The problem of the female voice: Women working in the transition between silent and sound film in Britain

Abstract

This presentation will look at the ways in which women in the British film industry contributed to the transition between silent and sound cinema. It will look at issues that affected their roles both in front of, and behind the camera as new sound technology took priority in production, post-production, exhibition and reception. However, it was largely male technicians, many trained by the BBC, who moved to the newly-equipped British cinema sound studios to develop their craft in what remains an overwhelmingly male-dominated area to this day. This paper will examine the conditions that led to this situation as silent cinema became voco-centric and the ‘men in brown coats’ arrived on the film set imparting the science and methods of sound recording.