Beresford Charles Hallett(1912-1992)
- Sound Department
When Beresford left school(Fort Street High in Sydney) he worked for two years with radio station 2BL Sydney in 1927 and the then NSW Broadcasting Company that was later to become the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). He spent eleven years with Raycophone Pty.Ltd. (Ray Alsop) from 1929 to 1940, during which time he was employed on Radio Receiver construction, testing, servicing and designing Theatre Projection Equipment operating, servicing and building Theatre Sound Equipment: Operating, servicing and constructing Sound recording equipment for film; Became installation and service engineer for theatre sound equipment in many Sydney metropolitan, country NSW and interstate (SE Qld.) theatres. This included installing the first Raycophone sound system in Australia in the Rose Bay Wintergarden cinema.
Became Service Manager for all Raycophone Sound Equipment with considerable experience in installation and operation of sound reproducing equipment and Public Address systems.
As sound recording engineer for Raycophone Recording Equipment, he was in charge of location recording for the film Typhoon Treasure.
Toured New Zealand (on loan from Raycophone) with J.C. Williamson as Engineer in Charge of public address and sound recording equipment for stage shows. Was also responsible for maintaining movie project equipment and being projectionist (again on loan from Raycophone) on several passenger cruise ships operating Australian coastal cruises in the 1930s to early 1940s.
Beresford joined the RAAF in 1940 as Airframe Fitter. Became instructor of Airframe Fitters for 18 months. Granted Commission in Equipment and Stores Branch. He was discharged in mid-1945 with rank of Flight Lieutenant to undertake sound recording for war film The Overlanders as Sound Recording Engineer. (Director Harry Watt was engaged by the government to make a propaganda film in the last year of the war - Harry Watt requested Beresford be the sound recording engineer and he was demobilised from the RAAF to do the job!)
Was responsible for complete musical scoring, of The Glenrowan Affair with recordings from Chappell and Paxton libraries.
At Commonwealth Film Labs, was responsible for scoring and recording some 100 short features and advertising films. Responsible for complete installation of modern Western Electric sound recording equipment at new studios at Turrella.
Beresford (aka Berry) went to to work 2GB is Sydney for Macquarie Broadcasting as Sound Engineer. After a couple of years at 2GB he moved to EMI as sound recording engineer where he stayed until about 1974. He was then recruited to Eric Porter Productions in North Sydney to work on optical sound recording equipment to be used in the feature animated film The Adventures of Marco Polo. So he was back into the film business he always loved. He stayed there until he retired around 1978.