God Are Those Essanays SLOW!!!

I, like everyone in these groups, have endless admiration for the
great restoration job Mr. Shard constantly does, but my god, I just
watched the Essanay on TCM (the pictorial quality of them was the best
I have ever seen)and they are sooooooooooooooooo
sloooooooooooooooooow.

The running time on "His New Job" and "A Night Out" was 1:04.

Now, wasn't a normal 2-reeler in the silent era clocked in at about
20 minutes (i.e. about 10 minutes per reel?) Each of these two
reelers, however, run over a half an hour!!

Again, I love the restorative jobs Mr. Shepard does, but it just seems
to me that these films were slowed down too much. Things I have read
from Walter Kerr, Huff and others always said that Chaplin INTENDED
his films not to run at real-time speeds, but faster than that - and I
just think that this was not adhered to in "corre ting" the speeds of
the Essanays!!

Lonnie

>From: lonnien RemoveThis @starpower.net (Lonnie)
wrote:

>Now, wasn't a normal 2-reeler in the silent era clocked in at about
>20 minutes (i.e. about 10 minutes per reel?) Each of these two
>reelers, however, run over a half an hour!!
>I love the restorative jobs Mr. Shepard does, but it just seems
>to me that these films were slowed down too much.


Silent films were originally designed to run at a speed of about 16-18
frames-per-second. When sound films came along- they ran at 24
frames-per-second.

Thus, most silent films were "speeded-up" when they were shown on sound
projectors. The projector either had to be set for silent speed, or the film
had to be "step-printed" to look the way it would have if shown at silent speed
while actually running on the projector at sound speed.

Back in my 16mm days, I remember Blackhawk released some silents (like THE
TRAMP) with music scores, but the films had to be projected at silent speed.
They did this so the films would be shown the way they were intended.

When Blackhawk restored the Chaplin Mutuals- they debated whether to use silent
or sound speed. The problem was that the Van Beuren soundtracks were recorded
at sound speed, and it would have been difficult to match them to the action at
silent speed. They decided going with sound speed was best.

Anyway- I think the problem is that we've become accustomed to seeing silent
films shown at the "speeded-up" 24 fps, when they were intended to run slower.


That, plus people nowadays have shorter attention spans. :)