Posted by QuickReadAbout.com Staff in In the early days of motion pictures, there were really three major problems with producing movies with synchronized sound. Those problems were synchronization, playback volume, and sound fidelity.
Technology for producing moving pictures had progressed much faster than technology for reproducing sound. While it soon became possible for moving pictures to be shown to large audiences in large venues, the technology for producing sound that could be heard by large audiences in large venues didn’t yet exist.
The early attempts at adding sound to movies involved recording the moving pictures on one device and the sound on another. That didn’t work out very well, although the problem was approached in several different ways.
Lee De Forest was given several patents that would lead to the first sound-on-film technology with commercial possibilities in 1919. The soundtrack was photographically recorded onto the side of the strip of motion picture film to create a composite print.
De Forest’s invention was the basis that was used for moving pictures with sound to grow. It took a while. In 1923 a set of shorts by De Forest Phonofilms accompanied a silent feature in New York City. But Hollywood was suspicious of this new technology and the “powers that were” regarded it with disdain. In its March 1924 issue, “Photoplay” editor James Quirk said, “Talking pictures are perfected, says Dr. Lee De Forest. So is castor oil.”
But whether Hollywood liked it or not, talkies were about to come of age. In 1927 the full-length feature film “The Jazz Singer,” starring Al Jolson, was released with “synchronized dialogue sequences.” Jolson sang six songs in the film.
“The Jazz Singer” was a giant step in the progress of the motion picture industry and the technology that drives it.