Filmmakers had been trying to record sound on film since motion pictures were invented in the late 1800s but commercial systems for recording sound directly onto film took years of experimenting and innovating.
By 1929, synchronised sound, including Warner Brothers’ sound-on-disc Vitaphone system and RCA Photophone’s electrical sound-on-film system, were debuted. Once the technology was discovered, it only took five years for it to be available to amateur filmmakers.
In 1935, the world’s first sound-on-film camera was released for the amateur market, the RCA Victor Sound 16mm camera. Like RCA’s Photophone system, it recorded sound directly onto the film’s edge via light reflected off a mirror, which was attached to a diaphragm that vibrated when the operator spoke.
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Not in ACMI's collection
On display until
16 February 2031
ACMI: Gallery 1
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Curatorial section
The Story of the Moving Image → Moving Pictures → MI-05. Sound and Colour → MI-05-C02