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116 CINEMATOGRAPHIC ANNUAL
rather safe to say that from that time to the year 1928 very little attention was given to the application of sensitometry in the production of motion pictures. Sensitometry was applied, but not as sensitometry. Light reaction of course was studied. Photographic emulsions were greatly improved. Lens design advanced also and in 1928 the motion picture as an art reached an extremely high level. For a few years prior to 1928 sound motion pictures had their beginning and two large producing companies were actually making talking motion pictures. One of these concerns accomplished their purpose by making a photographic record of their sound impulses on a wax disk following the manner employed by the phonograph companies. The other concern used the method of photographing on the negative film along with the picture a sound record which was impressed by fluctuations of the brightness of a lamp, which fluctuations were caused by changes in the electric circuit of that lamp. These changes were in turn caused by sound waves picked up by a microphone.
IV
Sensitometry as Now Practiced in the Motion Picture Industry
It is interesting to note that although in 1926 when the first commercially successful talking pictures were made, sensitometry had not yet been given any consideration. This no doubt was due to the fact that these first talking pictures accomplished their sound by the use of a wax disk. However, experiments being conducted by another of the large producing companies in an effort to produce sound records on film, were gradually becoming successful and early in 1927 the first news reel in sound appeared. During the year 1928 the motion picture industry threw off the yoke of silent pictures and became definitely involved in the contemplation and production of talking pictures.
In April 1928 the Society of Motion Picture Engineers held one of their semi-annual meetings in Hollywood. The programs of that meeting contained very few papers which pertained to the production of sound motion pictures. There were papers presented however, which led up to work of this nature. Quite definitely there were no papers read involving the photographic procedure such as is now employed in the control of making sound records on film. It was during the discussion following a paper on the general subject of machine development of film that sensitometry as a means of control of development was first discussed with the idea of its practical application. Questions arose as to the means of checking the degree of development produced in the development machine under different conditions. This discussion was rather long but it definitely planted a new idea in the minds of those people engaged in the laboratory procedure. Precise information pertaining to the Hurter and Driffield system of sensitometry was sought and after this information was gathered definite steps were made toward making use of it commercially. At the present time, April, 1930, every laboratory and studio