Freeman Harrison Owens (July 20, 1890 - December 9, 1979), 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. He constructed his own 35mm movie camera at the age of 16. He filmed early newsreels, such as the Chicago stockyards fire in 1910 and the Charleston (SC) hurricane and flood in 1911. His last credit as cinematographer was Love's Old Sweet Song (1923), filmed in the Lee DeForest Phonofilm process, and starring a young Una Merkel. In 1926, Owens sold his patents for the Movietone sound-on-film process to studio boss William Fox. In 1927, Fox combined Owens's patents with the work of Theodore Case (1888-1944), Earl I. Sponable (1895-1977) -- and the Tri-Ergon sound-on-film technology, developed in 1919 in Germany by inventors Josef Engl, Hans Vogt, and Joseph Massole -- to create the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system. Owens died on 9 December 1979 in Pine Bluff. Lee De Forest Lee De Forest, (August 26, 1873 - June 30, 1961), was an American inventor with over 300 patents to his name. ... Una Merkel (December 10, 1903 – January 2, 1986) was an American film actress. ... William Fox could refer to the following persons: William Fox – Prime Minister of New Zealand on four occasions in the 19th century Wilhelm Fried, better known with his adopted name William Fox – founder of the Fox Film Corporation (now 20th Century Fox) William Fox Talbot – a pioneer of photography. ... Movietone was created ever since silent movies came out, and was the primary source of news and current events for moviegoers until the first black and white television set came out in the late 1940s. ...