Oral Histories
Interview of George Groves
Director of sound at Warner Bros. Member of the Bell Laboratories research team that developed sound recording technology for film.
- Subtitle:
- George Groves: Sound Director
- Series:
- Interviews not in a series, part one
- Topic:
- Film and Television
- Biographical Note:
- Director of sound at Warner Bros. Member of the Bell Laboratories research team that developed sound recording technology for film.
- Interviewee:
- Groves, George
- Persons Present:
- Groves and Dixon.
- Place Conducted:
- Groves' office at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California.
- Supporting Documents:
- Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
- Interviewer Background and Preparation:
- The interview was conducted by Elizabeth I. Dixon, Head, Oral History Program, UCLA; Age, 48, B.A., International Relations, USC; M.L.S., Library Service, UCLA.
- Processing of Interview:
- The verbatim transcript of the taped interviews was edited by the interviewer, Mrs. Elizabeth Dixon. Editing consisted of supplying proper spelling and punctuation, with only occasional slight rearrangement of word and sentence order; thus the final manuscript closely parallels the interviews.Groves completely reviewed and approved the manuscript making some changes in words and phrases, and infrequently deleting a paragraph or so of material. He also occasionally added a small amount of new material; the only major addition occurs from pages 68 to 73 of the final manuscript.No indications have been made on the final manuscript as to where the tape divisions occurred. They are as follows:Tape I, Side 1: p.1Tape I, Side 2: p.27Tape II, Side 1: p.50Tape II, Side 2: p.64The indexing was done by Jack Vaughn.
- Length:
- 4 hrs.
- Language:
- English
- Copyright:
- Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
- Abstract:
- Youth and education in England; early musical training; playing trumpet in local vaudeville theater; engineering studies at Liverpool University; employment with Bell Telephone Laboratories developing improved telephone communications,1923-25; move to Warner Brothers studios to develop synchronized sound for motion pictures; making The Jazz Singer and other early sound films; introduction of multiple-microphone pickup technique; developing stereographic sound for films; recipient of eight Academy Award nominations and two Oscars.