Movie Sound 8(1947–c.1952)
An amateur sound format that synchronized an 8mm print with a 12-inch sound disc.
Film Explorer
An example of a 12-inch vinyl which would have been used for the phonograph, this one is for Maids and Music (c. 1947).
Tangible Media Collection, Ithaca, NY, United States. Courtesy of John Wallace.
Wrestling Thrills (c. 1948). The vinyl disc containing the audio was synchronized to images projected from an 8mm print.
Tangible Media Collection, Ithaca, NY, United States. Courtesy of John Wallace.
Wrestling Thrills (c. 1948). The 8mm print contained a sync mark at the head of the reel, noted here with a dot. The disc had a similar sync mark. Both the print and the sound disc could then be played back simultaneously in synchronization.
Tangible Media Collection, Ithaca, NY, United States. Courtesy of John Wallace.
Identification
4.37mm x 3.28mm (0.172 in x 0.129 in).
B/W
Unknown
Probably
1
12-in (30.48cm) vinyl disc played at synchronous speed of 33⅓ rpm (revolutions per minute). A special, standardized leader was created and spliced onto the beginning of each film that was intended for the Movie Sound 8 format, and contained a starting tone and synchronization mark to start both the picture and the sound.
History
Initially presented at the 1947 Society of Motion Picture Engineers (SMPE) Convention in Chicago and described as “the first commercial 8-mm sound projector”, the Movie Sound 8 projection system provided a new experience for the homeowner market – both by providing a new gauge with sound, combined with an easy-to-use set-up. Thompson boasted that, “anyone who can thread a projector can operate the Movie-Sound 8”. (Thompson, 1947: p. 463). Formally announced to the market later that year by Continental Products Corp., the system employed an adapted 8mm Kodascope projector from Eastman Kodak and a turntable unit, with an automatic start device, from the Wilcox Electric Company (Young, 1947: p. 389). Lloyd Thompson is credited as the inventor, since he was serving as the vice-president of the Calvin Company, an engineering company, while also president at Continental Products Corp. Writing in 1948 for Home Movies magazine, with the domestic market clearly in his sights, Thompson claimed that: “as an experiment, several 12-year-old boys with no previous projector experience were given the instruction book and asked to run the machine. By following the instructions they were able to project a perfect sound picture the first time.” (Thompson, 1948: p. 283) In addition to purchasing commercially produced film/phonograph sets, it was envisaged that more adventurous users would be able record their own soundtracked home movies:
“The Movie Sound 8 projector will project 8mm sound films, 8mm silent films, play background music for your regular home movie films, or play regular phonograph records and electrical transcriptions such as the radio stations uses, or it may be used with a slide projector, thus making it a sound-slide projector. In addition, it is a simple matter to record sound for your own pictures and play them on the Movie Sound 8 projector. The Movie Sound 8 will not itself record sound, but it will play records made on any standard disc recorder” (Thompson, 1948: p. 270–1).
Film distributors who offered “special 8mm sound subjects” included Castle Films, Official Films, and Pictorial Films (Thompson, 1948: p. 270). Sold as a single unit, the system was listed at $304.00 in 1948 with sound films being sold at $8.75 per film for “approximately 10 minutes in length… for half the price of 16mm sound films” (Home Movies, 1948: p. 285). The Calvin Company appears to have stopped production of the disc projector system around 1952, when it introduced a new 8mm magnetic stripe projector, also branded as Movie Sound 8. From 1954, the Calvin Company shifted its focus to reduction printing and explored more industrial uses of 8mm film (Forbes, 1960: p. 547).
Wrestling Thrills (c. 1948). The 12-inch vinyl disc and 8mm film reel alongside its original Official Films packaging.
Tangible Media Collection, Ithaca, NY, United States. Courtesy of John Wallace.
Selected Filmography
A cartoon.
A cartoon.
A Pictoreel comedy.
A Pictoreel comedy.
A Pictoreel musical miniature.
A Pictoreel musical miniature.
A Pictoreel short film.
A Pictoreel short film.
Technology
The Movie Sound 8 system was an effort to create a synchronous sound experience for at-home viewing, consisting of a Kodascope 8 projector and a 12-inch vinyl turntable made by Wilcox Electric. The system could operate on two different speeds, 33 ⅓ rpm, for playing records supplied specifically for the films, or 78 rpm for regular phonograph records. A 12-inch record could have held sound for approximately 1,000 ft (304.8m) of 35mm film (10–12 min.), which also fits with the notion that any sound film available on 35mm, or 16mm, could be converted for this 8mm system (Thompson, 1947: p. 467).
The projector featured a modified Kodascope 8 projector and a Wilcox Electric turntable with an audio amplifier which were assembled together by Continental Products Corp., who also distributed the final system. Descriptions of the Movie Sound 8 often emphasized how easy it was for amateur film enthusiasts to accomplish synchronized sound. Lloyd Thompson described the synchronization process, thus:
“The projector is threaded with the synchronization mark in the gate. The pickup needle is set down on the revolving record. The one-thousand-cycle tone is picked up, and this operates a selective relay which starts the projector motor … It is true that a motor cannot start instantaneously but on a lightweight projector such as an 8- or 16-mm projector it will start almost instantaneously, but more important, the starting characteristic is quite uniform. Therefore it is possible to place the synchronization mark on the film so as to compensate for the loss in starting time.” (Thompson, 1947: p. 463)
His patent describes how every third frame was eliminated to reduce the frame rate of the 8mm print to 16 fps without affecting the soundtrack. This contributed to the need for a synchronization process which would be relatively uncomplicated for the home user:
“A special standardized leader has been made up and this leader is spliced on the beginning of any film which is to be printed and re-recorded for use on the Movie-Sound 8. This leader contains the 1000-cycle starting tone and the synchronization mark in their correct positions to make the sound and picture start in synchronism. The turntable and projector motor are both synchronous motors, and once they are started in synchronism, they will run indefinitely in perfect step.” (Thompson, 1947: p. 463)
From this description, it would seem that Movie Sound 8 technology could arguably be seen as a forerunner to a variety of elaborate home entertainment systems that would emerge in the following few decades, built from various pieces of equipment, working in synchronisation to create a rich entertainment experience, while also being user-friendly.
Movie-Sound 8 unit with projector and turntable. The sound from the turntable is amplified through the outlet attached to the projector.
Thompson, Lloyd (1947). “Movie Sound 8 projector with synchronous player” (Fig. 1). Journal of the SMPE, 49:5 (Nov.): p. 464. https://archive.org/details/journalofsociety49socirich/page/464/mode/1up?view=theater
Plan view of the potential set up for the Movie Sound 8 system: this illustrates how the user could have recorded sound on a different machine, which could be played through the projector system
Thompson, Lloyd (1948). “Movie Sound 8 system” (Fig. 3). Home Movies (May) p. 271. https://archive.org/details/homemovies15unse/page/270/mode/2up
Guide on how to thread film through the projector, the ‘SYNC MARK’ is a feature on the leader which ensures the projector and the turntable are set at the same pace.
Thompson, Lloyd (1948). “8mm. Sound Movies” (Fig. 2). Home Movies (May): p. 270.
References
Forbes, John (1960). “8mm Comes of Age”. American Cinematographer, 41:9 (Sep.): p. 547. https://archive.org/details/americancinemato41unse/page/546/mode/2up
Hedden, William D. & Kenneth Curtis (1961). “Early 8mm Sound Developments”. Journal of the SMPTE, 70:8 (Aug.): pp. 585–9. https://archive.org/details/sim_smpte-motion-imaging-journal_1961-08_70_8/page/586/mode/1up?q=thompson
Home Movies (1948). “Enjoy 8mm. Sound Films with Movie Sound 8” (advertisement). Home Movies, 15:5 (May): p. 285. https://archive.org/details/homemovies15unse/page/285/mode/1up?view=theater
Home Movies (1954). “Sound on your 8mm home movies / FREE! / To introduce the Amazing New Movie Sound 8 First Sound on Film Recorder-Projector Ever Developed” (advertisement). Home Movies, 21:3 (Mar.): p. 132. https://archive.org/details/homemovies195421verh/page/132/mode/2up
New York Times (1947). “News Notes Along Camera Row”. The New York Times (Jul. 20): Sec. X, p. 18. https://www.nytimes.com/1947/07/20/archives/news-notes-along-camera-row.html
Popular Photography (1948). “Movie Projectors”. Popular Photography, 23:4 (Oct.): p. 192. https://books.google.com/books?id=R2AzAQAAMAAJ
Thompson, Lloyd (1947). “The Movie-Sound-8 Projector”. Journal of the SMPE, 49: 5 (Nov.): pp. 463–7. https://archive.org/details/journalofsociety49socirich/page/463/mode/1up?view=theater
Thompson, Lloyd (1948). “8mm. Sound Movies” Home Movies, 15:5 (May): pp. 270–1, 283–6. https://archive.org/details/homemovies15unse/page/270/mode/2up?view=theater
Young, James (1947). “News of the Industry”. Movie Makers, 22:9 (Sep.): p. 389. https://archive.org/details/moviemakers22amat/page/388/mode/2up
Patents
Thompson, Lloyd (1948). Method of reproducing sound motion pictures in synchronism with the picture and sound on separate media. US Patent 2452291, filed Nov. 19, 1945; and issued Nov. 23, 1948.
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Author
Tyisha Murphy is a curator, researcher, and archivist who is currently located in Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) in pursuit of their PhD in Film Studies. They received their BA in Film Studies from Carleton University and their MA in Film Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University. Previous research projects have been featured at the AGQ (Archives Gaie du Québec), Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies and CFMDC (Canadian Filmmakers’ Distribution Centre).
Murphy, Tyisha (2026). “Movie Sound 8”. In James Layton (ed.), Film Atlas. www.filmatlas.com. Brussels: International Federation of Film Archives / Rochester, NY: George Eastman Museum.
