The Sound of Amateur Film

This essay examines why amateur filmmakers did not adopt sound despite the apparent desire for it mentioned in the pages of Movie Makers and other forums. The failure of the RCA-Victor camera provides a focal point from which to examine the history of amateur film sound and how this short-lived camera mirrors and anticipates many of the problems that would unceasingly thwart attempts to bring sound to amateur film practice. To begin recovering the history of amateur sound production, I concentrate on how one amateur filmmaker, Archie Stewart, eagerly took up sound filmmaking (with the RCA-Victor camera) only to abandon it a few short years later. Stewart's amateur sound films of the 1930s are illustrative of the kinds of frustrations and limitations a keen and committed amateur filmmaker encountered.