Silence is golden

I'm sick today ... I did try to find a good fact, but i'm too tired to find the answer I'm looking for. Meanwhile I still have a cool fact, but it's kind of short. Do you ever wonder why we had silent film ? I'm mean in back in 1896 the microphone was already invented.

Up until around 1925, most silent films were shot at slower speeds (or "frame rates") than sound films, typically at 16 to 23 frames per second depending on the year and studio, rather than 24 frames per second. Unless carefully shown at their original speeds they can appear unnaturally fast and jerky, which reinforces their alien appearance to modern viewers. At the same time, some scenes were intentionally undercranked during shooting in order to accelerate the action, particularly in the case of slapstick comedies. The intended frame rate of a silent film can be ambiguous and since they were usually hand cranked there can even be variation within one film. This implie that we couldnt just play a disk while the film was playing, since the film speed wasnt constant.

Although attempts to create sync-sound motion pictures go back to the Edison lab in 1896, the technology became well-developed only in the early 1920's. Although The Jazz Singer's release in 1927 marked the first commercially successful sound film, silent films formed the majority of features produced in both 1927 and 1928. Thus the modern sound film era may be regarded as coming to dominance beginning in 1929.

Next monday is also an holiday, so no fact until tuesday !!!

Have a great weekend.