The Speed of Silents

Before movies had synchronized soundtracks, they had no real standard framerate. Indeed, the framerate of silent movies could depend on the projectionist. This is why silent movie buffs talk about number of reels rather than length in minutes. The average speed of silent film was 16 frames per second, although the fact that cameras were hand cranked meant the actual speed could vary greatly, even within individual films.

With the coming of sound, the speed was standardized to the current 24 frames per second.

When projected using modern equipment running at this standard sound speed, silent films usually appear to run faster than normal. Because people have become accustomed to seeing silent films run at this incorrect speed, fake silent film footage appearing in TV shows will probably be highly Undercranked (and Deliberately Monochrome, though that's another story).

The early assumption that *all* silent films were shot at 16 frames per second led to further complications. In practice, some films were shot at as few as 14 or as many as 26-30 frames per second. It is believed, for example, that Metropolis was shot at around 20 frames per second, and there is still much debate about its correct projection speed.

Today, the variation of the silent frame rate is better understood, and is carefully adjusted for modern restorations so that the action onscreen appears natural.


 * In the score of Godspell, the final chorus of "All for the Best" is marked "Very fast (Silent movie tempo)".
 * Charlie Chaplin's City Lights and Modern Times, silent films made in the age of synchronized soundtracks and therefore projected at a fixed rate, have the action still clearly undercranked.
 * This is because the technique was often employed deliberately by comedy directors, in order to make slapstick sequences (for example, chases) seem even more frantic.
 * Bram Stokers Dracula has some scenes set in London that were actually shot with a silent movie camera at silent speed.
 * Some of the flashback scenes in the TV version of Going Postal achieve this effect with a specially modified digital camera.
 * In The Spoony Experiment/Atop the Fourth Wall collaborative preview of The Warrior #3 and #4, the silent film segment is done in this manner.