Page 14 - CinemaRecord Cover Section # 45

AUSTRALIA'S

75 YEARS

these bands, and the varying light
The Start Of Sound And The 'Lost' Issues 1929 - 1930. transmitted by the film's soundtrack
would be converted back into sound via
By Chris Long
a photo-electric cell, amplifier and
loudspeaker.
On 8 August 1929, the Fox
Movietone Newsreel's mobile sound Australia's slow conversion for
Talkies.
van number 41 arrived in Sydney
Most of the Australian Movietone
aboard the SS Sierra, with cameraman
Newsreel items made in the first
Ray Vaughan and sound engineer Paul
eighteen months of local talkie
Hance. It was the second optical sound
production are also lost, probably as a
film production unit to reach Australia,
result of fires at their associated Sydney
and it was the first unit to regularly
film processing lab, Filmcraft, in
release locally made sound films on an
December 1929 and again in 1931.
ongoing basis.
Another possible reason for the
One earlier experimental optical
rarity of the early editions of
sound-on-film camera had been
Australian Movietone News can be
imported to Sydney. This was brought
ascribed to the local cinema industry's
from America by the pioneering De
slow changeover to sound. The first
Forest Phonofilm concern in April Cameraman Ray Vaughan on arrival in
1927. It was used by the visiting Sydney with the Movietone sound camera, talkie cinemas were wired in Sydney in
American sound engineer Harry Jones 8 August 1929. In the original printing, December 1928, but smaller exhibitors
to make a few demonstration talkie the photo was ‘flipped’. This is the correct monitored the commercial results of the
'shorts' in Australia between April and view. Source: Everyones, Sydney,14 city try-outs before taking the leap. Few
June 1927. They were subsequently August 1929 p.7. Australian cinemas other than city first-
shown as novelty items in the few city run venues had wired for sound by the
theatres temporarily wired by the De One important item featured the end of 1929.
Forest Company to exhibit them. In Duke of York landing in Sydney and Even the local Fox talkie newsreel
Melbourne this was the Majestic in subsequently speaking at the opening of of the commercially 'hot' November
Flinders Street. Parliament House in Canberra, with 1929 Melbourne Cup only required
Nellie Melba singing the National twenty prints to cover all of their
Anthem. This was the only known Australasian outlets (Everyones, 21
occasion on which Melba was filmed August 1929 p.9).
with sound. No Australian talkies made By 11 June 1930 the situation was
by De Forest are currently known to only slightly better, Everyones now
survive. listed 350 out of Australia's 1250
Movietone and De Forest both used cinemas (28 %) as wired for sound. By
the 'glow tube' system of recording December 1930 the number increased
optical sound on film. That is, the sharply to 837 out of 1250 (67%), but a
system's audio amplifier fed a gas significant proportion were still only
discharge or aeolight lamp shining wired for Vitaphone synchronised disc
through a slit onto the moving film in soundtracks, exemplified by the system
the camera. The light would flash in used for The Jazz Singer. Disc-only
sympathy with the sound hitting the venues could not show the optical
microphone, recording the sound on sound-on-film productions of the
Jack Fletcher with the first optical sound film as varying bands of light and dark Australian Movietone News, and in
camera brought to Australia by DeForest (variable density) on the photographic some states the proportion of disc-only
Phonofilms in 1927. The glow lamp emulsion beside the picture images. As venues was, for a while, significant.
(arrow) recorded the sound above the the film later moved through the The following table was compiled from
picture image on the film – the reverse of projector, a light shining through a Everyones of 10 December 1930
later practice. similar slit would be modulated by (p.14):

14 2004 CINEMARECORD