why it had such buzz. And that comparison was so apt, it all clicked.

You should check the work of an amazing animator/filmmaker called Norman McLaren. He was part of The National Film Board of Canada, and he developed a method of creating music and sound effects by painting them in the optical track of the film. Watch "Neighbours", a 1952 Oscar winning short film where he not only animated the people in it, but also created the soundtrack optically.

[@geneard639]

I got to see an original print and record of Al Jolson's 'The Jazz Singer' (1927). By the end of the film? It was almost 2 minutes out of sync. When Mickey Mouse's 'Steam Boat Willy' (1928) came out, MM was still ill known, Felix the Cat (1925-), KoKo the Clown was created by Max Fleischer and his brothers (look at Merry Melodies and Warner Bros. Cartoons), and Betty Boop was years away in the 1930s, The early days of Animation is really amazing.

[@willychilton]

If you showed me a frame from 4:33 I would have thought it was a Casio ad. handsome! and damn, that golden backlight

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

casio ad is all i aspire to.

[@sarayusarayu832]

Oh my gosh!! Thank you so much for this! This has been my forever question too! It’s so good to finally have an answer 😌

[@readwrecks]

As a former projectionist for both 35mm film and IMAX film, I gotta say Dolby Digital kinda sucks. I mean it’s good in the digital age but it had a huge problem on film. You see where it’s printed? In between the sprocket holes. That’s the only section of film where the emulsion side touches every single part of the projector. The sprockets that pull the film through the projector are slightly raised right where the teeth are so that the film doesn’t touch them where the picture or the soundtrack are. So, the Dolby Digital code was always getting scratched or warped, and then it would glitch out during the show.

[@uncled39]

My head never exploded, because when i play my 16mm optical films i wear earplugs.

[@Stealth_Pilot]

i sold a copy of the film for 1 dollar at new year.

[@FavioWinehouse]

A wizardry investigation [ thourough and easy to digest as usual mate 🙌🏽 ] regards...

[@edryba4867]

You left important stuff out! Like the fact that the Vitaphone System’s record was played on a turntable mounted on the film projector, and was turned IN SYNC with picture by the equivalent of an analog speedometer cable for cars. If there were no frames missing, IT STAYED IN SYNC TO THE END OF THE REEL. Also, in the war between Variable Density and Variable area sound, among the plethora of companies trying each, Western Electric won the Variable Density war, and RCA won the Variable Area war. Incidentally, Variable Area sound tends to sound MUCH better than Variable Density sound. That’s because RCA was able to make their equipment record 5,000Hz higher than Western Electric could. I can tell you how, but we’d be here a while. - From A Lifetime Member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.

[@jeremymathews3077]

Came hear to say this. There were indeed sync problems when frames were lost in the print and or the disc wasn't cued properly, but screenings of The Jazz Singer with a proper projector would not have gone out of sync, and the process certainly wasn't starting a record at the same time as the movie, as the video implies. In fact, both sound-on-film and sound-on-disc techniques existed for some time (we're talking 1900), and Vitagraph's disc system was favored because the sound quality was initially better, but sound-on-film's real advantage was limiting the possibility for projectionist error, so when the sound quality got close to that of the disc systems, it was the obvious choice. All this to say that Walt Disney and Steamboat had less to do with the synchronized sound system technique and everything to do with Walt Disney's attention to detail in capturing a quality sound recording with synchronized music and sound. In other words, craft.

[@I_WANT_MY_SLAW]

Fun fact: There is a very popular sports broadcaster named Al Michaels, who used to work for Disney/ESPN. And Disney actually traded away Al Michaels contract for the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit back. And if you ever run into Al Michaels, he will gladly tell you the story of how he was traded away for a cartoon rabbit.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

this is hilarious!! for anybody else curious...www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/12750497/how-espn-traded-al-michaels-oswald-rabbit

[@joseybryant7577]

A great companion to your rotoscoping vid on Vox

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

Thank you! Now I just need to do a multiplane video to make it a trilogy!

[@mmixo]

Great! Love your work

[@TrainedSniper12]

Yeah, I’ve been splicing different wav formats for some of my videos and various projects I’ve done over 40 years. I have about three videos that I made back in the day. The matrix and resident evil are two of my best projects I’ve done.

[@GoingtoHecq]

Thanks for making a good video. Also, that little clip where I guy is stealing and eating bones out of a picnic basket. Imagine the actual sound for that.

[@andrewlonghofer]

5:22 Fun fact: DeForest Kelley was named for the inventor of Phonofilm

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

now that is some good trivia!!

[@bencns]

0:09 this is NOT steamboat willie, this is MICKY MOUSE, and him being in the public domain includes more than just the part with him on the wheel, and the hat is not a requirement because in the full cartoon he takes it off.

[@geoffgeoff143]

I don't think Ive seen a mickey mouse catoon since a small child. It faded away fast.

[@Anutushara]

How did they get the sound off the film? With most theaters set up for silent cinema was there a transition period in the past where sound on film was being made but theaters hadn’t converted? Would they play them in silence or just not show them in those theaters? If you didn’t see a movie in theaters did that mean you never saw it until the invention of home viewing media?

[@megamix5403]

"Mickey wasn't famous because he was an incredible character." Idk about that, man. Those are some pretty *bold* words. Mickey has resonated with audiences for generations, so it's hard to ignore his appeal as an iconic character. Sure, there are other characters that are worth taking a look at I'm not denying that, but there's a reason why Mario and Astro Boy are called the "Mickey Mouse." of gaming and anime respectively.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yeah i hear you. i think my counterargument (to my own argument) would be that my young kids recognize mickey mouse even though they've, like, never seen a mickey mouse cartoon. so even without all the cultural baggage of mickey, it does seem like there's something innately appealing about him.

[@a.KniteOwl]

6:23, PLEASE DO go on about Herry Reichenbach. do a follow up vid on him! I love your video style and attitude and editing and enthusiasm

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

Oh my gosh you are really tempting me. This dude was crazy!

[@lachlanlau]

I watched that sound on film video already but great summary and animations!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

it's amazing how good those vintage videos are. it was rather laborious for me to create animations that are inferior, yet i had the benefit of 2024 technology! geniuses.

[@lachlanlau]

@@PhilEdwardsInc I love watching those old military/vehicle manufacturer videos from channels like @USAutoIndustry and Periscope film, there's just a beauty in the accent of the voiceover and the method of presentation, the soft fade transitions.. its a whole vibe.

[@JoeStuffzAlt]

The interesting thing is that digital video works similarly. The video and audio are two separate parts of the digital stream and have to be time sync'd. Today's CPUs have no problem with this. You do have some play because audio has a much higher frame rate than video. Being in sync is major especially for video games and streaming. In streaming, too much audio processing on your CPU can add latency. With video games, you have that trade-off with the size of the audio buffer on top of audio processing. Larger buffer = better and more reliable sound quality, but also means latency. Latency = how far off the audio is from the video.

[@infographie]

Excellent.

[@PawFromTheBroons]

Going from wheelie, to Willie?! I see what you did there. 😆

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

don't spoil my next video all about Wall-E.

[@Meg_A_Byte]

@@PhilEdwardsInc I though it's gonna be on the wellies. Maybe another time :)

[@Vhs-sans-and-neko-seek]

If he’s Public domain…. OH GOD I CAN ALREADY SEE THE RULE 34

[@jonnyeh]

I need to know more about how the decoding of the waveforms worked! How were light vibrations turned into audio?

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yeah it's crazy - some of the links in my description get into it. i think the videos are pretty helpful.

[@MilanGajicBuva]

heh ... variable density would be kind of what they use on te musical roads

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

totally!

[@scocassovegetus]

Death of artist + 70 years = 2036, for copyright expiration. So... huh? Are we using the copyright law from when Steamboad Willy was made? "The Copyright Act of 1909 established a copyright term of 28 years that could be renewed for another 28." Also, I remember when Steamboat Willy copyright supposedly expired in the early 2000s, and all kinds of Steamboat Willy products hit the market taking advantage of this.

[@davidribeiro]

And now he will push the edges of terrible horror movies. 😅

[@tomaszprzetacznik7802]

Phil recreating actual working 'optical sound' prints for short educational video isn't overkill? If you expect that some people are going to actually sit and check it You could add information that waveforms presented in your video are only representations not true copies of working version of optical sound. Because originals were unavailable or you could not find em?

[@handlenottaken]

hippity hoppity,Mickey mouse is now my property.

[@kmart1396]

It should be noted that Oswald the the Lucky Rabbit was owned by Universal Studios as that's where Walt was working at the time he created him. Capitalism do as capitalism does, even back then, and welp the big production company claimed it as their intellectual property and Walt couldn't take Oswald with him. Thus Steamboat Willy/Mickey was born. Mickey would have never existed if Walt (being one of technically two creators of Oswald), was allowed to take his character with him. So thank the Lucky Rabbit that we even got the House of Mouse! Plus omg Oswald, a character created in the 20s didn't come home to Disney until *_2006!_*

[@jaybingham3711]

At the edges? Ummm...I think I'm going to have to drop a challenge flag.

[@rty1955]

It was actually just amplitude modulation on the side of the film and Dave & Max Fleischer developed it before Disney. Fleischer & Disney were harsh rivals. Give credit where credit is due

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

that's why i mentioned the fleischers!

[@lewisguapo]

How does this work with modern day film? Do they still use it as a method for editing on post?

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

I don't think it's used for the edit (since editing on film is rare), but I think it's still used in distribution.

[@WalterBurton]

All background noise to me, but then I saw Phil had a video on it, and I'm always interested in Phil's take. Is that pithy enough? lol

[@remitiras]

And then 100 years later they celebrated by making and AI generated movie that wasn't rendered.

[@wilsonez2]

he was half life 1 AND 2 for gaming at once

[@scottpoerschke8807]

I am unclear what sound steamboat had. Was there some sound along with an orchestra? Are you also saying that the cartoon was one of the first cartoons to have sound?

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yes to both!

[@MichaelPohoreski]

It was one of the first to have *synchronized,* post produced, sound. All *3* were a big deal when it debuted. The orchestra was just a bonus. Steamboat Willie appears extremely trite today because we take synchronized digital multichannel sound for granted (since we can adjust the audio latency down to the millisecond) and because the story is extremely bland. The quality of movies is relative to what came before. Nothing like it had really been done before (outside of a few exceptions) so it was extremely novel and pioneered showcasing the potential of audio in movies. It wasn’t first but it was popular.

[@edryba4867]

Phil- What you didn’t say was that yes, there were a number of competing systems for sound films. HOWEVER… The Vitaphone explanation left out one important little fact. First, the turntable that played that little record was mounted on the side of the projector. To make sure it ran at the right speed to stay synchronized with picture, that turntable was driven by a CABLE (not unlike the “cable in a sleeve” device used in cars to drive the analog speedometer. It ran between that speedometer and a gear arrangement connected to the car’s drive shaft, which turned the “drive wheels”. The speed of the drive shaft directly drove the analog speedometer, and it told you how fast you were going. Same thing with Vitaphone. Even if the projector was off-speed, the record with the sync-sound would be in sync with picture. Of course, what you said about film breakage and splices was correct, and would throw sound and picture out of sync. Then there are the types of Sound-On-Film you describe. Essentially, when the “Sound Wars” were over, there were basically two companies responsible for the system used on a given film. Western Electric (a division of The Bell Telephone System) was the winner in the Variable Density category. It had a problem that was never fully resolved: Frequency Response. It would roll off the high frequencies around 8,000 Hz, which produced a “muddy” sound. Their engineers were able eventually to make that little slit the light shined through a bit finer (smaller) and got the highs up to around 10,000 Hz. The winner of the Variable Area war was RCA. Instead of using a pair of ribbons to change the light getting to the film when recording, RCA used a light, a mirror and something called a “galvanometer” to produce the squiggly line of Variable Area Sound. When RCA was finished developing their system, they could make their sound go all the way up to 15,000 Hz, which is the highest audio frequency you can get on standard FM Radio. It sounded MUCH clearer than the Western Electric system. - - From a Lifetime Member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers

[@Herfinnur]

In my country, Donald Duck is the de facto mascot of Disney, and I suspect that is the case in a ton of countries. Mickey is the boring side character

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

same

[@AmyDentata]

gotta check the mix in headphones for hard pans! love the vid tho

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

ugh i know this is killing me. thank you for your patience!

[@eformance]

Wow, Colony wasn't very big back then, most people say they are from Schenectady instead!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

oh sorry, it was a big manhattan theatre named colony

[@eformance]

@@PhilEdwardsInc LOL 😳

[@uood5]

Any reason why the music is only in one ear for much of this video? It's weirdly offputting, which is a shame because the content is great!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

no idea, sorry

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

actually i think it might be a weird export bug i usually correct for in voiceover but not music. apologies! will fix in future

[@NateVolker]

KZbin credits post that-hbomberguy-video have really leaned into the “better safe than sorry” side of citing sources

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

also see...every other video i've done.

[@WhiltiernaAria]

Great video! Donald Duck fan all day

[@anush_agrawal]

I thought I was the only who didn't like mickey as a child watching cartoon.

[@mikemclean2449]

Why's your Ikea shelf upside down?

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

i don't think it is...

[@mikemclean2449]

​@@PhilEdwardsIncthe metal shelves are upside down. Should be a groove in the wood where the metal edge slides into for more strength.

[@ryanortega1511]

Oof.

[@mustachewalrus]

Where did you get that steamboat Willy 3d model.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

Creative commons - link in description!

[@mustachewalrus]

@@PhilEdwardsInc thank you sir, didn't think it would be there.

[@KristianWontroba]

Yay! This guy! ❤

[@blueberrychronic]

Sort of, kind of? No, it is absolutely public domain

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

i'm not sure where the boundary between willie and mickey is...

[@ferociousfries3563]

Hippedity Hoppity, Mickey Mouse is now my property

[@sergiorestrepo6657]

_Our_ property

[@_Sur22_]

​@@sergiorestrepo6657 СОЮЮЮЮЗ НЕЕЕРУШИИИМЫЙ

[@WoodmanTK]

@@sergiorestrepo6657🫡

[@Grim-death]

⁠🤓

[@GraciousGoldy]

Umm Public Domain- Homer Simpson

[@RabbitEarsCh]

I've known about all this tech forever since my dad worked in TV for decades, but I had no idea about *why* Steamboat Willie seemed to break things wide open. I had watched the cartoon as a kid and it was pretty good, but it didn't hit me why it was such a smash. Your explanation is great, by the way. Analog sound recording is basically magic, and analog video recording for television and magnetic tape is *also* basically magic in how complex and multifaceted it is. I think you nailed it pretty good.

[@RolandHutchinson]

Respectfully disagree. Digital audio recording is magic. Analog audio recording (especially on film) is alchemy.

[@sion8]

​@@RolandHutchinson Forgive me, but how are you rank alchemy vs magic?

[@RolandHutchinson]

@@sion8 To answer that would be to divulge secret knowledge that is only available to initiates.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@sion8I would personally say magic involves the use of forces and realms we can’t directly access but must instead carefully influence; while alchemy is careful direct manipulation and study of the real physical world. To put it more simply by analogy: magic is summoning a demon wholesale, alchemy is painstakingly building a homunculus. Conversion to and from digital is the demon saying “trust me”, we must simply trust that the conversion is accurate and the bitstream arrives correctly. But with analogue audio we can intuitively understand that a wave is a wave is a wave, merely being transformed by various apparatuses. It never leaves the “physical”, is never quantised, and can be traced down the path step-by-step with no “dude, trust me” stage. Though I would say the alchemical analogy is the most obviously visible when it comes to analogue photography. Given the various chemicals, and the numerous stages of photo-sensitive papers and gels bouncing negative and positive images back and forth. It’s tedious, but it’s all still clearly “real”.

[@tortysoft]

Very silly conversation :-) I've watched digital from its birth and used analogue magnetic professionally, I saw magnetic first, it's understandable magic. Digital is also understandable, but only to initiates. Basically Arthur C Clark is still right :-) It depends on your depth of understanding. @@RolandHutchinson

[@geckoo9190]

Well this explains a lot, I always found odd that the short was just mickey using different objects and animals as musical instruments, turns out the whole film was a technological stun. This also explains why other cartoons started to rely so much on music, steam boat willie basically was the starting point of a trend.

[@mfaizsyahmi]

Alec from Technology Collections made a video about sound on film before. A caveat for you when recreating it is that the sound part of the film always lag ahead of or behind (I can't recall) the frame it represents because the part of the projector that reads the waveforms are ahead of/behind (again, can't recall) the part that projects the frames, because the part that reads the waveforms feed the film at a steady rate but the part that projects the frame does a advance-stop-hold motion on the physical film 24 times a second, and so in between the two parts the film needs some slack.

[@felipeamdd]

Because the projector lens and the audio equipment are usually a little far away, the physical distance needs to be compensated by printing the sound about 22 frames ahead of the picture, so you can't perceive the delay. That's why if you watch a RAW scan of the film, the soundwaves on the screen won't match the audio you're hearing but matches the image somehow.

[@The_Sofa_King]

It must feel so good that new copyright works are in the public domain! I can’t wait to see more stuff become free to use now!

[@GlenAndFriendsCooking]

When I was a young lad... I saw a film (actually was film back then) by Norman McLaren, where he painted rando shapes in the soundtrack area and also in the projected area. The sounds were random and amazing. Inspired me to pursue a life in the film business. Now I'm a KZbinr - so.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

madness! if anyone else is curious, i'd never seen! kzbin.info/www/bejne/iqm9lmeegZxmo5o

[@Dstinct]

NFB gave us so many great films. Also gave me lifelong Log Driver nightmares.

[@Bacopa68]

Alec at Technology Connections has a very good video about film projectors and sound. It's more in depth about some things left out here.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yes, linked in description! i think it's a good companion!

[@robotortoise]

This makes a ton more sense. I never got why Mickey Mouse was (initially) such a big deal, and this explains it succinctly by someone who had the same question I did. This also explains, to me, why cartoons hadn't been full-length movies before Disney started doing it this way, either - it simply wouldn't have been feasible!

[@sergiorestrepo6657]

It also blew my mind when I found out how sound was embedded in the film. Thank you Phil

[@kenneth_romero]

Idk if people care or not. This one other youtuber called Technology Connections did a great video on sound quality throughout the late 50s to now. Might be worth a watch if you're more interested in sound technology and how far we came from physical to digital sound.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yes! linked in description!

[@alexareguti]

As per usual, Phil comes in with an amazing video answering a question I didn’t know I had through a super cool story angle. Forever in awe with your storytelling abilities, Phil. Every video you make is so uniquely yours, it’s inspiring. Also…thank you for giving us more content to nerd out about in patreon! 💫

[@driaan_louw]

This is rad - did not make the connection that it was the synced sound that made Mickey blow up! Also love the content plaque 🤠

[@monsieurlespaique2333]

Mickey Mouse was actually pretty dull. When I was a child I wanted to BE Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse was boring and middle class. I LOVED Warner Brothers cartoons, it always seemed that almost ANYTHING could happen. In Disney cartoons, you always knew that a WHOLE LOT of things just WEREN'T going to happen.

[@bryanchung2023]

I'd say Super Mario Bros. was much more than just innovative for side scrollers. It was one of the earliest games where the focus wasn't arcade style short challenges that drove you to keep playing for a high score, but instead drove you to keep playing through a (relatively) long set of new levels with a set ending. So, a video game about simply experiencing the game, like most single player games today, instead of comparing scores with friends. And just like Mickey, Mario was not the first to do this but the first to be broadly received and acclaimed.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

true!

[@moondoor9031]

The quality of this video is incredible! Congratulations Phil 🎉

[@tomsko863]

8:50 - This is your edge right here. You giving credit to creators, and showing the community of talent you're working with. It will return to you in spades.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

excited so many creative people are out there!

[@cpucat]

The technology connections video about sound on film goes into more detail about how it works

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

yes! linked in description! though they are more waveform than density

[@cpucat]

@@PhilEdwardsInc Nice, I missed that

[@MrJoshinJosh]

Sound or no sound, I’m just happy that the first three Mickey Mouse cartoons are Public Domain.

[@ggoedert]

Great take, I think you are right that that innovation made a huge impact and was essential for the success. But to be fair the character was also different and maybe more relatable then the other typical characters at the time... He is a little more naive, more compassionate to other characters while still maintaining smart attitude... I think that made him more relatable then the other popular characters stereotypes of the time.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

fair!

[@АлексейМомот-щ7о]

Steamboat Mickey is compassionate? Yeah, right... 😂

[@darwiniandude]

First time here - really appreciate you referencing your sources of other clips. Many 'creators' fail to do this. Thanks :) And great video!

[@bandana_girl6507]

So, the reason that the optical sound that you found "didn't fit" is because the film had to be stationary while the soundtrack had to be moving continuously. Which meant that the audio data had to be in a different type of mechanism and so physically separate visual frames it played along with. So the proper audio was probably on the film, just at a different point, and the audio you saw was proper audio, just for a different frame

[@PurpleHippoCinema]

If anyone is interested more about Ub Iwerks, I have a video about him and his history with Disney on my channel!

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

awesome location shoot too!

[@yubacore2743]

I thought this was common knowledge about film

[@charliemacsart]

Great video! It’s really interesting how most people KNOW Steamboat Willie is iconic, but not WHY. Mickey is cute and all, but watching Steamboat without the historical context just makes it seem like a quaint little cartoon, especially when you compare it to the sound versions of Plane Crazy/Galloping Gaucho and the later early Mickey cartoons. It’s kinda like how nowadays people recognize Super Mario Bros. as iconic but don’t realize how revolutionary it was.

[@houstonmuseum]

What's also wild is that very similar tech was used by journalists to transmit images across the continent over phone lines for print in newspapers. Basically converting light and dark portions into voltages that were then converted from voltages back to light/dark print. Truly INCREDIBLE tech. This is why I adore vintage tech. Apple Vision Pro? Neat! 1940s cell phone!? AMAZING!

[@codetech5598]

Exactly. Some people claim that the invention of the transistor in 1947 enabled modern electronic inventions but the real game changer was the earlier invention of the vacuum tube.

[@ExploringFate]

Just like how Dolby & Spatial Sound is changing things except from my understanding Dolby is mixing it with there video which is like 4 & 8 K with 240 FPS.

[@betwrixolive9431]

Why do documentaries edited and acted like this make me feel, uncanny? like im about to be sold or scammed.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

have you considered buying my nft?

[@ryanortega1511]

Oh, no.

[@SeanPat1001]

I’m not sure about cinematic film, but the films that were shown in schools had the sound strip displaced from the image by about eight frames. The consequence was that if the film broke, the brake in the sound occurred at a different time than the break in the image.

[@richardwarnock2789]

Actually was a french video of Lincoln with sound similar the reels were horizontal!

[@BOABModels]

Thank you for actually making an original and interesting video about Steamboat Willie, rather than just putting the film on KZbin and hoping to get clicks. I agree with you that I never 'got' Mickey Mouse - of the Disney characters, I much prefered the flawed Donald Duck and found him to be far funnier.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

+1! self-promoting: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4q8aJiPbbmNrKs

[@tedrobinson372]

Popeye was much more popular in the 1930's

[@Gorthan]

The fact that americans don't acknowledge the existence of Disney comic books makes amazes me every time. If you want to like Mickey Mouse as a character read its daily strips by Floyd Gottfredson who worked on them from 1930 to 1975. But, of course, everybody likes Donald Duck more, me first. I mean...

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/q4q8aJiPbbmNrKssi=udsPNCtL15wI-Sw4

[@BobMori]

I never understood the success & fascination with Mickey. This helped. Thanks. 🎬

[@Flakester]

TL;DW: They added sound to the video.

[@cardinalhamneggs5253]

There’s a small television screen at the Smithsonian Aerospace Museum that plays a digital copy of _Plane Crazy_ on a loop. I’ve seen it myself.

[@PhilEdwardsInc]

i'm gonna look for this next time i'm there!

[@LivetTvLIFESTYLE]

Credit to Ub Iwerks 😊