Cinema Research

        Most people consider that sound movies were not invented until 1928 with the release of Warner's 'The Jazz Singer'. It is certainly true that this was the first notable film using sound, but we must go back to the invention of the cinematograph to realise that experiments were being carried out using sound as well as picture from the very beginning. Edison wrote in one of his papers  In the year 1887, the idea occurred to me

that it would be possible to devise an instrument which should do for the eye what thephonograph does for the ear, and that by a combination of the two all sound and motion could be recorded and reproduced simultaneously.

Looking at diagrams and pictures of his early work certainly shows the inclusion of a phonograph to deliver sound with his pictures. When reading books about the development of sound in the cinema it is not uncommon to think that the only research was being carried in America. This is far from the truth and it is often found that other inventors were actually in front of the Americans. Using Edison's phonograph Frenchman Auguste Baron synchronised sound with picture in 1896 and gave a demonstration at an exposition in 1900 featuring Sarah Bernhardt reading Hamlet. Both Pathe and Gaumont were also working on disk systems based on the phonograph.