Page 17 - CinemaRecord Cover Section # 45

With Syd Guest’s bowden cable
synchroniser between the recording
lathe and a Prestwich silent camera, the
cameraman Reg Edwards used the
system in October 1929 to film a
speech by the incoming Australian
Prime Minister, James Scullin. Song
shorts by June Mills, Colin Crane and
Ivan Massounoff followed. Generally,
the system's synchronisation was too
inaccurate to permit full lip-sync, and
any shooting of this type was restricted
to the precincts of Vocalion’s studio, so
that its chief subsequent application
was in adding narration to advertising,
documentary and news films.
Synchronous Vocalion disc
narration was applied to the
Commonwealth Government’s first Graham McNamee to give their earliest issues. The closer to the start of
talkie, the two-reel This Is Australia newsreel's disc soundtracks a racy the film the lip-sync sections were, the
(October 1930). It was also applied to commentary, without any location less chance they had of drifting out of
Arthur Higgins and Austin Fay’s sound. sync!
Fellers (March 1930), a local feature
Imitating Universal's economy, a The veteran projectionist Albert
film set during the First World War
short-lived sound-on-disc Australian Wright told me in the 1970s that this
starring Arthur Tauchert. It mostly
Talkies Newsreel, later known as the Australian sound-on-disc newsreel had
reproduced background music but
Australian Sound Gazette was “dreadful, scratchy sound and it was
there was a dialogue sequence in its
produced in Melbourne from June always out of sync!” Nevertheless,
final reel - the first Australian talkie
1930 to November 1931. The camera Bellbird talkie discs were used to add
feature.
work was provided by the Melbourne narration to Frank Hurley’s first talkie,
The MacDonough Sisters’ local
staff of Australasian Films, Reg Southward Ho! With Mawson, released
silent feature, The Cheaters (1929) was
Edwards and Bert Nicholas, who in July 1930. A. R. ‘Dick’ Harwood
also synchronised with orchestral
previously worked on the silent even attempted to make a feature talkie
music and had four sound-on-disc
newsreel, The Australasian Gazette, with full synchronous dialogue on the
dialogue sequences added in the
which ceased in March 1929. The disc Bellbird discs.
Vocalion studio early in 1930. This
newsreel only had studio narration by
version was soon rendered obsolete
the broadcasters Norman McCance,
when the film was given an optical
Eric Welch or Charles Moses mixed
track by Standardtone (Jack Fletcher
with crude post-dubbed effects.
and Neville Macken) in Woollahra,
Initially, the sound discs were
Sydney during 1931.
recorded at Vocalion Records’ studio at
Standardtone was also responsible the Spencer Street end of Bourke
for facilitating the final release of Street Melbourne, and were duplicated
Norman Dawn’s disastrous Showgirl’s on their gritty 12 inch diameter shellac
Luck, frequently but incorrectly pressings. By the end of 1930 the discs
claimed as ‘Australia's first talkie’. The were cut and duplicated on flexible
film commenced shooting in June 1930 black celluloid pressings by Bert
with sound on disc. A complete print Goody and Bill Lyall at the Bellbird
of the film was re-discovered in 1987, (formerly World Records) studio in
indicating that it apparently had to be Bay Street, North Brighton.
almost completely re-shot with optical
The discs were of 10 or 12 inch
sound in 1931 before its release.
diameter rather than the customary 16
Showgirl’s Luck achieved a very
inch size used by American Vitaphone,
limited Sydney exhibition in November
as no record presses capable of
1931, some weeks after the release of
stamping out 16 inch discs were then
Frank Thring’s first Efftee features and
available in Melbourne. Consequently,
several months behind Dick Harwood’s
the corresponding film reels had to be
first talkies.
relatively short, no longer than 650 feet
Most of the early sound newsreels
(seven minutes). The system was too
abroad opted for sound on film, the
makeshift to support lip-sync
only major exception being the
sequences, beyond an introductory
American company, Universal Pictures, Frame enlargements from an Australian
effort by the narrator Norman
who hired the celebrity broadcaster Talkies Newsreel, sound–on–disc,
McCance included in some of the
July 1930.
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