Weber has been credited with pioneering the use of the split screen technique to show simultaneous action in her 1913 film "Suspense". In collaboration with her first husband, Phillips Smalley, in 1913 Weber was "one of the first directors to experiment with sound", making the first sound films in the United States. She was also the first American woman to direct a full-length feature film when she and Smalley directed "The Merchant of Venice" in 1914, and in 1917 the first American woman director to own her own film studio.