Other inventors tried to solve these projection problems. To be fair, there were plenty of problems with sound projection-there was no amplification system beyond a phonograph’s horn, and it was too easy to lose the sync if a record skipped a groove. It’s very fun and light-hearted and worth a watch.Įdison believed the future of movies would be in coin-operated machines for individual consumption, not in mass projections for audiences to watch together. One of these original Kinetophone films was restored in 1998-it shows a man playing a violin into a phonograph recording horn while two other men waltz around and goof off behind him. They were short films, only three or four minutes long. Five of these “peep-show” machines were open to the public, and the public enjoyed them. In 1894, a Kinetophone parlor opened in New York City. He developed a coin-operated machine called the Kinetophone-this married the pre-recorded sounds of a Phonograph with the projected film strip on a Kinetoscope. Edison had already patented the Phonograph in 1888, which recorded and played back sound etched into wax cylinders. Music and sounds could be recorded but keeping them perfectly synchronized with the projected film was nearly impossible. Movie theaters became standardized, with studios requiring certain technology and protocols before they’d allow their films to be shone.Īnd like many other technological advancements, we have Thomas Edison to thank for kicking off its development. Sound effects became an entire sub-industry with its own tricks and machinery and audience expectations. Beautiful scores were composed to make up for a lack of spoken dialogue in movies. Movies would be created and technology would be developed to enhance the presentation of the movie a new technological breakthrough would change the way filmmakers shot their films. The history of sound in movie theaters is actually the story of a relationship between technology and art.