Chirping of birds, hissing of the wind, thunder of the clouds are the natural sounds we hear in the movies without any surprise. Beyond that the sip of the tea, the fizz of the carbonated drink and the swish of the sword could be heard. Movies have been made lively by the fidelity of the sounds incorporated. However, we forget that there were times when the movies were silent. The silent era in India started with the screening of Raja Harishchandra made by Dadasaheb Phalke on Saturday, 3rd May, 1913 in Mumbai’s Girgaon-based Coronation Cinema. In those days, the technology to synchronize the sound and visual was not available. The experiments had been continuing to do so since the last decade of the 19th century. William Dickson made a 21-second audio-visual reel at the lab of Thomas Edison, in 1895. It was made on kinetophone. It was the pioneering effort to wed the sound and the visual. De Forest developed around this time ‘phenofilm’. However, to make a full-length feature film with sound had to wait for 32 years. Warner ‘Brothers’ Jaaz Singer using vitaphone released this movie on October, 1927. It was screened at Flagship Theatre of New York. The visuals were on film, and sound emanated from a different disc. Some portion of Jazz Singer was silent, and some portion with sound. It was the first attempt of audio-visual synchronization. It is considered a milestone.

In the 1920s, the silent movies were given live sound by an orchestra sitting in the theatre.

India’s first takie was realsed on 14th April, 1931, at Majestic Cinema in Mumbai. It was Imperial Movietone produced and Ardeshir Irani directed Alam Ara. In the next nine months on 23rd Jan,1932 Prabhat Film Company made and V. Shantaram directed Ayodhyecha Raja, a musical talkie film was released. Vishnu Pant Damale used his own developed sound recording system to record the dialogues and songs. There was no playback system, and the characters used to sing themselves.

The movies got colour in the 1950s. Sound too improved. Sets were erected in the studios. They were called sound stage as they were sound proof. Later outdoor shooting led to the concept of dubbing to eliminate unwanted sounds. Jack Folley developed the system of recording the movements. Till the 1960s, the source of the sound was one — monophonic. Then stereophonic sound came. Ultimately, movies adopted Dolby.