TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

In 1899, in his glass studio in Asières, Auguste Baron made his first sound films using technology which was revolutionary for its day: four carbon microphones over the stage to capture the actors’ voices and a camera on rails, with everything connected to a recording phonograph equipped with an electric motor, a telephone receiver, a horn and/or an electromagnetic recorder.^[1]

The two systems Baron appears to have used to record the sounds synchronously with the camera – this, it should be pointed out, was a truly original development – were tested by Baron himself in his Asnières studio from 1898 to 1900.