Hello all,
We're due to screen this silent film and I'm trying to decide on what framerate to show it in.
I found conflicting information online from two different silent film festivals, San Francisco and Pordenone. San Francisco gives the running time as 75 mins - our print is 4435 feet so we'd have to project it at under 16fps which looks too slow to me to achieve this running time. It seems the Pordenone print is a longer restored version, 5235 feet which they played at 21fps for a running time of about 66 mins. This speed looks a bit too fast to me, I thought about 19fps looks "about right" but there's some leeway either side.
I don't suppose anyone has shown this film or might have information on the framerate? I saw in another thread (Position of optical sound on film in Switzerland and France) that Leo Enticknap mentioned
"Many if not most silent films were made in the absence of consistently applied technical standards determining the frame rate for shooting and projection. Often they were shot at one frame rate, with the expectation of being projected at another. Different shots within a movie were frequently taken at different frame rates. Some frame rates in shooting are physically impossible to reproduce in conventional projection (e.g. The Birth of a Nation, most of which was shot at 11-12 FPS).
Name me even one moderately well known feature made between around 1910 and 1925, and I could likely find you long running arguments between professors, archivists, and silent movie geeks as to what the "correct" projection frame rate should be, even though the correct answer is that there isn't one - just conflicting, informed opinions."
1927 is a bit outside this window so I'm hoping there might be a bit more consensus on the fps for this one...
We're due to screen this silent film and I'm trying to decide on what framerate to show it in.
I found conflicting information online from two different silent film festivals, San Francisco and Pordenone. San Francisco gives the running time as 75 mins - our print is 4435 feet so we'd have to project it at under 16fps which looks too slow to me to achieve this running time. It seems the Pordenone print is a longer restored version, 5235 feet which they played at 21fps for a running time of about 66 mins. This speed looks a bit too fast to me, I thought about 19fps looks "about right" but there's some leeway either side.
I don't suppose anyone has shown this film or might have information on the framerate? I saw in another thread (Position of optical sound on film in Switzerland and France) that Leo Enticknap mentioned
"Many if not most silent films were made in the absence of consistently applied technical standards determining the frame rate for shooting and projection. Often they were shot at one frame rate, with the expectation of being projected at another. Different shots within a movie were frequently taken at different frame rates. Some frame rates in shooting are physically impossible to reproduce in conventional projection (e.g. The Birth of a Nation, most of which was shot at 11-12 FPS).
Name me even one moderately well known feature made between around 1910 and 1925, and I could likely find you long running arguments between professors, archivists, and silent movie geeks as to what the "correct" projection frame rate should be, even though the correct answer is that there isn't one - just conflicting, informed opinions."
1927 is a bit outside this window so I'm hoping there might be a bit more consensus on the fps for this one...
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