Four brothers – Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack – with the famous Warner surname are an integral part of Hollywood. 100 years ago, on April 4, 1923, they founded the Warner Bros. film studio, which, along with Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer, was one of the pioneers of the up-and-coming dream factory.
Film classics such as “Casablanca” (1942), “Out of Eden” (1955), “The Exorcist” (1973), “Superman” (1978) or “Batman” (1989) and blockbuster Rows like “Dirty Harry”, “Lethal Weapon”, “Matrix” and the billionaire franchise “Harry Potter” stand out.
Born in Munich, Michael Keller (52), who has been working as a sound mixer in California for over 30 years, is closely associated with Warner Bros. “I’m an immigrant here, too,” says Keller in a dpa interview, referring to the four Warner brothers, whose parents immigrated to the United States from what is now Poland. “I’ve been with Warner for ages,” says Keller with a wink. He has already been involved in umpteen films, from “Green Lantern” (2011) to “Suicide Squad” to “Elvis”. His work as a sound mixer on the biopic “Elvis” earned Keller his first Oscar nomination for “Best Sound” that year.
“The Jazz Singer” is a milestone
Warner Bros. made Hollywood history as the pioneer of talkies. Around 1925, in the middle of the silent film era, Sam and Harry Warner became aware of the new, groundbreaking sound technology. “They kind of sneaked up on it and called it ‘Talking Pictures’ and that’s how it started with film sound,” says Keller. In 1927, the studio released Hollywood’s first full-length talkie with “The Jazz Singer” – and in doing so revolutionized cinema.
In the “Golden Era” of Hollywood, Warner Bros. signed stars like Bette Davis, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Errol Flynn. James Dean shot parts of his three major films (“Out of Eden”, “… because they don’t know what they are doing”, “Giant”) in the legendary Warner Studios in Burbank, California.
Clint Eastwood (“Dirty Harry”, “Unforgiven”, “Million Dollar Baby”) is a regular customer. The German director Wolfgang Petersen (“Das Boot”, “Der Sturm”), who died last year, shot the disaster film “Poseidon” there in 2005 in five film halls, including a huge pool of water.
Studios like an airplane hangar
Keller raves about his first visit to the studio at Warner Bros. in the legendary Hall 16, “which looks as huge as an airplane hangar”. He is still enthusiastic about the elaborate sets on the studio premises. “I grin the same way I did 30 years ago because it’s so incredibly cool what they’re building there.”
For Keller, who learned his trade at ARRI in Munich, Hollywood has a lot more to offer technically. Compared to one or two mixing studios at German companies, the sound department at Warner Bros. has 29 mixing studios, says the audio expert. Especially when they are working on big films under time pressure, the capacities of people and technology are enormously important.
Keller describes his last two Warner projects, the biopic “Elvis” and the new superhero flick “Flash”, as “insanely complicated” films with many soundtracks and effects, on which dozens of sound experts were involved. Visibly touched, the 52-year-old remembers an emotional scene in “Elvis” in which they completely removed the sound and only played music. The sound team alone would spend months tinkering with the sound in post-production.
Superhero film “Flash” for the 100th birthday
They just finished the sound design of “Flash” after 15 months, says Keller. Starring Ezra Miller as the lightning-fast metahuman, the superhero flick is slated to hit theaters in June. A good film for the 100th anniversary year, says the Californian by choice. “Flash” is the perfect mix of action, emotions, a mother-son story and “super funny”.
Warner Bros. has other big-budget films lined up this year, including Barbie, Dune: Part 2 and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Many events are planned in 2023 to celebrate the 100th anniversary, including classic screenings, streaming offers of hit films and exhibitions.
David Thomson, Warner Bros., The Making of an American Film Studio, Yale University Press, 2017, 220 S., ISBN: 978-0-300-24455-7
