c) Photophone system

The film-makers on Matto Grosso, the Great Brazilian Wildnerness demonstrate the Photophone system to some Bororo women. While one woman looks through the viewfinder of the blimped Mitchell with cinematographer David Crosby standing by, others, attended by sound recordist Ainslie Davis. listen through headsets to the audio recording.

The Photophone system was an optical sound system developed by RCA Victor and launched in 1929. For the first time, this system permitted synchronous sound to be recorded on location. Sounds captured by a microphone were augmented by a mixer and recorded onto the same film negative onto which images were being registered as the film passed through the gate of a specially adapted Mitchell 35mm camera.

The system was first used outside a studio setting in 1931 during the  production of Matto Grosso, the Great Brazilian Wilderness 

© 2018 Paul Henley