"My plan was to synchronize the camera and the phonograph so as to record sounds when the pictures

were made, and reproduce the two in harmony. . . We had the first of the so-called

"talking pictures

" in

our laboratory thirty years ago

"

Thomas Edison 1925

Years prior to Thomas Edison's work on moving pictures, people were making crude hand drawn motion
pictures, much like how animated cartoons are drawn. Eventually photographers began to experiment with
taking a series of pictures of a subject in motion, and then showing them back in sequence.

British photographer Eadweard Muybridge was a pioneer in
this process. He had 700 cameras set up in sequence, to
photograph a trotting horse. This major undertaking yielded just
60 seconds of motion picture when all the photographs were
viewed back in sequence.

In 1888 Thomas Edison met with Muybridge to discuss adding
sound to his moving pictures. Edison wanted to record sound

on his phonograph and then synchronize it with the moving picture. Muybridge wasn't much interested
because be felt the phonograph wouldn't be loud enough for a large audience to hear.

The meeting with Muybridge didn't discourage Edison, in fact it gave him an idea
for developing his own motion picture device. Edison installed a cylinder similiar
to those used on his phonograph, inside a camera and coated it with a light
sensitive material. Every time a picture was taken the cyliner turned slightly,
taking another picture. Edison would then process the crude film and run it
through a viewer which showed motion. Thus, the invention of the "Kinetoscope".
Edison applied for the patent in 1891, but it wasn't granted until 1897. Edison
neglected to include rights for the patent outside the United States and the idea of
projection, which proved to be a costly mistake in the years to follow.

About this time George Eastman unveiled his new celluloid film which began to replace the system of
using light sensitive plates and large bulky cameras. This led Eastman to manufacture the "Brownie"
camera, making it possible for ordinary people to take photographs. In 1889 Thomas Edison ordered some
of the new film cut into long strips. His associate William Dickson worked on a sprocket system for a
camera that would cause the film to move past the lens when turned by a crank.

One of the first films Edison made was of a laboratory worker in his Newark laboratory. Edison turned the
crank on his kinetoscope and shot frames of Fred Ott acting out a sneeze. Edison even
recorded the sound of a sneeze on his phonograph to be played back with "The Sneeze" film.
In order to see the film Edison invented a viewer to go along with it.

Soon he began churning out movies in a studio he had built at the West Orange laboratory. The

"Black

Maria" (.wav/153kb)

as he called it, was a large structure covered with tar paper. A hole in the ceiling

allowed the sun to shine through and illuminated the stage.

The entire building was on a set of tracks so that it could be
moved around to follow the sun. Edison employed circus
performers, dancers and animals in his films that lasted only a few
seconds. His first movie with a plot was "The Great Train
Robbery" and it lasted 15 minutes. The films were being shown all

Robbery" and it lasted 15 minutes. The films were being shown all
around the country in arcades and drugs stores. He churned out
more than 2000 short films from the "Black Maria".

Leon Gaumont, in France, began as early as 1901 to work on combining the phonograph and motion
picture. He worked on the project during several widely seperated intervals (a series of shows of the "Film
Parlant" at the Gaumont Palace in Paris in 1913 and demonstrations in the U.S. were the biggest
accomplishments).

An attempt by Carl Laemmle of Paramount in 1907 to exploit a combination of phonograph and motion
picture resulted in a German development called "Syncroscope." It was handicapped by the short time
which the record would play and, after some apparently successful demonstrations, was dropped for want
of a supply of pictures with sound to maintain programs in the theaters where it was tried.

In 1907,

Dr. Lee De Forest

patended the audion tube. It was the first vacuum tube in which a control grid

as well as a cathode and an anode was incorporated. The audion tube allowed a very small electric signal
to be amplified and played over loudspeakers. It was used for radio, public address, television, and film
sound.

It was after John Stone's demonstration of the de Forest tube in 1912 that Harold D. Arnold of Bell Labs
began his amplifier research project. In 1915, Arnold's new vacuum tube amplifier made it possible for
AT&T to inaugurate the first transcontinental telephone service in time for the San Francisco World's Fair.

The condenser microphone was developed at Bell Labs by E.C. Wente in 1917. This microphone
translated soundwaves into electrical waves that could be transmitted by the vacuum tube amplifier.

Efforts to provide sound for movies were attempted by Georges Pomerede, who used flexible shafts or
other mechanical connections to combine phonograph and motion pictures in 1907, while E. H. Amet in
1912-1918 used electrical methods for the sound. Wm. H. Bristol began his work on synchronous sound in
1917. There were few further efforts in the U.S. to provide sound for pictures by means of mechanical
recording until 1926.