United Vloggers

authors: SCOPITONES – duration: 03:05

How time flies! Today, exactly half a year ago, United Vloggers took off. Since then we published 47 posts; that’s an average of 7,8 per month, or 1.9 a week. That’s not bad but not good enough either. Therefore we hereby solemnly pledge to rejuvenate; more postings and more importantly: We will finally start assigning commissions to talented directors. Would you like to help us and become a commissioning editor for UV? Then please let us know: info[at]unitedvloggers[dot]com

Also we would love to see you sending us (perma)links to your favorite videos (not per se your own): submissions[at]unitedvloggers[dot]com

Thank you so much!

To rejoice our existence we present you a fantastic music video: BROOK BENTON, singing Mother Nature, Father Time. The video comes from a great site called SCOPITONES, completely dedicated to the illustrious Scopitone. A Scopitone was a film jukebox invented in France in the early 1960’s. The films, the precursors of todays music videos, were called Scopitones. This is what Time Magazine wrote in 1964:

TIME MAGAZINE
Scooby-Ooby Scopitone
Aug. 21, 1964

“In some 500 bars, restaurants and servicemen’s clubs throughout the U.S., the center of attention these days is a monstrous new machine called Scopitone. It is a cross between a jukebox and TV. For $.25 a throw, Scopitone projects any one of 36 musical movies on a 26-in. screen, flooding the premises with delirious color and hi-fi scooby-ooby-doo for three whole minutes. It makes a sobering combination.

Scopitone, which has been the rage of France for the past four years, was invented by a firm that sounds as if it had been founded by Jules Verne; Compagnie d’Applications Mecaniques à Electronique au Cinéma et à Atomistique (CAMECA). Since then it has spread from Marseilles to Macao; Nikita Khrushchev even has one, loaded with Marxian uplift featurettes.

Actually, Scopitone’s “musies” are descended from U.S. Soundies, which during World War II filled bus terminals and B-girl grottoes with grainy, black-and-white productions of The Flat Foot Floogee with the Floy Floy and A Boy in Khaki, a Girl in Lace. Television and Lucky Strike’s Hit Parade put a merciful end to Soundies, but it looks as if Scopitone will be here to stay awhile.”

Permalink to the original file: CLICK HERE
More on Brook Benton (Wikipedia): CLICK HERE
More on Scopitones (Wikipedia): CLICK HERE
Scopitones.com: CLICK HERE
Bedazzled.com: CLICK HERE
Subscribe to Scopitones: CLICK HERE
Subscribe to Bedazzled: CLICK HERE