Fox Movietone

Fox Studios is a major player in contemporary cinema, but started out as a minor studio in the 1920s with a great deal of ambition. While Warners Bros. went down the pop video direction, which established musical genre, Fox produced newsreels using movietone sound system. The studio wanted to differentiate with Warners, but utilise sound technology, which established newsreel cinema that has played a significant role in documentary cinema.
The introduction of sound in Warners Bros. production was a primary focus, whereas sound was an element of a huge acquisition by Fox in the 1920s. This led to an extensive vertical integration project where Fox purchased theatre chains, distribution rights and production including German director F.W. Murnau, who made Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) a highly artistic film using synchronised music and sound effects track including intertitles.

Warners & Sound

The first studio to take sound seriously was Warners Bros. At the time they were not a major, which is evident by the absence of vertical integration. The studio operated without international distribution and their films were released to small independent theatres, which made sound a lucrative opportunity in competing against the major players by reducing the costs of orchestral accompaniment.
To assist the implementation of sound Warners Bros. approached finance company Goldman Sachs and managed to convince the firm of the potential of sound, which lead to the joint venture between Warners Bros and Western Electric. In 1926, they established Vitaphone to produce sound films and market sound equipment.

Sound

Sound has played an important role in motion pictures from the beginning, which is evident by the fact that silent cinema was not actually silent at all. While the film was silent they were accompanied by a range of sound sources. To hide the noisy sound of the operation of projectors the sound sources predominantly used in pre 1920s cinema were the following:

• In small sized theatres - pianist/organist;
• In medium sized theatres - actor/musicians/noise making machines behind the screen;
• In prestigious theatres - orchestral accompaniment.

Prior to the 1920s there had been attempts to synchronise sound and images, but they were unsuccessful. The most known example is Thomas Edison who invented the Kinetophone (1894). A viewer would look through the peep hole where images would projected over a light source that was connected to a sound source. In 1913 Edison presented a modified version where sound and cinematic images were synchronised on screen, but it was highly flawed.

In general there were three issues to introducing sound in film:

1. Expense
2. Amplification
3. Synchronisation

Sound became a serious matter for cinema through AT & T (telephone) and RCA (radio) who spent a great deal of researching sound for other purposes than film. Eventually, the two firms realised the potential of sound in film, but the big studios were resistant because the industry was profitable without the introduction of new technology. The studios realised the extensive costs involved through retraining cast & crew and purchasing equipment. The leaders in sound came from the smaller studios.