The Birth of Australian Sound on Film

Clive Cross makes his acceptance speech at the Australian Screen Sound Guild Awards 1999, watched by Graeme Rothwell (Fairlight ESP), and one of last year's winners, Peter Fenton

The CineSound Sound System
Clive Cross, Arthur Carrington Smith, Bert Cross

Clive Cross, Arthur Carrington Smith and Bert Cross were behind Australia's first successful sound-on-film recording process which truly helped to revitalise Australian film making. Foreign optical film sound recording and reproducing equipment was available but very expensive and not an option for most early Australian filmmakers. It is the classic story of untried inventors producing results that amazed everyone, and doing it more cheaply than anybody could have imagined.

Bert Cross was one of only a couple of experienced cinematographers working in Australia in the early days of cinema. He moved from Melbourne to Sydney in 1926 to work as second cameraman on The Term of His Natural Life and manage Australasian Film Laboratory (a part of Union Theatres Ltd - headed by Ken G Hall).
He was in charge of design and installation of the lab at Bondi Junction.

He began working with Don Knock of Wireless Weekly, trying to get sound on film. Don knew electronics and Bert knew photographics. Arthur Smith left his wireless business in Launceston and went to FOX to learn about sound on film. He was referred to Bert Cross and soon began working with him and Don on the sound-
on-film experiments. Don Knock left for the Northern Territory but Arthur and Bert continued. They managed to get decipherable sound with an ARC tube but it was distorted and at a low signal level.

A young Clive Cross spent three days on the set of The Term of His Natural Life in the part of a young criminal. Clive built radio sets at school but in 1928 he left school and joined Phillips to pursue a radio electronics career. Quotas were set on the import of Phillips receivers and soon he was retrenched. In 1929 her was invited to join his father and Arthur in their experiments with sound on film. [It must be said that both
Arthur and Clive spent a lot of their time developing the Cinesound System while unemployed. It was their interest in the technology that spurred them on. They received no payment at the time.]

They switched from an ARC tube to a British Glow Tube (and from what I can gather modified the amplifier) and achieved greatly improved recorded sound quality. They demonstrated to Ken Hall what was to become the Cinesound Sound System. At this time, Frank Hurley created sound effects for silent films from the projection room. He was so impressed he added an FX and narrative track to the silents on Mawson's
adventures, Southward Ho and Siege of the South. Soundtracks were added to other existing silents e.g. Thar She Blows, and soon was used for new features such as On Our Selection, and on all newsreels produced as CineSound Review.

Both Smith and Cross went on to the design and perfection of equipment made by Smith and Cross, the company Arthur Smith and Clive Cross ran from the early 1930's. Arthur continued to work in this field, however with the abolition of tariffs by the Whitlam Government business was more difficult. His three way mixer, however, was used on the feature film "TIM". Clive continued his involvement with sound recording
and directing for documentaries and commercials. The CineSound company was named after their invention.

Fairlight representative Graeme Rothwell and Peter Fenton with Clive Cross and his very proud wife

From Ken Hall's book AUSTRALIAN FILM: THE INSIDE STORY.

- Ken G. Hall talking about Arthur Smith :
"It did not seem possible that a single Australian, with little money behind him, had designed and built sound recording equipment that worked when everybody was aware that the American giants Western Electric and RCA had spent, and were continuing to spend, millions on the development of the recorders and reproducers
they were now merchandising world wide. They did not have to sell them because exhibitors were standing in queues waiting to grab the reproducing equipment.
'Whose patents have you barged in on?' It seemed a logical question.
'Well, nobody's,' said Arthur Smith. 'This equipment is built around the glow-tube principle - the fundamentals of which were first patented in 1906, believe it or not. The inventor did not proceed beyond taking out the patent. I found out about this in a book I happened to be studying in the Mitchell Library. RCA, with variable-area, used the galvanometer principle; Western Electric, with variable-density, the light-valve. We use an English-made glow-tube.'

'The laboratory is important with variable-density in particular, because that method is much more sensitive to development,' said Bert [Cross]. 'If we cook (overdevelop) the track the sound will be unplayable. It has to be spot-on.'
'Bert Cross has been a great help,' said Smith. 'We made hundreds of experimental tracks on short ends of positive from the lab with good and bad results - mostly bad for about a year. But Bert never lost faith.'"

In 1979, Arthur Smith was made a fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, in recognition of his outstanding achievements. He continued inventing sound equipment almost until his death, three years later.

Unfortunately, Both Arthur Smith and Bert Cross have passed away. Clive Cross still lives in Sydney. His contact number is (02) 9389 4724.

Some Work of Clive Cross, Arthur Smith, Bert Cross

Works - Clive Cross
Newsreels
The Broken Melody
The Hayseeds
When The Kellys Rode
The Burgomaster
On Our Selection.
Works - Bert Cross
Forgotten Cinema
Camping Trip to Wilson's Promontory c1919
Diggers Old Home
Forgotten Cinema
For The Term Of His Natural Life
Thar She Blows

Works - Arthur Carrington Smith
Strike Me Lucky
The Silence of Dean Maitland
Return Journey
On Our Selection
Missing : First Victory Loan
Grandad Rudd
Birth Of A Car
First Victory Loan ; Return Journey : advert

The Birth of Australian Sound on Film