This 1942 black and white film (Part 1 of 2, with a 1949 color finale) offers a fully detailed and carefully narrated look at the process by which a 10” shellac 78 rpm commercial audio recording (or a 331⁄3 rpm electrical transcription disc) is produced, mastered, and pressed, featuring footage from an RCA Victor phonograph record plant of the World War II era. This film concludes in color as Periscope Film #XD39044a, which introduces 7” vinyl 45 rpm recordings (TRT: 16:50).
Distributor leader. Title card: “Movie Wonderland, 6116 Glen Tower, Hollywood, California” (0:07). “Radio Corporation of America, RCA Victor Presents Command Performance, A William J. Ganz Production” (0:14). “Narrated by Milton Gross” (0:16). Aerial photography. A splice and jump cut. A man surveys the master recording vaults of RCA Victor (likely in Camden, New Jersey), removing master discs with metallic coatings from their protective sleeves. Still photos of Enrico Caruso as Pagliacci, Fyodor Chaliapin or Shalyapin, John Phillip Souza (0:23). Inside RCA’s record pressing plant. Melted wax is poured onto a hot plate, then covered. A flame touches up the wax, which is then left to cool (1:28). Next, the wax disc is passed to a recording room. A stylus is adjusted on a Scully 501 record disc mastering lathe, and Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz is recorded live by a studio orchestra (2:26). Extreme closeup on the recording stylus as it cuts grooves into the spinning wax. A recording engineer mixes the sound at a studio console. A conductor directs the “Victor Salon Orchestra” (3:46). A medium closeup on the studio master recording. The music reaches a crescendo (4:50). The recording disk is placed in a chamber and coated with gold, then treated with an electrolysis solution of copper sulfate (5:36). An additional copper coating layer is added in a bubbling bath (6:23). The completed master record is produced, and the original wax is peeled away. The master is rinsed and scrubbed, then given a bath of nickel, then coated in a fine film with solution (7:02). Another copper bath. The double disc is separated into the mother matrix and the master matrix. The latter heads to the archive. The mother matrix gets a nickel bath, then a copper coating (8:06). The mother matrix and stamper are separated. Multiple stampers can be made from the mother. The stamper is coated with chromium and placed on a shelf of others (9:24). The stamper is flattened and pressed with hot solder (10:07). The stamper is centered. A magnified look at the record’s grooves. A hole is drilled in the center of the stamper (10:46). The stamper is washed and polished by a woman wearing gloves (11:30). A large 3-story mixer is loaded with scoops of pellets and powdered shellac, which is then sucked up by a vacuum pipe (12:10). A hot, dough-like mixture is pressed into a flat sheet by spinning rollers (13:35). Rotating discs cut the material into squarely portioned “biscuits,” which are then heated on steam tables (13:56). A record is pressed. First, a record label is placed on a stamper, then a hot biscuit is loaded onto it. In an instant, a steam-powered press stamps one side of an electrical transcription disc of the Blue Danube Waltz into shape. A woman removes the shellac disc from the press. A man prepares another heated biscuit (14:18). Woman employees polish and listen to the finished records in a quality control test room (15:03). Women wipe the completed records, then package them into paper sleeves (15:53). Bundles of phonograph records are wrapped in paper and prepared for shipping (16:26).
Film continues in color with a 1949 addendum on 45 rpm colored vinyl records as Periscope Film #XD39044a.
In the early 1960s, Victor demolished its Camden, NJ warehouse, with many studio master recordings tragically still left in the building, Sergei Rachmaninoff’s notably among them.
This RCA Victor promotional film is not to be confused with “Command Performance,” the radio program broadcast from 1942-1949 on the Armed Forces Radio Network (AFRS).
