FILMS AND TALKING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20352, 5 September 1929, Page 15

FILMS AND TALKING.

ORIGIN OF THE IDEA.:

-NEW ZEALANDER'S CLAIM. '

AN EARLY INVENTION,

[from otjr own correspondent. 1

SYDNEY, Aug. 29

Most people look on talking films as. an invention evolved only within the last year or so—the very latest products of research, post-dating wireless and the phonograph. But, as a matter of fact, a New Zealander who has resided for seme years in Sydney, Mr. Robert Thorn Haines, took out patents in London for a process of recording talking films akin (o that in use to-day as long ago as 1907. He has proved the authenticity of his claim by producing tho relevant documents.

Mr. Haines had worked on the idea for some time before he left Australia on a trip abroad. While in London, he says, he heard of two other men who were experimenting along the same lineS^—Mr. Eugene Lauste, formerly connected with Mr. Thomas Edison's laboratory, and Mr. John Pletts, of tho Marconi Company* Both of them wore interested in what he had done, and all three joined in further research, which resulted in a patent being obtained.' The next care was to seek capital, sa that the new idea could be exploited. MrHaines first approached Lord Fitzjames, who was highly enthusiastic. Unfortunately for tho hope of the inventors Lord Fitzjames died suddenly only three days after he had offered his support. Next they applied to Mr. Parr, of Parr and Company, a well-known financial concern, and _pnco again they seemed to' be on the road to success, but when all preparations had been completed Parr anal Company went into liquidation. Machine Broken on a Ship. At this stage Mr. Haines lost , hear! and returned to Melbourne, where he had been living since 1837. His fellowworker Lauste, JiQwever, went on trying to exploit tho. invention. He gave a demonstration of its powers at tho Hotel Cecil, and then put it on board a ship, for tho United States, but on tho voyage, somehow or other, the machine became broken, and Lauste apparently did nothing more with it. The invention as patented was quite distinct from the method of synchronising sound with visiial images by- means of a connection between an ordinary phonograph and the cinematograph. Such a connection has often been attempted, even as early as 1909; but great difficulties surrounded it owing to the fact that both the cinematograph and the phonograph were not then in the state of perfection that they arc to-day. The method usually adopted was to make the record first, and then take the picture with the record playing, while tho person being photographed followed with his lips the sounds that the phonograph emitted. Like the system of recording and reproducing talking films which is used by. Movietone to-day, the invention in which Mr. Haines was interested used photography itself as a means of recording and reproducing sound and of obtaining synchronisation. Description of the Process. Dealing with the work of Mr. Haines under the title of talking pictures, 4 ,ha American magazine Photo-Era in December, 1909, said: "The process by which the result is obtained consists ia collecting the sound waves at the place where they originate, and conveying them electrically to the recording instrument, where they are utilised to vary a light source, or "the rays emanating from it, so as to produce on the sensitised film, side by side with the pictures or images simultaneously taken, a series of photographic impressions of varying opacity and transparency, or otherwise of varying form, which in turn are caused, to vary the rays from a fixed light sourcfe, so as correspondingly to vary the resistance of electric current operating a loud-sounding microphone by means of which the sounds are reproduced, simultaneously and with exact synchronisation with the picture or images, at the place they originally emanated from." According to Mr. Haines very definita results were obtained along these lines before he left London. With the help of primitive apparatus Lauste had succeeded in reproducing the human voice. Mr. Haines had; experimented extensively also with the telegraphic transmission of pictures. He took out provisional specifications in 1907 for a contrivance on these lines, and a year or* two later the same principle was embodied in apparatus by Professor Korn, of Munich, who transmitted a picture of King Edward by telegraph from Paris to Berlin. Mr, Haines still claims that the principle of this machine is superior to that of the apparatus now being installed for the transmission of pictures by telegraph between Sydney and Melbourne.