Bushman Speaks into the Phonograph {Buschmann spricht in den Phonographen} (1908/1984) – Rudolf Pöch *

56 secs., b&w, originally silent, but approximately post-synchronised in 1984 with a recording made simultaneously on an Archiv-Phonograph

Source :  Filmarchiv Austria, also available in several different forms on the web, for example, here.

This film was shot by Rudolf Pöch in 1908 in what is now northern Botswana whilst he was simultaneously making an audio recording on a phonograph of Kubi, a sixty-year old San man, telling a story about the behaviour of elephants at a nearby waterhole. Much later, in 1984, the image and the audio recording were approximately synchronised by Dietrich Schüller of the Austrian Sound Archive, Vienna.

In its original silent form, this sequence forms part of a 30-minute body of rushes that Pöch shot in southern Africa, mostly otherwise consisting of sequences of dancing and technical processes.

Text : Schüller (1987)

© 2018 Paul Henley