Photokinema

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Photokinema was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum. The system was used for a small number of short films, mostly made in 1921, of subjects such as actor Frederick Warde reading an original poem, labor leader Samuel Gompers speaking on labor issues, Irvin S. Cobb reading from his works, and a lecture by James J. Davis, secretary of labor in the Harding administration.

The process was most famously used by D. W. Griffith to record singing and sound effects sequences for his 1921 movie Dream Street. Employing the Photokinema system, Griffith turned what was originally a silent film into a sound film, indeed the first feature-length film in which the human voice could be heard. Some prints of Dream Street show Griffith speaking in a brief introduction to the film.

In 1982, Kellum's widow donated the surviving films made with the Photokinema process to the UCLA Film and Television Archive.