Theodore Case
Encyclopedia
Theodore Willard Case known for the invention of the Movietone
sound-on-film
sound film
system, was born into a prominent family in Auburn, New York
.
, still carries the family name and is housed in a building built from Case family donations. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 1980. Generations of the Cases lived on Genesee Street in Auburn, which eventually became the residence of Theodore Case's family. In 1939, Case donated the property to a local group forming a history museum for Cayuga County, with the understanding that his lab on the property would be preserved. His wishes were all but ignored, but in the 1990s the Case Research Lab was restored to its original condition after being used as a painting studio for 40 years. The property is now operated as the Cayuga Museum of History and Case Research Lab Museum. Known as the Dr. Sylvester Willard Mansion
, the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
The Case family also had a summer home a dozen miles away on Owasco Lake, one of the Finger Lakes
. The home was called Casowasco and was originally only accessible by train or boat. This summer home was one of the first in the area to have electric lighting, powered by a small hydro-electric plant on the hillside above. After Case's death, the property was donated to the Methodist church by Case's widow, closing the history in Cayuga County of one of its founding families. It now functions as a conference center and is still named Casowasco.
With the profits earned from his sale of the Case Research Lab's invention of sound film
to William Fox
, Case built a new home in Auburn that was, and is, the largest house in that city. The house featured an indoor swimming pool, a ballroom, a hidden room with a secret entrance, and living quarters for the many servants needed to manage the property. Behind the house were two identical buildings, one for horses, one for automobiles. The Case mansion is now used as a mental health facility while the buildings on the street behind it have been converted into homes.
Case was a man of action and sport so he owned many boats and cars and traveled often. A descendant of another of Auburn's wealthy families remembers that during the depression there were often parties at Case's new home, despite the national climate of belt tightening. Case also purchased a custom made Cadillac in the early 1930s, something that few of even the most wealthy did during that time. That Cadillac was made into a hot rod in the 1950s by its then owner. Case's Cadillac is now being restored by its latest owner. But Case might very well have had a measure of his worth because he died a wealthy man and his widow was well funded for the duration of her life.
process in 1921 after his Case Research Lab's development of the Thallofide (thallium
oxysulfide) light-sensitive vacuum tube
from 1916 to 1918. The Thallofide tube was originally used by the United States Navy
in a top secret
infrared
signaling system developed at the Case Lab. The inventions of the Case Research Lab from 1916-1926 were the creation of Case and Earl I. Sponable, who worked with Case at the lab until he went with Case to Fox Film Corporation in 1926. The ship-to-ship signaling system was first tested in 1917 off the shores of New Jersey. Attending the test was Thomas Edison
, contracted by the Navy to evaluate new technologies. A complete success, the signaling system was used by the Navy for a number of years. He worked with other people, including Lee De Forest
, to create a sound-on-film process similar to the sound film systems used today.
, many inventions from his lab that made DeForest's Phonofilm
sound-on-film process workable, though DeForest had been granted general patents in 1919. To develop a light for exposing a soundtrack to film, the Case Lab converted an old silent-film projector into a recording device. With it the AEO light was created, which was mass-produced for use in all Movietone News
cameras from 1928-1939, and in recording sound in all Fox feature films from 1928-1931. Movietone News used a single-system to record the sound and image simultaneously in a camera, while feature film production moved to a system that recorded sound in a separate machine that was essentially a sound camera with the lenses and picture shutter missing. It was an optical tape recorder that used film rather than tape.
On 15 April 1923, DeForest presented 18 short films made in the Phonofilm process at the Rivoli Theater in New York City
. The printed program for this presentation gives credit to the "DeForest-Case Patents". However, shortly after DeForest filed a lawsuit in June 1923 against Freeman Harrison Owens
, another inventor who had worked with DeForest on sound-on-film systems, Case and DeForest had a falling-out.
The dispute between Case and DeForest was due to Case not being properly credited for his lab's contributions to Phonofilms. Case attended the April 1923 presentation of Phonofilm and was never mentioned during that presentation. By this time, DeForest had already been repeatedly warned by Case to present the truth of the inventions, to no avail. The films shown at the Phonofilm presentation used the Case Research Lab AEO Light for recording sound, were filmed with a camera designed by the Case Lab, and used the Case Lab's Thallofide Cell for reproducing the sound. Shortly after this presentation, Case stopped providing DeForest with his lab's inventions, effectively putting DeForest out of the sound film business, but not out of the "claiming to have invented sound film" business.
The Case Research Lab then set about to perfect the system of sound film they had provided DeForest, now that DeForest was no longer able to inhibit their development of this new technology. One of the first things Case did was to change the location of the sound head on a modified silent projector to 21 frames upstream from the projected image, ensuring that no Phonofilm could be played on Case equipment. This standard was adopted by all subsequent sound-on-film systems and still applies to this day.
of Fox Film Corporation bought Case's patents relating to the sound-on-film process. From 1926 to 1927, Case worked with Fox's technicians to develop the Fox Movietone process. Fox had also previously purchased the rights to the sound film patents of Owens -- who had developed a sound movie camera as early as 1921 and coined the term "Movietone" -- and the U.S. rights to the German Tri-Ergon
sound-on-film process. The Internet Movie Database
lists "Fox Case Corporation" as the production company for two comedy short films by vaudeville
comedy team of Bobby Clark
and Paul McCullough
, The Honor System (1928) and The Interview (1928).
Titles filmed by Case in his process, all made at the Case Studios in Auburn, New York, include Miss Manila Martin and Her Pet Squirrel (1921), Gus Visser and His Singing Duck
(1925), Bird in a Cage (1923), Gallagher and Shean
(1925), Madame Fifi (1925), and Chinese Variety Performer with a Ukelele (1925). Gus Visser and His Singing Duck was nominated to the National Film Registry
in 2002.
There were hundreds more test films made at the Case Lab that were lost in a fire in the 1950s. The Case Research Lab is now a museum open to the public. Adjacent to the lab is the estate's carriage house where sound-film tests were made on its second floor. That sound studio is also open to the public and its collections include a seven-foot square balsawood box, known as a "blimp," that housed the camera and operator during filming. The original amplifiers and many more items used in the development of sound film at the Case Research Lab are also on display, as well as an early Wall camera used by Movietone News
. The museum is currently searching for the first sound camera built by the Case Lab, believed to be in a private collection.
Movietone sound system
The Movietone sound system is a sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures that guarantees synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures...
sound-on-film
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...
sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
system, was born into a prominent family in Auburn, New York
Auburn, New York
Auburn is a city in Cayuga County, New York, United States of America. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 27,687...
.
Family history
The local library, known as Case Memorial-Seymour LibraryCase Memorial-Seymour Library
Case Memorial-Seymour Library is a historic library located at Auburn in Cayuga County, New York. It was designed in 1898 by noted architects Carrère and Hastings, in the Beaux-Arts style. It is a square, one story, three bay building constructed of Flemish bond brick and limestone topped by a...
, still carries the family name and is housed in a building built from Case family donations. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1980. Generations of the Cases lived on Genesee Street in Auburn, which eventually became the residence of Theodore Case's family. In 1939, Case donated the property to a local group forming a history museum for Cayuga County, with the understanding that his lab on the property would be preserved. His wishes were all but ignored, but in the 1990s the Case Research Lab was restored to its original condition after being used as a painting studio for 40 years. The property is now operated as the Cayuga Museum of History and Case Research Lab Museum. Known as the Dr. Sylvester Willard Mansion
Dr. Sylvester Willard Mansion
Dr. Sylvester Willard Mansion, now known as the Cayuga Museum of History and Art, is a historic mansion and related complex located at Auburn in Cayuga County, New York. It is a monumental Greek Revival style brick mansion built originally in 1836-1843, with late 19th century Classical Revival...
, the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.
The Case family also had a summer home a dozen miles away on Owasco Lake, one of the Finger Lakes
Finger Lakes
The Finger Lakes are a pattern of lakes in the west-central section of Upstate New York in the United States. They are a popular tourist destination. The lakes are long and thin , each oriented roughly on a north-south axis. The two longest, Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake, are among the deepest in...
. The home was called Casowasco and was originally only accessible by train or boat. This summer home was one of the first in the area to have electric lighting, powered by a small hydro-electric plant on the hillside above. After Case's death, the property was donated to the Methodist church by Case's widow, closing the history in Cayuga County of one of its founding families. It now functions as a conference center and is still named Casowasco.
With the profits earned from his sale of the Case Research Lab's invention of sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
to William Fox
William Fox (producer)
William Fox born Fried Vilmos was a pioneering Hungarian American motion picture executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s...
, Case built a new home in Auburn that was, and is, the largest house in that city. The house featured an indoor swimming pool, a ballroom, a hidden room with a secret entrance, and living quarters for the many servants needed to manage the property. Behind the house were two identical buildings, one for horses, one for automobiles. The Case mansion is now used as a mental health facility while the buildings on the street behind it have been converted into homes.
Case was a man of action and sport so he owned many boats and cars and traveled often. A descendant of another of Auburn's wealthy families remembers that during the depression there were often parties at Case's new home, despite the national climate of belt tightening. Case also purchased a custom made Cadillac in the early 1930s, something that few of even the most wealthy did during that time. That Cadillac was made into a hot rod in the 1950s by its then owner. Case's Cadillac is now being restored by its latest owner. But Case might very well have had a measure of his worth because he died a wealthy man and his widow was well funded for the duration of her life.
Case's early work in sound-on-film
Case began working on his sound-on-filmSound-on-film
Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...
process in 1921 after his Case Research Lab's development of the Thallofide (thallium
Thallium
Thallium is a chemical element with the symbol Tl and atomic number 81. This soft gray poor metal resembles tin but discolors when exposed to air. The two chemists William Crookes and Claude-Auguste Lamy discovered thallium independently in 1861 by the newly developed method of flame spectroscopy...
oxysulfide) light-sensitive vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
from 1916 to 1918. The Thallofide tube was originally used by the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
in a top secret
Top Secret
Top Secret generally refers to the highest acknowledged level of classified information.Top Secret may also refer to:- Film and television :* Top Secret , a British comedy directed by Mario Zampi...
infrared
Infrared
Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...
signaling system developed at the Case Lab. The inventions of the Case Research Lab from 1916-1926 were the creation of Case and Earl I. Sponable, who worked with Case at the lab until he went with Case to Fox Film Corporation in 1926. The ship-to-ship signaling system was first tested in 1917 off the shores of New Jersey. Attending the test was Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
, contracted by the Navy to evaluate new technologies. A complete success, the signaling system was used by the Navy for a number of years. He worked with other people, including Lee De Forest
Lee De Forest
Lee De Forest was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use...
, to create a sound-on-film process similar to the sound film systems used today.
Case and DeForest
From 1921 to 1924, Case provided Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tubeAudion tube
The Audion is an electronic amplifying vacuum tube invented by Lee De Forest in 1906. It was the forerunner of the triode, in which the current from the filament to the plate was controlled by a third element, the grid...
, many inventions from his lab that made DeForest's Phonofilm
Phonofilm
In 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...
sound-on-film process workable, though DeForest had been granted general patents in 1919. To develop a light for exposing a soundtrack to film, the Case Lab converted an old silent-film projector into a recording device. With it the AEO light was created, which was mass-produced for use in all Movietone News
Movietone News
Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States, and from 1929 to 1979 in the United Kingdom.-History:It is known in the U.S. as Fox Movietone News, produced cinema, sound newsreels from 1928 to 1963 in the U.S., from 1929 to 1979 in the UK , and from 1929 to 1975 in...
cameras from 1928-1939, and in recording sound in all Fox feature films from 1928-1931. Movietone News used a single-system to record the sound and image simultaneously in a camera, while feature film production moved to a system that recorded sound in a separate machine that was essentially a sound camera with the lenses and picture shutter missing. It was an optical tape recorder that used film rather than tape.
On 15 April 1923, DeForest presented 18 short films made in the Phonofilm process at the Rivoli Theater in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. The printed program for this presentation gives credit to the "DeForest-Case Patents". However, shortly after DeForest filed a lawsuit in June 1923 against Freeman Harrison Owens
Freeman Harrison Owens
Freeman Harrison Owens , born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the only child of Charles H. Owens and Christabel Harrison. He attended Pine Bluff High School in Pine Bluff, but quit in his senior year to work at a local movie theatre as a projectionist.Owens constructed his own 35mm movie camera at the age...
, another inventor who had worked with DeForest on sound-on-film systems, Case and DeForest had a falling-out.
The dispute between Case and DeForest was due to Case not being properly credited for his lab's contributions to Phonofilms. Case attended the April 1923 presentation of Phonofilm and was never mentioned during that presentation. By this time, DeForest had already been repeatedly warned by Case to present the truth of the inventions, to no avail. The films shown at the Phonofilm presentation used the Case Research Lab AEO Light for recording sound, were filmed with a camera designed by the Case Lab, and used the Case Lab's Thallofide Cell for reproducing the sound. Shortly after this presentation, Case stopped providing DeForest with his lab's inventions, effectively putting DeForest out of the sound film business, but not out of the "claiming to have invented sound film" business.
The Case Research Lab then set about to perfect the system of sound film they had provided DeForest, now that DeForest was no longer able to inhibit their development of this new technology. One of the first things Case did was to change the location of the sound head on a modified silent projector to 21 frames upstream from the projected image, ensuring that no Phonofilm could be played on Case equipment. This standard was adopted by all subsequent sound-on-film systems and still applies to this day.
Movietone and William Fox
This location of where the sound is read from the film also allowed an easy conversion of silent projectors in use at the time, making the change to sound film more practical for an industry to adopt. On July 23, 1926, William FoxWilliam Fox (producer)
William Fox born Fried Vilmos was a pioneering Hungarian American motion picture executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s...
of Fox Film Corporation bought Case's patents relating to the sound-on-film process. From 1926 to 1927, Case worked with Fox's technicians to develop the Fox Movietone process. Fox had also previously purchased the rights to the sound film patents of Owens -- who had developed a sound movie camera as early as 1921 and coined the term "Movietone" -- and the U.S. rights to the German Tri-Ergon
Tri-Ergon
The Tri-Ergon sound-on-film system was patented from 1919 on by German inventors Josef Engl , Hans Vogt , and Joseph Massolle . The name Tri-Ergon was derived from Greek and means "the work of three." In 1926, William Fox of Fox Film Corporation purchased the U. S...
sound-on-film process. The Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
lists "Fox Case Corporation" as the production company for two comedy short films by vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
comedy team of Bobby Clark
Bobby Clark (comedian)
Robert Edwin Clark , known as Bobby Clark, was a minstrel, vaudevillian, performer on stage, film, television and the circus....
and Paul McCullough
Paul McCullough
Paul Johnston McCullough was an American actor who performed in a comedy team with Bobby Clark.Born in Springfield, Ohio, McCullough met Clark at a local YMCA when they were boys...
, The Honor System (1928) and The Interview (1928).
Titles filmed by Case in his process, all made at the Case Studios in Auburn, New York, include Miss Manila Martin and Her Pet Squirrel (1921), Gus Visser and His Singing Duck
Theodore Case Sound Test: Gus Visser and his Singing Duck
Theodore Case Sound Test: Gus Visser and his Singing Duck , also known as Gus Visser and His Singing Duck, is an early sound film, directed by Theodore Case while perfecting his variable density sound-on-film process. Case began working on his sound film process at the Case Research Lab in Auburn,...
(1925), Bird in a Cage (1923), Gallagher and Shean
Gallagher and Shean
Gallagher & Shean was a highly successful double act on vaudeville and Broadway in the 1910s and 1920s, consisting of Edward Gallagher and Al Shean .-Career:...
(1925), Madame Fifi (1925), and Chinese Variety Performer with a Ukelele (1925). Gus Visser and His Singing Duck was nominated to the National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
in 2002.
There were hundreds more test films made at the Case Lab that were lost in a fire in the 1950s. The Case Research Lab is now a museum open to the public. Adjacent to the lab is the estate's carriage house where sound-film tests were made on its second floor. That sound studio is also open to the public and its collections include a seven-foot square balsawood box, known as a "blimp," that housed the camera and operator during filming. The original amplifiers and many more items used in the development of sound film at the Case Research Lab are also on display, as well as an early Wall camera used by Movietone News
Movietone News
Movietone News is a newsreel that ran from 1928 to 1963 in the United States, and from 1929 to 1979 in the United Kingdom.-History:It is known in the U.S. as Fox Movietone News, produced cinema, sound newsreels from 1928 to 1963 in the U.S., from 1929 to 1979 in the UK , and from 1929 to 1975 in...
. The museum is currently searching for the first sound camera built by the Case Lab, believed to be in a private collection.
"Talkies"
Pequod Productions is currently producing a documentary entitled "TALKIES - THE INVENTION OF THEODORE W. CASE," to be directed by Al Steigerwald.See also
- Sound filmSound filmA sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
- Joseph Tykociński-Tykociner
- VitaphoneVitaphoneVitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
- RCA PhotophoneRCA PhotophoneRCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
- Movietone sound systemMovietone sound systemThe Movietone sound system is a sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures that guarantees synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures...
- Phono-Kinema
- List of film formats