130-475: Stephen Steps Out is a 1923 American silent comedy film that is notable as being the first starring role for the still teenaged Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Directed by Joseph Henabery , it was based on a short story by Richard Harding Davis , "The Grand Cross of the Desert." With this film the young Fairbanks Jr. opted for a screen career despite opposition from his famous actor father, Douglas Fairbanks . "I
260-406: A photographic film . This was used commercially as "celluloid", a highly flammable plastic that until the mid-20th century formed the basis for lacquers and photographic film. On May 2, 1887, Hannibal Goodwin filed a patent for "a photographic pellicle and process of producing same ... especially in connection with roller cameras", but the patent was not granted until September 13, 1898. In
390-445: A 16 fps projection of the same reel would take 16 minutes and 40 seconds, or 304 millimetres (12.0 in) per second. In the 1950s, many telecine conversions of silent films at grossly incorrect frame rates for broadcast television may have alienated viewers. Film speed is often a vexed issue among scholars and film buffs in the presentation of silents today, especially when it comes to DVD releases of restored films , such as
520-596: A broken heating pipe at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio . That tragedy claimed 123 lives during the fire and additional fatalities several days later, when hospitalized victims died due to inhaling excessive amounts of smoke from the burning film, which was laced with toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide and hydrogen cyanide . Related fires in other medical facilities prompted the growing disuse of nitrocellulose stock for X-rays by 1933, nearly two decades before its use
650-458: A cotton apron, and wiped it up. He hung the apron on the stove door to dry, and as soon as it was dry, a flash occurred as the apron ignited. His preparation method was the first to be widely used. The method was to immerse one part of fine cotton in 15 parts of an equal blend of sulfuric acid and nitric acid. After two minutes, the cotton was removed and washed in cold water to set the esterification level and to remove all acid residue. The cotton
780-407: A flame. For this reason, immersing burning film in water may not extinguish it, and could actually increase the amount of smoke produced. Owing to public safety precautions, London Underground forbade transport of movies on its system until well past the introduction of safety film. Cinema fires caused by the ignition of nitrocellulose film stock commonly occurred as well. In Ireland in 1926, it
910-422: A hard finish with a deep lustre. It is normally the first coat applied, then it is sanded and followed by other coatings that bond to it. Nail polish contains nitrocellulose, as it is inexpensive, dries quickly to a hard film, and does not damage skin. The explosive applications are diverse and nitrate content is typically higher for propellant applications than for coatings. For space flight, nitrocellulose
1040-413: A key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Inter-titles (or titles as they were generally called at the time) "often were graphic elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decorations that commented on the action". Showings of silent films almost always featured live music starting with the first public projection of movies by
1170-469: A low budget salute to sentimental silent comedies, particularly Charlie Chaplin 's The Kid . The German film Tuvalu (1999) is mostly silent; the small amount of dialog is an odd mix of European languages, increasing the film's universality. Guy Maddin won awards for his homage to Soviet-era silent films with his short The Heart of the World after which he made a feature-length silent, Brand Upon
1300-645: A much longer time for color to be adopted by the industry and an effective process to be developed. Blue represented night scenes, yellow or amber meant day. Red represented fire and green represented a mysterious atmosphere. Similarly, toning of film (such as the common silent film generalization of sepia -toning) with special solutions replaced the silver particles in the film stock with salts or dyes of various colors. A combination of tinting and toning could be used as an effect that could be striking. Some films were hand-tinted, such as Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894), from Edison Studios . In it, Annabelle Whitford ,
1430-450: A music-only soundtrack in place of dialogue. The term silent film is a retronym —a term created to retroactively distinguish something from later developments. Early sound films, starting with The Jazz Singer in 1927, were variously referred to as the "talkies", "sound films", or "talking pictures" . The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is older than film (it was suggested almost immediately after Edison introduced
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#17327931880261560-524: A nitrate base in the west, but rumors exist of 16 mm nitrate film having been produced in the former Soviet Union and China. Nitrate dominated the market for professional-use 35 mm motion picture film from the industry's origins to the early 1950s. While cellulose acetate-based safety film, notably cellulose diacetate and cellulose acetate propionate, was produced in the gauge for small-scale use in niche applications (such as printing advertisements and other short films to enable them to be sent through
1690-653: A number of reasons including environmental regulation and the cost of application vs. "poly" finishes. However, Gibson still use nitrocellulose lacquers on all of their guitars, as well as Fender when reproducing historically accurate guitars. The nitrocellulose lacquer yellows and cracks over time, and custom shops will reproduce this aging to make instruments appear vintage. Guitars made by smaller shops (luthiers) also often use "nitro" as it has an almost mythical status among guitarists. Because of its explosive nature, not all applications of nitrocellulose were successful. In 1869, with elephants having been poached to near extinction,
1820-531: A projectile driver, it had around six times the gas generation of an equal volume of black powder and produced less smoke and less heating. Artillery shells filled with gun cotton were widely used during the American Civil War , and its use was one of the reasons the conflict was seen as the "first modern war." In combination with breech-loading artillery , such high explosive shells could cause greater damage than previous solid cannonballs. During
1950-503: A race to design, implement, and market several rival sound-on-disc and sound-on-film sound formats, such as Photokinema (1921), Phonofilm (1923), Vitaphone (1926), Fox Movietone (1927) and RCA Photophone (1928). Warner Bros. was the first studio to accept sound as an element in film production and utilize the Vitaphone, a sound-on-disc technology, to do so. The studio then released The Jazz Singer in 1927, which marked
2080-498: A special effect in many of his films. His 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation used a number of colors, including amber, blue, lavender, and a striking red tint for scenes such as the "burning of Atlanta" and the ride of the Ku Klux Klan at the climax of the picture. Griffith later invented a color system in which colored lights flashed on areas of the screen to achieve a color. With the development of sound-on-film technology and
2210-494: A young dancer from Broadway, is dressed in white veils that appear to change colors as she dances. This technique was designed to capture the effect of the live performances of Loie Fuller , beginning in 1891, in which stage lights with colored gels turned her white flowing dresses and sleeves into artistic movement. Hand coloring was often used in the early "trick" and fantasy films of Europe, especially those by Georges Méliès . Méliès began hand-tinting his work as early as 1897 and
2340-431: Is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid . One of its first major uses was as guncotton, a replacement for gunpowder as propellant in firearms. It was also used to replace gunpowder as a low-order explosive in mining and other applications. In the form of collodion it was also a critical component in an early photographic emulsion,
2470-453: Is for the production of lacquers and coatings, explosives, and celluloid . In terms of lacquers and coatings, nitrocellulose dissolves readily in organic solvents, which upon evaporation leave a colorless, transparent, flexible film. Nitrocellulose lacquers have been used as a finish on furniture and musical instruments. Guncotton, dissolved at about 25% in acetone , forms a lacquer used in preliminary stages of wood finishing to develop
2600-431: Is less prone to stretching than other available plastics. By the late 1990s, polyester had almost entirely superseded triacetate for the production of intermediate elements and release prints. Triacetate remains in use for most camera negative stocks because it can be "invisibly" spliced using solvents during negative assembly, while polyester film is usually spliced using adhesive tape patches, which leave visible marks in
2730-435: Is much more resistant to polymer degradation than either nitrate or triacetate. Although triacetate does not decompose in as dangerous a way as nitrate does, it is still subject to a process known as deacetylation, often nicknamed "vinegar syndrome" (due to the acetic acid smell of decomposing film) by archivists, which causes the film to shrink, deform, become brittle and eventually unusable. PET, like cellulose mononitrate,
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#17327931880262860-434: Is not a nitro compound , but a nitrate ester . The glucose repeat unit (anhydroglucose) within the cellulose chain has three OH groups, each of which can form a nitrate ester. Thus, nitrocellulose can denote mononitrocellulose , dinitrocellulose , and trinitrocellulose , or a mixture thereof. With fewer OH groups than the parent cellulose, nitrocelluloses do not aggregate by hydrogen bonding . The overarching consequence
2990-451: Is silent during its middle third, complete with intertitles; Stanley Tucci 's The Impostors has an opening silent sequence in the style of early silent comedies. Brazilian filmmaker Renato Falcão's Margarette's Feast (2003) is silent. Writer/director Michael Pleckaitis puts his own twist on the genre with Silent (2007). While not silent, the Mr. Bean television series and movies have used
3120-494: Is soluble in a mixture of ethanol and ether until nitrogen concentration exceeds 12%. Soluble nitrocellulose, or a solution thereof, is sometimes called collodion . Guncotton containing more than 13% nitrogen (sometimes called insoluble nitrocellulose) was prepared by prolonged exposure to hot, concentrated acids for limited use as a blasting explosive or for warheads of underwater weapons such as naval mines and torpedoes . Safe and sustained production of guncotton began at
3250-424: Is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always accompanied by live sounds. During the silent era, which existed from the mid-1890s to the late 1920s, a pianist , theater organist —or even, in larger cities, an orchestra —would play music to accompany the films. Pianists and organists would play either from sheet music , or improvisation . Sometimes a person would even narrate the inter-title cards for
3380-459: Is that the nitrocellulose is soluble in organic solvents such as acetone and esters; e.g., ethyl acetate , methyl acetate , ethyl carbonate . Most lacquers are prepared from the dinitrate, whereas explosives are mainly the trinitrate. The chemical equation for the formation of the trinitrate is The yields are about 85%, with losses attributed to complete oxidation of the cellulose to oxalic acid . The principal uses of cellulose nitrate
3510-544: The benshi , a live narrator who provided commentary and character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film, as well as providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies. The popularity of the benshi was one reason why silent films persisted well into the 1930s in Japan. Conversely, as benshi -narrated films often lacked intertitles, modern-day audiences may sometimes find it difficult to follow
3640-731: The Edison Company at another location on December 9, at its film-processing complex in West Orange, New Jersey . That catastrophic fire started inside a film-inspection building and caused over $ 7,000,000 in property damages ($ 213,000,000 today). Even after film technology changed, archives of older films remained vulnerable; the 1965 MGM vault fire burned many films that were decades old. The use of volatile nitrocellulose film for motion pictures led many cinemas to fireproof their projection rooms with wall coverings made of asbestos . Those additions intended to prevent or at least delay
3770-598: The Paris Exhibition of 1889 . Commercial production started in 1891, but the result was flammable and more expensive than cellulose acetate or cuprammonium rayon. Because of this predicament, production ceased early in the 1900s. Nitrocellulose was briefly known as "mother-in-law silk". Frank Hastings Griffin invented the double-godet, a special stretch-spinning process that changed artificial silk to rayon, rendering it usable in many industrial products such as tire cords and clothing. Nathan Rosenstein invented
3900-574: The Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills in the 1860s, and the material rapidly became the dominant explosive, becoming the standard for military warheads, although it remained too potent to be used as a propellant. More-stable and slower-burning collodion mixtures were eventually prepared using less concentrated acids at lower temperatures for smokeless powder in firearms . The first practical smokeless powder made from nitrocellulose, for firearms and artillery ammunition,
4030-421: The audience could better understand what an actor was feeling and portraying on screen. Much silent film acting is apt to strike modern-day audiences as simplistic or campy . The melodramatic acting style was in some cases a habit actors transferred from their former stage experience. Vaudeville was an especially popular origin for many American silent film actors. The pervading presence of stage actors in film
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4160-482: The billiards industry offered a US$ 10,000 prize to whoever came up with the best replacement for ivory billiard balls . John Wesley Hyatt created the winning replacement, which he created with a new material he invented, called camphored nitrocellulose—the first thermoplastic , better known as celluloid . The invention enjoyed a brief popularity, but the Hyatt balls were extremely flammable, and sometimes portions of
4290-565: The phonograph in 1877), and some early experiments had the projectionist manually adjusting the frame rate to fit the sound, but because of the technical challenges involved, the introduction of synchronized dialogue became practical only in the late 1920s with the perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the advent of the Vitaphone system. Within a decade, the widespread production of silent films for popular entertainment had ceased, and
4420-461: The "spunize process" by which he turned rayon from a hard fiber to a fabric. This allowed rayon to become a popular raw material in textiles. Nitrocellulose lacquer manufactured by (among others) DuPont , was the primary material for painting automobiles for many years. Durability of finish, complexities of "multiple stage" modern finishes, and other factors including environmental regulation led manufacturers to choose newer technologies. It remained
4550-526: The 1899 Cendrillion (Cinderella) and 1900 Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) provide early examples of hand-tinted films in which the color was a critical part of the scenography or mise-en-scène ; such precise tinting used the workshop of Elisabeth Thuillier in Paris, with teams of female artists adding layers of color to each frame by hand rather than using a more common (and less expensive) process of stenciling. A newly restored version of Méliès' A Trip to
4680-425: The 1920s is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue ). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when necessary, be conveyed by the use of inter- title cards . The term "silent film"
4810-519: The Brain! (2006), incorporating live Foley artists , narration and orchestra at select showings. Shadow of the Vampire (2000) is a highly fictionalized depiction of the filming of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau 's classic silent vampire movie Nosferatu (1922). Werner Herzog honored the same film in his own version, Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979). Some films draw a direct contrast between
4940-664: The Bronx. On May 13, a fire at Universal Pictures ' Colonial Hall "film factory" in Manhattan consumed another extensive collection. Yet again, on June 13 in Philadelphia, a fire and a series of explosions ignited inside the 186-square-meter (2,000-square-foot) film vault of the Lubin Manufacturing Company and quickly wiped out virtually all of that studio's pre-1914 catalogue. Then a second fire hit
5070-646: The Devil (1927). Israel has worked mainly in silent comedy, scoring the films of Harold Lloyd , Buster Keaton , Charley Chase , and others. Timothy Brock has restored many of Charlie Chaplin 's scores, in addition to composing new scores. Contemporary music ensembles are helping to introduce classic silent films to a wider audience through a broad range of musical styles and approaches. Some performers create new compositions using traditional musical instruments, while others add electronic sounds, modern harmonies, rhythms, improvisation, and sound design elements to enhance
5200-698: The Lumière brothers on December 28, 1895, in Paris. This was furthered in 1896 by the first motion-picture exhibition in the United States at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City. At this event, Edison set the precedent that all exhibitions should be accompanied by an orchestra. From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing atmosphere, and giving the audience vital emotional cues. Musicians sometimes played on film sets during shooting for similar reasons. However, depending on
5330-540: The Moon , originally released in 1902, shows an exuberant use of color designed to add texture and interest to the image. Comments by an American distributor in a 1908 film-supply catalog further underscore France's continuing dominance in the field of hand-coloring films during the early silent era. The distributor offers for sale at varying prices "High-Class" motion pictures by Pathé , Urban-Eclipse , Gaumont , Kalem , Itala Film , Ambrosio Film , and Selig . Several of
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5460-515: The Sahara desert and a British cricket pitch. War scenes were shot on the plains of Grasmere, Staten Island . The Perils of Pauline and its even more popular sequel The Exploits of Elaine were filmed largely on the island. So was the 1906 blockbuster Life of a Cowboy , by Edwin S. Porter Company , and filming moved to the West Coast around 1912. The following are American films from
5590-474: The US have been lost, though these estimates are inaccurate due to a lack of numerical data. Film projection mostly evolved from magic lantern shows, in which images from handpainted glass slides were projected onto a wall or screen. After the advent of photography in the 19th century, still photographs were sometimes used. Narration of the showman was important in spectacular entertainment screenings and vital in
5720-455: The United States. In view of the enormous amount of labor involved which calls for individual hand painting of every one of sixteen pictures to the foot or 16,000 separate pictures for each 1,000 feet of film very few American colorists will undertake the work at any price. As film coloring has progressed much more rapidly in France than in any other country, all of our coloring is done for us by
5850-547: The action—particularly for comedies and action films. Slow projection of a cellulose nitrate base film carried a risk of fire, as each frame was exposed for a longer time to the intense heat of the projection lamp; but there were other reasons to project a film at a greater pace. Often projectionists received general instructions from the distributors on the musical director's cue sheet as to how fast particular reels or scenes should be projected. In rare instances, usually for larger productions, cue sheets produced specifically for
5980-687: The actual song being performed. Films in this category include Griffith's Lady of the Pavements with Lupe Vélez , Edwin Carewe 's Evangeline with Dolores del Río , and Rupert Julian 's The Phantom of the Opera with Mary Philbin and Virginia Pearson . The Silent Film Sound and Music Archive digitizes music and cue sheets written for silent films and makes them available for use by performers, scholars, and enthusiasts. Silent-film actors emphasized body language and facial expression so that
6110-412: The adoption of sound-on-film technology. Traditional film colorization, all of which involved the use of dyes in some form, interfered with the high resolution required for built-in recorded sound, and were therefore abandoned. The innovative three-strip technicolor process introduced in the mid-1930s was costly and fraught with limitations, and color would not have the same prevalence in film as it did in
6240-415: The audience. Though at the time the technology to synchronize sound with the film did not exist, music was seen as an essential part of the viewing experience. "Silent film" is typically used as a historical term to describe an era of cinema prior to the invention of synchronized sound, but it also applies to such sound-era films as City Lights , Modern Times and Silent Movie which are accompanied by
6370-562: The beginning of film and 1928. The following list includes only films produced in the sound era with the specific artistic intention of being silent. Several filmmakers have paid homage to the comedies of the silent era, including Charlie Chaplin , with Modern Times (1936), Orson Welles with Too Much Johnson (1938), Jacques Tati with Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953), Pierre Etaix with The Suitor (1962), and Mel Brooks with Silent Movie (1976). Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien 's acclaimed drama Three Times (2005)
6500-458: The best coloring establishment in Paris and we have found that we obtain better quality, cheaper prices and quicker deliveries, even in coloring American made films, than if the work were done elsewhere. By the beginning of the 1910s, with the onset of feature-length films, tinting was used as another mood setter, just as commonplace as music. The director D. W. Griffith displayed a constant interest and concern about color, and used tinting as
6630-476: The biggest-budgeted films to arrive at the exhibiting theater with original, specially composed scores. However, the first designated full-blown scores had in fact been composed in 1908, by Camille Saint-Saëns for The Assassination of the Duke of Guise , and by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov for Stenka Razin . When organists or pianists used sheet music, they still might add improvisational flourishes to heighten
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#17327931880266760-415: The budgets of many smaller theaters. In practice, though, this has not proved to be as much of a problem as was feared. Rather, with the increased use of automated long-play systems in cinemas, the greater strength of polyester has been a significant advantage in lessening the risk of a film performance being interrupted by a film break. Despite its self-oxidizing hazards, nitrate is still regarded highly as
6890-461: The case of the 2002 restoration of Metropolis . With the lack of natural color processing available, films of the silent era were frequently dipped in dyestuffs and dyed various shades and hues to signal a mood or represent a time of day. Hand tinting dates back to 1895 in the United States with Edison's release of selected hand-tinted prints of Butterfly Dance . Additionally, experiments in color film started as early as in 1909, although it took
7020-406: The chambering of the feed and takeup reels in thick metal covers with small slits to allow the film to run through them. The projector is additionally modified to accommodate several fire extinguishers with nozzles aimed at the film gate. The extinguishers automatically trigger if a piece of film near the gate starts to burn. While this triggering would likely damage or destroy a significant portion of
7150-439: The concentration of unreacted acid. In 1855, the first human-made plastic , nitrocellulose (branded Parkesine , patented in 1862), was created by Alexander Parkes from cellulose treated with nitric acid and a solvent. In 1868, American inventor John Wesley Hyatt developed a plastic material he named Celluloid , improving on Parkes' invention by plasticizing the nitrocellulose with camphor so that it could be processed into
7280-498: The crucial differences between stage and screen acting. Directors such as Albert Capellani and Maurice Tourneur began to insist on naturalism in their films. By the mid-1920s many American silent films had adopted a more naturalistic acting style, though not all actors and directors accepted naturalistic, low-key acting straight away; as late as 1927, films featuring expressionistic acting styles, such as Metropolis , were still being released. Greta Garbo , whose first American film
7410-459: The development of motion picture cameras, projectors and transparent celluloid film. Although Thomas Edison was keen to develop a film system that would be synchronised with his phonograph , he eventually introduced the kinetoscope as a silent motion picture viewer in 1893 and later "kinetophone" versions remained unsuccessful. The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the "silent era" ( 1894 in film – 1929 in film ). The height of
7540-401: The drama on screen. Even when special effects were not indicated in the score, if an organist was playing a theater organ capable of an unusual sound effect such as "galloping horses", it would be used during scenes of dramatic horseback chases. At the height of the silent era, movies were the single largest source of employment for instrumental musicians, at least in the United States. However,
7670-428: The early 20th century were lost through this accelerating, self-catalyzed disintegration or through studio warehouse fires, and many others were deliberately destroyed specifically to avoid the fire risk. Salvaging old films is a major problem for film archivists (see film preservation ). Nitrocellulose film base manufactured by Kodak can be identified by the presence of the word "nitrate" in dark letters along one edge;
7800-523: The early to mid 20th century for destroying or heavily damaging cinemas, inflicting many serious injuries and deaths, and for reducing to ashes the master negatives and original prints of tens of thousands of screen titles, turning many of them into lost films . Even when nitrate stock did not start the blaze, flames from other sources spread to large nearby film collections, producing intense and highly destructive fires. In 1914—the same year that Goodwin Film
7930-555: The famous " Mighty Wurlitzer " could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of percussion effects such as bass drums and cymbals, and sound effects ranging from "train and boat whistles [to] car horns and bird whistles; ... some could even simulate pistol shots, ringing phones, the sound of surf, horses' hooves, smashing pottery, [and] thunder and rain". Musical scores for early silent films were either improvised or compiled of classical or theatrical repertory music. Once full features became commonplace, however, music
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#17327931880268060-433: The favorite of hobbyists for both historical reasons and for the ease with which a professional finish can be obtained. Most automobile "touch up" paints are still made from lacquer because of its fast drying, easy application, and superior adhesion properties – regardless of the material used for the original finish. Guitars sometimes shared color codes with current automobiles. It fell out of favor for mass production use for
8190-481: The first film serial , The Million Dollar Mystery , released in 1914. The first westerns were filmed at Fred Scott 's Movie Ranch in South Beach, Staten Island. Actors costumed as cowboys and Native Americans galloped across Scott's movie ranch set, which had a frontier main street, a wide selection of stagecoaches and a 56-foot stockade. The island provided a serviceable stand-in for locations as varied as
8320-417: The first World War , British authorities were slow to introduce grenades, with soldiers at the front improvising by filling ration tin cans with gun cotton , scrap and a basic fuse. Further research indicated the importance of washing the acidified cotton. Unwashed nitrocellulose (sometimes called pyrocellulose) may spontaneously ignite and explode at room temperature , as the evaporation of water results in
8450-411: The first commercially successful sound film , but silent films were still the majority of features released in both 1927 and 1928, along with so-called goat-glanded films: silents with a subsection of sound film inserted. Thus the modern sound film era may be regarded as coming to dominance beginning in 1929. For a listing of notable silent era films, see List of years in film for the years between
8580-648: The formation of the Motion Picture Patents Company in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers. The "Edison Trust", as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison , Biograph , Essanay Studios , Kalem Company , George Kleine Productions , Lubin Studios , Georges Méliès , Pathé , Selig Studios , and Vitagraph Studios , and dominated distribution through the General Film Company . This company dominated
8710-462: The frame area. However, ultrasonic splicing in the frame line area can be invisible. Also, polyester film is so strong, it will not break under tension and may cause serious damage to expensive camera or projector mechanisms in the event of a film jam, whereas triacetate film breaks easily, reducing the risk of damage. Many were opposed to the use of polyester for release prints for this reason, and because ultrasonic splicers are very expensive, beyond
8840-465: The image to flicker , and images with low rates of flicker are very unpleasant to watch. Early studies by Thomas Edison for his Kinetoscope machine determined that any rate below 46 images per second "will strain the eye". and this holds true for projected images under normal cinema conditions also. The solution adopted for the Kinetoscope was to run the film at over 40 frames/sec, but this
8970-715: The industry as both a vertical and horizontal monopoly and is a contributing factor in studios' migration to the West Coast. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915, and were dissolved. The Thanhouser film studio was founded in New Rochelle, New York , in 1909 by American theatrical impresario Edwin Thanhouser . The company produced and released 1,086 films between 1910 and 1917, including
9100-535: The industry had moved fully into the sound era , in which movies were accompanied by synchronized sound recordings of spoken dialogue, music and sound effects . Most early motion pictures are considered lost owing to their physical decay, as the nitrate filmstock used in that era was extremely unstable and flammable. Additionally, many films were deliberately destroyed, because they had negligible remaining immediate financial value in that era. It has often been claimed that around 75 percent of silent films produced in
9230-693: The industry's acceptance of it, tinting was abandoned altogether, because the dyes used in the tinting process interfered with the soundtracks present on film strips. The early studios were located in the New York City area . Edison Studios were first in West Orange, New Jersey (1892), they were moved to the Bronx, New York (1907). Fox (1909) and Biograph (1906) started in Manhattan , with studios in St George, Staten Island . Other films were shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey . In December 1908, Edison led
9360-532: The introduction of sound with its 24 frame/sec standard speed 2-bladed shutters have become the norm for 35 mm cinema projectors, though three-bladed shutters have remained standard on 16 mm and 8 mm projectors, which are frequently used to project amateur footage shot at 16 or 18 frames/sec. A 35 mm film frame rate of 24 fps translates to a film speed of 456 millimetres (18.0 in) per second. One 1,000-foot (300 m) reel requires 11 minutes and 7 seconds to be projected at 24 fps, while
9490-478: The introduction of talkies, coupled with the roughly simultaneous onset of the Great Depression , was devastating to many musicians. A number of countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silent films. The early cinema of Brazil , for example, featured fitas cantatas (singing films), filmed operettas with singers performing behind the screen. In Japan , films had not only live music but also
9620-625: The landing. Collodion, a solution of nitrocellulose, is used today in topical skin applications, such as liquid skin and in the application of salicylic acid , the active ingredient in Compound W wart remover. In 1832 Henri Braconnot discovered that nitric acid, when combined with starch or wood fibers, would produce a lightweight combustible explosive material, which he named xyloïdine . A few years later in 1838, another French chemist, Théophile-Jules Pelouze (teacher of Ascanio Sobrero and Alfred Nobel ), treated paper and cardboard in
9750-419: The launch of cellulose triacetate base film by Eastman Kodak in 1948. Cellulose triacetate superseded nitrate as the film industry's mainstay base very quickly. While Kodak had discontinued some nitrate film stocks earlier, it stopped producing various nitrate roll films in 1950 and ceased production of nitrate 35 mm motion picture film in 1951. The crucial advantage cellulose triacetate had over nitrate
9880-615: The lecturing circuit. The principle of stroboscopic animation was well-known since the introduction of the phenakistiscope in 1833, a popular optical toy , but the development of cinematography was hampered by long exposure times for photographic emulsions , until Eadweard Muybridge managed to record a chronophotographic sequence in 1878. After others had animated his pictures in zoetropes , Muybridge started lecturing with his own zoopraxiscope animation projector in 1880. The work of other pioneering chronophotographers, including Étienne-Jules Marey and Ottomar Anschütz , furthered
10010-426: The longer, more prestigious films in the catalog are offered in both standard black-and-white "plain stock" as well as in "hand-painted" color. A plain-stock copy, for example, of the 1907 release Ben Hur is offered for $ 120 ($ 4,069 USD today), while a colored version of the same 1000-foot, 15-minute film costs $ 270 ($ 9,156) including the extra $ 150 coloring charge, which amounted to 15 cents more per foot. Although
10140-454: The mails without the need for fire safety precautions), the early generations of safety film base had two major disadvantages relative to nitrate: it was much more expensive to manufacture, and considerably less durable in repeated projection. The cost of the safety precautions associated with the use of nitrate was significantly lower than the cost of using any of the safety bases available before 1948. These drawbacks were eventually overcome with
10270-511: The manufacture of guncotton were obtained by John Hall & Son in 1846, and industrial manufacture of the explosive began at a purpose-built factory at Marsh Works in Faversham, Kent , a year later. The manufacturing process was not properly understood and few safety measures were put in place. A serious explosion in July that killed almost two dozen workers resulted in the immediate closure of
10400-452: The meantime, George Eastman had already started production of roll-film using his own process. Nitrocellulose was used as the first flexible film base , beginning with Eastman Kodak products in August 1889. Camphor is used as a plasticizer for nitrocellulose film, often called nitrate film. Goodwin's patent was sold to Ansco , which successfully sued Eastman Kodak for infringement of
10530-401: The mid-1910s, as the differences between stage and screen became apparent. Due to the work of directors such as D. W. Griffith , cinematography became less stage-like, and the development of the close up allowed for understated and realistic acting. Lillian Gish has been called film's "first true actress" for her work in the period, as she pioneered new film performing techniques, recognizing
10660-455: The migration of flames beyond the projection areas. A training film for projectionists included footage of a controlled ignition of a reel of nitrate film, which continued to burn even when fully submerged in water. Once burning, it is extremely difficult to extinguish. Unlike most other flammable materials, nitrocellulose does not need a source of air to continue burning, since it contains sufficient oxygen within its molecular structure to sustain
10790-520: The new "talkies" around the mid-1930s. The visual quality of silent movies—especially those produced in the 1920s—was often high, but there remains a widely held misconception that these films were primitive, or are barely watchable by modern standards. This misconception comes from the general public's unfamiliarity with the medium, as well as from carelessness on the part of the industry. Most silent films are poorly preserved, leading to their deterioration, and well-preserved films are often played back at
10920-470: The outer shell would explode upon impact. An owner of a billiard saloon in Colorado wrote to Hyatt about the explosive tendencies, saying that he did not mind very much personally but for the fact that every man in his saloon immediately pulled a gun at the sound. The process used by Hyatt to manufacture the billiard balls, patented in 1881, involved placing the mass of nitrocellulose in a rubber bag, which
11050-399: The patent and was awarded $ 5,000,000 in 1914 to Goodwin Film. Disastrous fires related to celluloid or "nitrate film" became regular occurrences in the motion picture industry throughout the silent era and for many years after the arrival of sound film . Projector fires and spontaneous combustion of nitrate footage stored in studio vaults and in other structures were often blamed during
11180-530: The plant. Guncotton manufacture ceased for over 15 years until a safer procedure could be developed. The British chemist Frederick Augustus Abel developed the first safe process for guncotton manufacture, which he patented in 1865. The washing and drying times of the nitrocellulose were both extended to 48 hours and repeated eight times over. The acid mixture was changed to two parts sulfuric acid to one part nitric. Nitration can be controlled by adjusting acid concentrations and reaction temperature. Nitrocellulose
11310-450: The plots without specialised subtitling or additional commentary. Few film scores survived intact from the silent period, and musicologists are still confronted by questions when they attempt to precisely reconstruct those that remain. Scores used in current reissues or screenings of silent films may be complete reconstructions of compositions, newly composed for the occasion, assembled from already existing music libraries, or improvised on
11440-438: The projectionist provided a detailed guide to presenting the film. Theaters also—to maximize profit—sometimes varied projection speeds depending on the time of day or popularity of a film, or to fit a film into a prescribed time slot. All motion-picture film projectors require a moving shutter to block the light whilst the film is moving, otherwise the image is smeared in the direction of the movement. However this shutter causes
11570-544: The projector's components, it would contain a fire and prevent far greater damage. Projection rooms may also be required to have automatic metal covers for the projection windows, preventing the spread of fire to the auditorium . Today, the Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman Museum is one of a few theaters in the world that is capable of safely projecting nitrate films and regularly screens them to
11700-608: The public. The BFI Southbank in London is the only cinema in the United Kingdom licensed to show Nitrate Film. The use of nitrate film and its fiery potential were certainly not issues limited to the realm of motion pictures or to commercial still photography. The film was also used for many years in medicine, where its hazardous nature was most acute, especially in its application to X-ray photography. In 1929, several tons of stored X-ray film were ignited by steam from
11830-424: The reasons for the cited extra charge were likely obvious to customers, the distributor explains why his catalog's colored films command such significantly higher prices and require more time for delivery. His explanation also provides insight into the general state of film-coloring services in the United States by 1908: The coloring of moving picture films is a line of work which cannot be satisfactorily performed in
11960-491: The release of D. W. Griffith 's epic The Birth of a Nation (1915). In 1999, the Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki produced Juha in black and white, which captures the style of a silent film, using intertitles in place of spoken dialogue. Special release prints with titles in several different languages were produced for international distribution. In India, the film Pushpak (1988), starring Kamal Haasan ,
12090-459: The same way. Jean-Baptiste Dumas obtained a similar material, which he called nitramidine . Around 1846 Christian Friedrich Schönbein , a German-Swiss chemist, discovered a more practical formulation. As he was working in the kitchen of his home in Basel , he spilled a mixture of nitric acid (HNO 3 ) and sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ) on the kitchen table. He reached for the nearest cloth,
12220-440: The silent era (from the early 1910s in film to the late 1920s) was a particularly fruitful period, full of artistic innovation. The film movements of Classical Hollywood as well as French Impressionism , German Expressionism , and Soviet Montage began in this period. Silent filmmakers pioneered the art form to the extent that virtually every style and genre of film-making of the 20th and 21st centuries has its artistic roots in
12350-470: The silent era. The silent era was also a pioneering one from a technical point of view. Three-point lighting, the close-up , long shot , panning , and continuity editing all became prevalent long before silent films were replaced by " talking pictures " or "talkies" in the late 1920s. Some scholars claim that the artistic quality of cinema decreased for several years, during the early 1930s, until film directors , actors, and production staff adapted fully to
12480-524: The silent film era and the era of talkies. Sunset Boulevard shows the disconnect between the two eras in the character of Norma Desmond , played by silent film star Gloria Swanson , and Singin' in the Rain deals with Hollywood artists adjusting to the talkies. Peter Bogdanovich 's 1976 film Nickelodeon deals with the turmoil of silent filmmaking in Hollywood during the early 1910s, leading up to
12610-483: The silent film era that had earned the highest gross income as of 1932. The amounts given are gross rentals (the distributor's share of the box-office) as opposed to exhibition gross. Although attempts to create sync-sound motion pictures go back to the Edison lab in 1896, only from the early 1920s were the basic technologies such as vacuum tube amplifiers and high-quality loudspeakers available. The next few years saw
12740-427: The silents for nearly four decades. As motion pictures gradually increased in running time, a replacement was needed for the in-house interpreter who would explain parts of the film to the audience. Because silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen inter-titles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and sometimes even comment on the action for the audience. The title writer became
12870-769: The silver screen. The animated film Fantasia (1940), which is eight different animation sequences set to music, can be considered a silent film, with only one short scene involving dialogue. The espionage film The Thief (1952) has music and sound effects, but no dialogue, as do Thierry Zéno 's 1974 Vase de Noces and Patrick Bokanowski 's 1982 The Angel . Nitrocellulose#Film ( C 6 H 8 (NO 2 ) 2 O 5 ) n (dinitrocellulose) ( C 6 H 7 (NO 2 ) 3 O 5 ) n (trinitrocellulose, pictured in structures above) Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate , flash paper , flash cotton , guncotton , pyroxylin and flash string , depending on form)
13000-438: The size of the exhibition site, musical accompaniment could drastically change in scale. Small-town and neighborhood movie theatres usually had a pianist . Beginning in the mid-1910s, large city theaters tended to have organists or ensembles of musicians. Massive theatre organs , which were designed to fill a gap between a simple piano soloist and a larger orchestra, had a wide range of special effects. Theatrical organs such as
13130-438: The spot in the manner of the silent-era theater musician. Interest in the scoring of silent films fell somewhat out of fashion during the 1960s and 1970s. There was a belief in many college film programs and repertory cinemas that audiences should experience silent film as a pure visual medium, undistracted by music. This belief may have been encouraged by the poor quality of the music tracks found on many silent film reprints of
13260-467: The standardization of the projection speed of 24 frames per second (fps) for sound films between 1926 and 1930, silent films were shot at variable speeds (or " frame rates ") anywhere from 12 to 40 fps, depending on the year and studio. "Standard silent film speed" is often said to be 16 fps as a result of the Lumière brothers' Cinématographe , but industry practice varied considerably; there
13390-446: The stock is more transparent than replacement stocks, and older films used denser silver in the emulsion. The combination results in a notably more luminous image with a high contrast ratio. The solubility of nitrocellulose was the basis for the first " artificial silk " by Georges Audemars in 1855, which he called " Rayon ". . However, Hilaire de Chardonnet was the first to patent a nitrocellulose fiber marketed as "artificial silk" at
13520-454: The subject firsthand on the premises. He learns that the instructor who flunked him in his exam at school is to be dismissed for it, and he intervenes and gets the school board to retain the man, having first obtained for him a decoration from the Sultan. With no prints of Stephen Steps Out located in any film archives, it is a lost film . This article about a silent comedy film from
13650-489: The time. Since around 1980, there has been a revival of interest in presenting silent films with quality musical scores (either reworkings of period scores or cue sheets, or the composition of appropriate original scores). An early effort of this kind was Kevin Brownlow 's 1980 restoration of Abel Gance 's Napoléon (1927), featuring a score by Carl Davis . A slightly re-edited and sped-up version of Brownlow's restoration
13780-562: The title character's non-talkative nature to create a similar style of humor. A lesser-known example is Jérôme Savary 's La fille du garde-barrière (1975), an homage to silent-era films that uses intertitles and blends comedy, drama, and explicit sex scenes (which led to it being refused a cinema certificate by the British Board of Film Classification ). In 1990, Charles Lane directed and starred in Sidewalk Stories ,
13910-629: The traditional approach include organists such as Dennis James and pianists such as Neil Brand , Günter Buchwald, Philip C. Carli, Ben Model , and William P. Perry . Other contemporary pianists, such as Stephen Horne and Gabriel Thibaudeau, have often taken a more modern approach to scoring. Orchestral conductors such as Carl Davis and Robert Israel have written and compiled scores for numerous silent films; many of these have been featured in showings on Turner Classic Movies or have been released on DVD. Davis has composed new scores for classic silent dramas such as The Big Parade (1925) and Flesh and
14040-416: The use of which revolutionized photography in the 1860s. In the 20th century it was adapted to automobile lacquer and adhesives . The process uses a mixture of nitric acid and sulfuric acid to convert cellulose into nitrocellulose. The quality of the cellulose is important. Hemicellulose , lignin , pentosans , and mineral salts give inferior nitrocelluloses. In precise chemical terms, nitrocellulose
14170-475: The viewing experience. Among the contemporary ensembles in this category are Un Drame Musical Instantané , Alloy Orchestra , Club Foot Orchestra , Silent Orchestra , Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Minima and the Caspervek Trio, RPM Orchestra . Donald Sosin and his wife Joanna Seaton specialize in adding vocals to silent films, particularly where there is onscreen singing that benefits from hearing
14300-489: The word only in clear letters on a dark background indicates derivation from a nitrate base original negative or projection print, but the film in hand itself may be a later print or copy negative, made on safety film. Acetate film manufactured during the era when nitrate films were still in use was marked "Safety" or "Safety Film" along one edge in dark letters. 8 , 9.5 , and 16 mm film stocks, intended for amateur and other nontheatrical use, were never manufactured with
14430-409: The wrong speed or suffer from censorship cuts and missing frames and scenes, giving the appearance of poor editing. Many silent films exist only in second- or third-generation copies, often made from already damaged and neglected film stock. Many early screening were plagued by flicker on the screen, when the stroboscopic interruptions between frames lay below the critical flicker frequency . This
14560-688: Was a black comedy entirely devoid of dialog. The Australian film Doctor Plonk (2007), was a silent comedy directed by Rolf de Heer . Stage plays have drawn upon silent film styles and sources. Actor/writers Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore staged their Off-Broadway slapstick comedy Silent Laughter as a live action tribute to the silent screen era. Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyford created and starred in All Wear Bowlers (2004), which started as an homage to Laurel and Hardy then evolved to incorporate life-sized silent film sequences of Sobelle and Lyford who jump back and forth between live action and
14690-590: Was awarded $ 5,000,000 from Kodak for patent infringement—nitrate film fires incinerated a significant portion of the United States' early cinematic history. In that year alone, five very destructive fires occurred at four major studios and a film-processing plant. Millions of feet of film burned on March 19 at the Eclair Moving Picture Company in Fort Lee, New Jersey . Later that same month, many more reels and film cans of negatives and prints also burned at Edison Studios in New York City, in
14820-683: Was blamed for the Dromcolliher cinema tragedy in County Limerick in which 48 people died. Then in 1929 at the Glen Cinema in Paisley, Scotland , a film-related fire killed 69 children. Today, nitrate film projection is rare and normally highly regulated and requires extensive precautions, including extra health-and-safety training for projectionists. A special projector certified to run nitrate films has many modifications, among them
14950-415: Was compiled from photoplay music by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio itself, which included a cue sheet with the film. These sheets were often lengthy, with detailed notes about effects and moods to watch for. Starting with the mostly original score composed by Joseph Carl Breil for D. W. Griffith 's epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), it became relatively common for
15080-478: Was controversial, the door had been opened for a new approach to the presentation of classic silent films. Today, a large number of soloists, music ensembles, and orchestras perform traditional and contemporary scores for silent films internationally. The legendary theater organist Gaylord Carter continued to perform and record his original silent film scores until shortly before his death in 2000; some of those scores are available on DVD reissues. Other purveyors of
15210-408: Was discontinued for motion-picture films in favour of cellulose acetate film , more commonly known as "safety film". Nitrocellulose was found to gradually decompose, releasing nitric acid and further catalyzing the decomposition (eventually into a flammable powder). Decades later, storage at low temperatures was discovered as a means of delaying these reactions indefinitely. Many films produced during
15340-451: Was expensive for film. However, by using projectors with dual- and triple-blade shutters the flicker rate is multiplied two or three times higher than the number of film frames — each frame being flashed two or three times on screen. A three-blade shutter projecting a 16 fps film will slightly surpass Edison's figure, giving the audience 48 images per second. During the silent era projectors were commonly fitted with 3-bladed shutters. Since
15470-564: Was invented by French chemist Paul Vieille in 1884. Jules Verne viewed the development of guncotton with optimism. He referred to the substance several times in his novels. His adventurers carried firearms employing this substance. In his From the Earth to the Moon , guncotton was used to launch a projectile into space. Because of their fluffy and nearly white appearance, nitrocellulose products are often referred to as cottons, e.g. lacquer cotton, celluloid cotton, and gun cotton. Guncotton
15600-403: Was later distributed in the United States by Francis Ford Coppola , with a live orchestral score composed by his father Carmine Coppola . In 1984, an edited restoration of Metropolis (1927) was released with a new rock music score by producer-composer Giorgio Moroder . Although the contemporary score, which included pop songs by Freddie Mercury , Pat Benatar , and Jon Anderson of Yes ,
15730-514: Was no actual standard. William Kennedy Laury Dickson , an Edison employee, settled on the astonishingly fast 40 frames per second. Additionally, cameramen of the era insisted that their cranking technique was exactly 16 fps, but modern examination of the films shows this to be in error, and that they often cranked faster. Unless carefully shown at their intended speeds silent films can appear unnaturally fast or slow. However, some scenes were intentionally undercranked during shooting to accelerate
15860-441: Was originally made from cotton (as the source of cellulose) but contemporary methods use highly processed cellulose from wood pulp . While guncotton is dangerous to store, the hazards it presents can be minimized by storing it dampened with various liquids, such as alcohol. For this reason, accounts of guncotton usage dating from the early 20th century refer to "wet guncotton." The power of guncotton made it suitable for blasting. As
15990-686: Was released in 1926, would become known for her naturalistic acting. According to Anton Kaes, a silent film scholar from the University of California, Berkeley, American silent cinema began to see a shift in acting techniques between 1913 and 1921, influenced by techniques found in German silent film. This is mainly attributed to the influx of emigrants from the Weimar Republic , "including film directors, producers, cameramen, lighting and stage technicians, as well as actors and actresses". Until
16120-575: Was solved with the introduction of a three-bladed shutter (since 1902), causing two more interruptions per frame. Another widely held misconception is that silent films lacked color. In fact, color was far more prevalent in silent films than in the first few decades of sound films. By the early 1920s, 80 percent of movies could be seen in some sort of color, usually in the form of film tinting or toning or even hand coloring, but also with fairly natural two-color processes such as Kinemacolor and Technicolor . Traditional colorization processes ceased with
16250-400: Was terribly chubby," recalled Fairbanks Jr. "Did it for the money. When my parents separated, it was hardly amicable and mother and I needed to eat. Movie companies were willing to exploit my famous name. I didn't really understand that at the time." As described in a film magazine review, the young son of a wealthy American fails his class in history at school, so he is sent to Turkey to learn
16380-425: Was that it was no more of a fire risk than paper (the stock is often referred to as "non-flam": this is true—but it is combustible, just not in as volatile or as dangerous a way as nitrate), while it almost matched the cost and durability of nitrate. It remained in almost exclusive use in all film gauges until the 1980s, when polyester / PET film began to supersede it for intermediate and release printing. Polyester
16510-454: Was the cause of this outburst from director Marshall Neilan in 1917: "The sooner the stage people who have come into pictures get out, the better for the pictures." In other cases, directors such as John Griffith Wray required their actors to deliver larger-than-life expressions for emphasis. As early as 1914, American viewers had begun to make known their preference for greater naturalness on screen. Silent films became less vaudevillian in
16640-438: Was then placed in a cylinder of liquid and heated. Pressure was applied to the liquid in the cylinder, which resulted in a uniform compression on the nitrocellulose mass, compressing it into a uniform sphere as the heat vaporized the solvents. The ball was then cooled and turned to make a uniform sphere. In light of the explosive results, this process was called the "Hyatt gun method". An overheated container of dry nitrocellulose
16770-555: Was then slowly dried at a temperature below 40 °C (104 °F). Schönbein collaborated with the Frankfurt professor Rudolf Christian Böttger , who had discovered the process independently in the same year. By coincidence, a third chemist, the Brunswick professor F. J. Otto had also produced guncotton in 1846 and was the first to publish the process, much to the disappointment of Schönbein and Böttger. The patent rights for
16900-484: Was used by Copenhagen Suborbitals on several missions as a means of jettisoning components of the rocket/space capsule and deploying recovery systems. However, after several missions and flights, it proved not to have the desired explosive properties in a near vacuum environment. In 2014, the Philae comet lander failed to deploy its harpoons because its 0.3 grams of nitrocellulose propulsion charges failed to fire during
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