Originating with the invention of the Kinetograph, the history of American motion picture has endured a rough path. Despite the difficulty of building from the ground up, many businesses attempted to create their own movies. As an infant industry, American cinema had multiple ways of growing. However, because of their greed, major studios inhibited the growth of others in order to gain a firm control over the industry. When one Trust fell, another merger would form only to replace the old Trust. Despite the unfavorable history, competition fueled innovation in studios in hopes of surpassing their rivals. This struggle resulted in drastic changes in the industry over a relatively short period. The race for sound in motion picture consequently…show more content… Since the creation of American cinema, many inventors and businessmen struggled to add sound to the newly discovered motion film and were led to failure. In the book The Coming of Sound: A History, Douglas Gomery writes that only one of the smaller firms, such as Fox, could manage to create a new product that would change sound in the film industry (Gomery, 14). The leading studios of the time, such as Paramount and M.G.M.,could not afford the large losses if they failed and the independent studios did not have the necessary fund to build such a product. Therefore, the responsibility of changing the entire industry rested on Fox and similar smaller firms. Even though the development of sound was considered useless since it seemed to only result in wasted money and humility, Fox determinedly began its creation for a sound-on-film process. As one of the only studios to make a successful breakthrough in sound-on-film technology, Fox’s pioneering efforts solidified this achievement as one of its greatest in the history of the corporation. As one of the two successful pioneers in the sound sector of film, Fox wielded a large influence. Aubrey Solomon discussed in her book, Fox Film Corporation, 1915-1935: A History and Filmography, that by 1929 only two companies used Vitaphone while Paramount, M.G.M.,…show more content… Before using Movietone in features, Fox decided to use Movietone in the filming of vaudeville acts and a new segment called Movietone News. Author of The Coming of Sound: A History, Douglas Gomery writes, “During spring of 1928, Fox’s newsreels… proved to be hits of the season” (Gomery, 52). Because of Movietone’s successful launch, Fox increased the amount of “Movietoned” production to 25 percent in March and later increased the production again to 100 percent “Movietoned” (Gomery, 52). Considering it was one of the first studios to switch to a sound-on-film system, Fox exploited this advantage with Movietone News. By the time its rivals switched to using sound in their production, Fox had forty Movietone units demonstrating how the company utilized Movietone before any other studio. In the book, Cinema’s Conversion to Sound: Technology and Film Style in France and the U.S., Charles O’Brien writes that the only reason why the large studios, Paramount and MGM, were able to compete with the two smaller studios was because of their large financial backing (O’Brien, 149). Although Fox held off producing talking features with Movietone unlike their rivals, Fox was still using Movietone to its fullest extent with other projects. Fox abandoned its small leverage in all-talking features and vaudeville in order to polish and
